Aleknavičienė Sofija ; Daughter: Milienė Bronė (Aleknavičiutė)

Aleknavičienė, Sofija Milienė (Aleknavičiūtė), Bronė Kvedaravičius, Vladas Kvedaravičiene, Teofilė The widow Sofija Aleknavičienė, born in 1899, lived with her grown-up daughter Bronė in Kaunas, in the Žaliakalnis ("The Green Hill") district. During the years of the German occupation, mother and daughter made their living from petty trade. At the beginning of 1942, Bronė married Jonas Sabaliauskas, who had deserted from the collaborating Lithuanian police and was in hiding. At the end of 1943, Sofija was approached by her pre-war acquaintance, Ronia Rosental, a ghetto underground activist. Ronia was looking for someone ready to take her ten-month-old niece, Lyuda, a daughter of her perished brother Elias Shmujlov. Sofija took in the baby and left her under the care of her friend and neighbor Aleksandra Radamanskienė*. In the meantime, Bronė, Sofija's daughter, procured a document stating that Lyuda was her own daughter. Then Bronė and her husband took the baby from Radamanskienė and moved with her to the town of Radviliškis, where Jonas had found lodging and a position. When asked where the baby came from, Jonas would reply that Lyuda was his wife's daughter who had been previously raised by a grandmother. Lyuda remained in Radviliškis around four months; then she returned with Bronė to Sofija in Kaunas. In the spring of 1944, Sofija also sheltered a seven-year-old Jewish girl Maja Berelovich. Maja's father, the Communist Itzik Berelovich, had perished at the very beginning of the German occupation, during the so called "Intelligentsia Aktion"; her mother Sheina was connected to the ghetto underground and was planning to join the partisans. Little Maja had a false birth certificate with a Lithuanian name; her mother had received it from the priest, Bronius Paukštys*. The first family that had accepted Maja had become frightened and had brought the girl back to the ghetto. Sofija planned to raise the girl herself, but after the police visited andinterrogated her with regard to her son-in-law Sabaliauskas, Sofija realized that Maja would not be safe with her. She took the girl to her sister Teofilė Kvedaravičienė in the village of Aukuškonis, Prienai District. Teofilė and her husband, Vladas, led a peasant’s life, working the land, taking care of farm animals, which did not leave them much time for socializing. Their close circle did not ask questions about "Maryte" (which had became Maja's name), accepting the version that she was a Lithuanian orphan. The Kvedaravičiuses had a daughter who was a bit older than Maja and the girls became friends. Maja stayed with this family until the liberation in the autumn of 1944. Three weeks before the Germans started to liquidate the ghetto by deporting its inmates to the death camps, Sheina Berelovich managed to run away. Having no other choice Sheina came to Sofija and was hidden there until the liberation. She was not the only one who enjoyed Sofija's hospitality in those days: Isaak Baronas, his wife and sister were also hidden in her humble apartment. After the war, Lyuda and Maja were returned to their mothers. Their families kept in touch with the rescuers for many years. Jonas Sabaliauskas was accused of murder and spent 25 years in prison and Soviet detention camps. On April 22, 2006, Yad Vashem recognized Sofija Aleknavičienė, her daughter Bronė (Milienė in her second marriage), as well as Teofilė and Vladas Kvedaravičius as Righteous Among the Nations.