Memory Office: J. Mackevičienė
Judita Mackevičienė, a member of the Kaunas Jewish community, tells what her house in Laisvės Avenue used to look like before the war, what she used to do in her apartment in the ghetto when her family would go to work, and how people were hidden during the war.
”I had many photos in the ghetto house. They became toys when my parents would go to work and my little brothers to school. When being alone in the ghetto, I was mostly afraid that some man with a gun would come and shoot me down. That fear hasn’t disappeared up until this day, but now it is different…”
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“The residents of the Kaunas ghetto learned about the children's action in advance. Parents were getting ready to hide their children; they looked for acquaintances that could shelter the kids. Men would rip holes in barbed wire fences to carry children from the ghetto. I was taken away in an empty potato bag. I remember how I got into the bag, my Dad closed it and passed me through the hole in the fence to the people. I did not know those people, but they were good”.
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“Probably the best memory from the ghetto is this – the pillows on the children’s beds were arranged in a way that they reminded me of a triangle, so my older brother and I would imagine that the pillows were a little horse. We would sit on them and pretend that we were riding a horse”.
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“What do I remember the most from life in the ghetto? It is a constant fear, inhumane hunger, and suffering from sadness and loneliness. My Dad kept trying to provide food for us, but there was no way of how to transport it. However, the Lithuanians helped us. They used to trade food for clothes and other things. I’m grateful for that, because the food we got helped us survive”.
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“I was sheltered together with another Jewish child. The room in which we lived was very narrow and long. We both used to sleep in a narrow bed. I was on one side of the bed, and he was on the other. There were piles of sheets and pillows on the bed above me, which was how we were hidden; the woman who sheltered us would only allow us to stick our noses out. We were not even allowed to talk with each other. That’s how I got out of the ghetto”.
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"When I was young I used to live with my custodian in M. Valančiaus Street. There was a market in the old town that was always full of people. Rumours would spread very easily. Therefore, the women that worked in the market soon knew that I was Jewish. However, I was christened according to Christian traditions, so I became a Catholic. The women would warn me not to go back to my real family, because if I wanted to retract the christening and become Jewish again, then boiling milk would be poured down my throat because that is the only way to take the christening back.
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"When I lived in Kaunas I used to go to church, I was christened. When I was younger, I used to believe in God. Now I have my doubts. Why would God allow all the terrible things to happen? If I were the almighty God, I would paralyze the hands of every person that raises a gun against someone. They would not want to touch a gun again."
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Judita Pacaitė Mackevičienė
Judita was born in 1936 in Kaunas. Together with her parents, Fišelis Pacas and Hindė Hesaitė Pacienė, as well as her brothers Becalelis and Elijus, they lived in this city up until World War II in a two story building in Laisvės Avenue (currently Laisvės Avenue 75). Her father used to run a crockery store on the ground floor. In July 1941, Judita and her family were taken to the Kaunas ghetto and at the end of 1943 she was smuggled out in a potato bag. Vincas and Teofilė Valionis took custody of her and she stayed in their home until the war ended. Afterwards, various families in villages took care of Judita. Finally, Veronika Bandienė, who Judita calls her second mother, took the girl back to Kaunas. Judita lived with Veronika on M. Valančiaus Street up to the day she got married.
Date of the interview - 13/10/2017