Vadauskienė Lidija (Naglytė)

Tekorius, Antanas Tekorienė, Regina Vadauskienė, Lidija Before the war, Jokubas Peras was one of the important architects in Lithuania. He was living with his wife, Golda, and his sons, Joramas and Amos, in Kaunas when the Germans occupied the city on June 23, 1941. Like most of the Kaunas Jews, they were confined in the ghetto. In November 1943, when they learned of the children's murder operation (Kinderaktion) in the Šiauliai ghetto, they decided to escape and try to live on the “Aryan” side of the city. With the help of Lidija Vadauskienė, the sons’ Lithuanian nursemaid, the family obtained false identity cards with Lithuanian names. Golda and her five-year-old son Amos found their first refuge with the Likevičius* family; they then left the city and until the liberation wandered from place to place staying in over eight different hiding places. Jokubas and his son Joramas hid in a furniture warehouse located in the old section of Kaunas, where two other Jews were already hiding. They were subsequently discovered by a neighborhood boy who informed the authorities that there were Soviet parachutists in the warehouse. The police carried out a search but did not discover the fugitives. Following this, the Jews left the hiding place in order to find a safer location. The father, Jokubas Peras, and son again turned to Lidija Vadauskienė for help and she took them to her sister, Regina, who lived with her husband, Antanas Tekorius, and their three small children in the center of Kaunas. Since they did not have the conditions to hide them in the family apartment, Antanas Tekorius took them to a farm that he owned near Telšiai and that was managed by his friend, Barauskas. There the persecuted Jews were able to live openly, particularly as Jokubas had forged documents. Jokubas was presented to the farm manager as an amateur gardener who had fled from the city out of fear of the bombardments. The escaped Jews remained there until the liberation in August 1944. Atthe end of that year, they were reunited with Golda and Amos who had also survived thanks to such good people. On April 14, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Antanas and Regina Tekorius and Lidija Vadauskienė as Righteous Among the Nations.