Fruma Kučinskienė

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Kaunas Jewish community member, Fruma Kučinskienė, tells about warm family gatherings at her grandparents’ home in the Town Hall Square during traditional celebrations, the pre-war landscape of Kaunas seen from a small car window while sitting on a pile of socks her father was delivering to citizens, and a suddenly changed world with war planes flying in its sky. Furma shares her experiences of hiding in a small basement of a small house, being taken away from the Jewish ghetto against her will, becoming Danutė by name, and getting from an emptying Kaunas to Kulautuva on a raft during the last days of the war.

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“My first childhood memories connected to Kaunas are very warm. My grandparents lived in the heart of Kaunas, near Town Hall Square. At the time, buses did not run during holidays, so we used to get from Šančiai district to the Old Town on a carriage (at least we called it so) or on a bričkelė* with a roof you could lift. I remember exactly where the bričkelė stood with harnessed horses. Many years after there was a taxi stop at the same place in the Old Town”.
* One-horse holiday cart

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“At Easter we ate specific meals according to our religion. We had a big family, our grandparents had as many as seven children. My aunts and uncles used to take us away from the main table and let us eat in secret what was not traditionally allowed. I have a clear memory of those happy faces that later on vanished”.

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“My mother always kept our home open to relatives who came to Kaunas to study. For this reason, our home had a fine long table covered with a white tablecloth, and on it – a bowl of soup.”

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“I with my mother were in Drobės Street, going home, carrying self-sewn dresses. Then suddenly we saw planes in the sky – they were the first Soviet Union planes. Mother looked at the sky with fright.”

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“We were hiding in Petrašiūnai, a place that was not considered to be part of the city. We once came up with an idea to go back home. We were going from Aukštieji Šančiai down Siūlų Street towards the city centre, my father and brother were recognized by three Hiwis, and therefore were arrested and taken to an unknown location. My mother insisted that I run as far as possible. At home she asked the neighbours to hurry and follow the Hiwis to see where my father and brother were taken to. I remember my neighbour handing mother her new-born daughter and then immediately running downstairs.”

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“Living in the ghetto we helped each other to survive. During the action, we were hiding in our house, in a shelter that was installed by my father. The basement area was bricked up, there was a cut-out hole under the beds. We had limited space, usually we would hide there with a few neighbours. The shelter had to be covered by a lid, a bed would be pushed over it and the door would be sealed by pushing a cabinet over it. We could escape only because of the people that were unable to enter the shelter due to the lack of space. We were scared and cramped, with no room to move. We could constantly hear the voices of the Germans and the sound of their plodding steps.”

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“One evening, a woman wearing a black hat and talking just in German visited my guardian Natalija. She had a stern face. I got scared of her and ran to hide. Later I realized: she was my saviour and stepmother Helena Holzman.”

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“I got into an orphanage, where a priest issued me a false birth certificate. I was told to forget my real name, surname and never to tell it to anyone. I had to choose a Lithuanian name, such as Birutė, Jadzytė, Danutė… This is how I came to be Danutė. My real surname Vitkinaitė had to be changed to a new similar one, Vitkauskaitė.”

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“Kaunas was awfully empty. There were no steamboats sailing but we still had to reach Kulautuva. We were going by the pier near Jėzuitai Church, but the Germans used to arrest Lithuanians there and take them away to work in Germany. We hid in the yard behind the church, which is how we got into someone’s cellar. When the surrounding danger passed, we decided to take a look around – all we saw were just some remaining rafts. There were cheerful people running to the West. My guardian asked me to go away from her and to pretend not to know her.
When I was drifting on the river I saw Kaunas, on the left hand side there was Vytautas’ the Great Church (Kaunas Church of the Assumption of The Holy Virgin Mary