Obj. ID: 45826
Modern Jewish Art Commemorative plaque to Ona Šimaitė on Savičiaus St. 13 in Vilnius, Lithuania, 2010s
Memorial name
No official name.
Who is Commemorated?
Ona Šimaitė, Righteous Among the Nations
Description:
A red metal plaque with segmented upper and lower edges is affixed between the ground and upper floors on the exterior of the building at Savičiaus St. 13, where Ona Šimaitė lived from 1940 through 1944.
It bears a short Lithuanian inscription.
Inscription:
Vilniaus miesto savivaldybė
Čia 1940-1944 m.
gyveno biblitekininkė
Vilnius geto žydų gelbėtoja
Ona
Šimaitė
1894-1970
Translation: Vilnius city municipality. Here in 1940-1944 lived a librarian and the savior of the Jews of the Vilnius ghetto, Ona Šimaitė, 1894-1970.
3 image(s)
sub-set tree:
Ona (Anna) Šimaitė (1894, Almenė -1970, Paris) was manager of the Catalogues Department of the Vilnius University Library from 1940 to 1944. During the Nazi occupation of Vilnius, she assisted ghetto inmates, saved about one hundred of Jewish children, and helped preserve Jewish cultural valuables, especially from the YIVO collection. She was arrested on April 28, 1944, and sentenced to death, but with the help of bribes collected by her university colleagues, the sentence was remitted and she was sent to a concentration camp in France. She was one of the first Lithuanians to be recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations in 1966.
The memorial plaque at the house where Ona Šimaitė lived during WWII was established on August 28, 2019 (personal communication from Irina Guzenberg, February 3, 2023).
Jurgita Lazauskaitė, "Ona Šimaitė," website Vilniojs vartai, , https://www.vilnijosvartai.lt/personalijos/ona-simaite/ (accessed February 4, 2023)