Balodis Roberts & Balode Anna

Roberts & Anna Balodis Dr. Binyamin Landa, a surgeon and a gynecologist, lived in the town of Subate, Ilukste County, where he held the position of the town hospital's head physician. After the Germans’ occupation of the town at the end of June 1941, Landa continued working at the hospital. On 8 July, however, police began to concentrate local Jews and ex-Soviet activists, and Landa applied to a former patient, Roberts Kanins, for help. Kanins secretly transferred the doctor and his wife, Chana, to relatives in Lithuania, bringing them back two weeks later. By that time, the Jews of Subate had all been murdered. Only a few Jewish teenagers were still alive, working for local farmers and registered by the authorities. After the harvest, they were shot. The Landas stayed for a short period at the Kanins' home, and then escaped to the Daugavpils ghetto. The Landas were incarcerated in the ghetto until September 1943, during which time Dr. Landa continued to treat the sick. When rumors spread about the upcoming liquidation of the ghetto, he contacted Roberts Balodis, another prewar patient. Balodis came to Daugavpils and took Dr. Landa and his wife out of the ghetto, hidden under the straw on his cart. Balodis brought the escapees to his uninhabited farmstead – his family lived in the nearby town of Ilukste. Once every few days, Anna Balode or her son Vilis would visit the farmstead and bring some food to the refugees. After seven or eight months, the situation suddenly changed: a police squad broke into the farm and arrested the Landas. At the same time, Anna Balode and her children, Vilis and Olga, were arrested in Ilukste. During their interrogation, the Balodis family members stated that the Jews had trespassed their property, which the Landas confirmed. Thus Anna and her children were released, but the Landas were transferred to Elgava Prison. On July 27, 1944, an air raid partially destroyed the prison, and some of the prisoners, including theLandas, ran away. With the help of locals they went into hiding until liberation. When the war ended, the Landas moved to Riga, where Dr. Landa continued working as surgeon until his death in 1966. Chana Landa passed away 23 years later. They left no offspring. The Balodis family was deported by the Soviets to Siberia in 1949. On July 30, 2007, Yad Vashem recognized Roberts and Anna Balodis as Righteous Among the Nations.