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My mother’s youngest brother David Pagirskiy was born in 1907. David married a Jew Maya Kanber. They lived in Kaunas not far from us. In 1937 daughter Ilan was born and in 1940 – Dalia. When Great Patriotic War was unleashed, David decided to stay in occupation. Like most of the Jews who remembered Germans from the World War One treating Jewish population rather loyally, David’s family remained in occupation. David perished during the first action in Kaunas ghetto. His wife Maya perished in concentration camp Stuttgof, when the war was about to end. The girls were rescued. They were taken out from ghetto by turns and sheltered in Lithuanian families. We had been looking for them after war for a long time. It did not take that long to find Ilan. The family of Epsteins adopted and raised one the girls. It was harder to find Dalia as she stayed in orphanage, then in some Lithuanian family, she even did not know where she came from. When the girl was found, mother took her in our family. She was treated like a younger daughter. Being an adolescent, she left for Israel. Dalia died there in 1980s. Ilan married Leo Rozental, they is currently living in Vilnius.
Location
Lithuania
Interview
Iosif Yudelevichus