Levinskas Edvardas & Levinskienė Terese (Vilandaitė)

Levinskas, Edvardas Levinskiene, Terese Vilandaite, Lilija Alekna, Polivas Alekniene, Paulina Ruta Joffe was born in 1937 in Šiauliai, Lithuania. In the summer of 1941, Ruta and her brother, Moshe, who was two years older, went with a Jewish caretaker to an outlying village while their parents—Riva, a doctor, and Aharon, a lawyer—remained in town to work. When war broke out in the area, Aharon was immediately conscripted into the Russian Army, and Riva was tasked with evacuating an entire hospital eastward. Neither could leave to care for their children, and they therefore arranged for Eta, Riva’s sister, to escort their children back home. Eta and the children’s grandmother Batia cared for Ruta and Moshe in the newly formed Šiauliai Ghetto. Ruta remembers her aunt unloading food that she had tied to her body and smuggled in from outside the ghetto. In 1944 the family arranged for Ruta’s transfer to a safe house outside the ghetto. She first stayed with Juozas Petrulis (recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1981) then moved in with farmers Polivas and Paulina Alekna. The Aleknas had no other children—at least none living at home, in Ruta’s recollection—and Ruta lived openly among them, even though the farm was frequently visited by those wishing to churn butter. She was, however, asked to remain silent among strangers so as not to betray her identity. Meanwhile, Ruta was aware that she had relatives hiding nearby, though she was unable to visit them. Her grandmother Batia Trusfus hid in the town of Zagare, in the home of Edvardas and Terese Levinskas and Lilija Vilandajte, Terese’s sister. Later, toward the end of the war, Ruta was hidden by the Levinskases as well. Her Aunt Eta and brother, Moshe, were also hiding in the area. In this manner they survived the war years. Terese’s sense of justice nearly cost her her life. When she became aware of the persecution of Jews, she marched into the office of the German administrator of her townand lodged a complaint that the Jews were unfairly treated. She thought the persecution was a local initiative rather than German policy. She was arrested for her ideas and sent to jail, though she was rescued before she was sent to be killed along with the Jews she tried to defend. Following the liberation, the four remaining family members gathered and traveled deep into Russia to the town of Kazan, where Ruta’s mother, Riva, had spent the war years. Ruta’s father had been killed on the front during the war. Riva and Eta settled in Russia and lived together after the war, along with Ruta. Batia Trusfus passed away in 1945, and Moshe was killed in a car accident at the age of 16. In 1967 Ruta returned to Lithuania for the first time since the war. On that trip she was finally able to visit the Alekna family, finally seeing her rescuers after a gap of more than 20 years. On July 11, 2012, Edvardas and Terese Levinskas, Lilija Vilandaite, and Polivas and Paulina Alekniene were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.