Vanags Anton & Vanaga Klara ; Daughter: Zavalneva Skaidrite (Vanaga)

Vanags, Antons Vanaga, Klara Zavalņeva (Vanaga), Skaidrite Antons Vanags (b. 1905) and his wife, Klara (b. 1911) lived with their daughter Skaidrite (b. 1928) in the town of Dundaga, Kurzeme. During the German occupation, Antons worked at the local railway station and Klara was a housewife. One morning, in July 1944, Skaidrite found two strangers, in their early 20s, hiding in the loft of the barn. Avraham Shpungin and Matis Frost had run away, some time earlier, from the labor camp located in the vicinity of Dundaga. The two hid in the forested area for several days, until hunger and thirst urged them to approach the inhabited area. Originally from Rīga, where all their relatives had already perished, they had been interned in a labor camp from September 1943. The Vanags prepared a hiding place in the loft, and hid them there for ten months, until the capitulation of Germany on May 7-8, 1945. Every day, Klara or Skaidrite would bring them food in a milking pail, and would talk quietly with the Jews while they milked the cows. The food and clothing for the young men were purchased with the rescuers’ money since the Jews were penniless. After the war, Shpungin and Frost returned to Rīga, but kept in touch with the Vanags until their immigration to Israel in the 1970s. At the beginning of the 1990s their connections were renewed with Skaidrite (by then Zavalņeva). On June 2, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Antons Vanags, Klara Vanaga, and their daughter, Skaidrite Zavalņeva, as Righteous Among the Nations.