Ona Šimaitė

Plaque in Vilnius

Ona Šimaitė (1894 – 1970) of Lithuania, a librarian at Vilnius University, used her position to aid and rescue Jews in the Vilna Ghetto.

Entering the ghetto under the pretext of recovering library books from Jewish university students, she smuggled in food and small arms (helped by Kazys Boruta, amongst others) and other provisions and smuggled out literary and historical documents, and also served as a postman for the ghetto inhabitants, connecting them with the outer world. She also found people who faked documents for Jews, and brought out Jewish children from the ghetto and found families that hid them.

In 1944, the Nazis arrested and tortured Šimaitė. She was then deported to the Dachau concentration camp and later transferred to a concentration camp in southern France. She remained in France following her liberation.

Notes

This article incorporates text from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, and has been released under the GFDL.

External links

• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum - Ona Simaite, Joop Westerweel, Irena Sendlerowa
• (Lithuanian) Stankevičius, Rimantas (2004). "Name, that became legend (Vardas, tapęs legenda)". Genocidas ir rezistencija 15 (1). http://www.genocid.lt/Leidyba/15/ATMINTIS.htm. Retrieved 2008-03-31. 

Persondata
Name	Simaite, Ona
Alternative names
Short description	Activist; Holocaust survivor
Date of birth	1894
Place of birth
Date of death	1970
Place of death