My mother, Elena Anuzis, was the only surviving “Righteous” of the group when the Chicago Israeli Counsul General presented her with the official recognition of Righteous Amongst the Nations in Lansing, Michigan.
In the late fall of 1995, my father was diagnosed with late stage lung cancer. As a fairly prominent member of the Lithuanian American community, word of his illness spread throughout our ethnic community fairly quickly.
Every day, I would visit my dad in the hospital for hours to reminisce about life and our family while trying to figure out what else could be done to prolong his life. With some of the best doctors in world, led by Dr. Vaitkevicius (better known as Dr. V) at the Karmanos Cancer Center at Wayne State University, we ultimately decided to enter the hospice program and do the best we could to enjoy his last days with his family.
This photo was taken during my trip to Israel where the folks at Yad Vashem arranged for the “son of the Righteous” to meet the “son of a Survivor” whose parents helped save his parents during the Holocaust in Lithuania.
One day, I received a phone call from a woman in Israel. She identified herself as Hasia Geslevich. She was a friend of our family’s and asked about my father’s condition. Hasia reminded me that they visited us when we were young boys and had come up to our summer camp at Echo Lake. I apologized and said I really had not remembered her and her husband…she laughed and in Lithuanian described how much she loved their visit and the lake. After a few minutes of the expected conversation, she had a favor to ask. I said of course, and she proceeded to tell me that my parents and grandparents helped her, and a number of other girls escape the Holocaust. She wanted to share their story with Yad Vashem and submit their names to be honored as Righteous Among the Nations. Back then, I had no idea what Yad Vashem or the Righteous Among the Nations were. I teared up during the conversation and said that would be an honor and I’m sure my father and the rest of the family would be honored. I then asked he if she would share more.
She told her story and said she would write it up for Yad Vashem to memorialize their bravery and kindness. I was awestruck and beyond intrigued. I asked her why my parents never shared that story and asked, “why am I only hearing about this now”. She was sure I was aware that my father was a strong-willed man. When she first approached my father about telling their stories many years earlier, he told he preferred they not be shared and asked her not to do so. She reluctantly agreed.
As the years passed and they both got older she wanted to make one more attempt to get his permission to tell the story, while my father was on his deathbed. I wasn’t sure what his reaction would be, but I asked her to please share that story where appropriate and that I would inform my father of the same.
The following day I made my daily trip to the hospital, excited to share the news of the call from Hasia with my father and tell him what I had agreed to on his behalf. After a bit of the expected conversation about how he was feeling, we got settled in for our daily talk.
I brought up the fact that Hasia had called and wanted to send her love and regards. He smiled and said “yes, they were old friends from Lithuania who now lived in Israel”. I said she was calling from Haifa, Israel and shared an amazing story with me. He sarcastically smiled and asked, “what story did Hasia come up with this time”, as though he expected something intriguing.
Hasia shared a story about how he and my mother, along with my grandfather and grandmother helped arrange their escape from Kaunas (Kovno) and that she knows they had helped other young women get out of Lithuania and into non-Nazi controlled areas. He replied, “yes, they were scary times, but we did what we had to do”.
I was shell shocked and asked, why didn’t he ever share those stories with anyone before or at the very least with his own family. He sternly replied “I didn’t like the politics and it was something our family did because it was the right thing to do”. I further inquired as to the apparent secrecy and explained that this “was a big thing” and that the Holocaust and what had happened, particularly in Lithuania amongst the Jewish population, needed stories like his to be shared. He then looked up and said, “We didn’t help them because they were Jews, we helped them because they were humans being wrongly persecuted.” And then we dropped the conversation for the rest of that day.
One has to put into context what was happening in a little country like Lithuania caught in the middle of a devastating war. During Soviet occupations, hundreds of thousands of Lithuanians were packed into cattle cars and shipped to gulags in Siberia, most never to return. During Nazi occupation, the Jews were summarily rounded up and put into ghetto’s, only to be shipped to “work camps” while many were killed on the spot. The famous gates above the Auschwitz concentration camp’s entrance hung the phrase “Arbeit macht frei”, which in German meant “work sets you free” or “work makes on free” epitomizing the cynical nature of the oppressors. It wasn’t until years later that the world discovered the true nature of the horrors of the Holocaust and the brazen attempt to exterminate an entire race of people.
I went home and couldn’t stop thinking about what I had learned. I sat down with my mother and quizzed her about the events. You could see the fear in her eyes as she recalled “those were some of the scariest days of our lives”. I asked her why no one had ever talked about this before, and she said our father preferred we not and so it was.
I asked my mother what she thought of the entire efforts and she shared that she was very upset and mad at my grandfather and father who cooked up their plan. She remembered her mother-in-law at the time consoling my mother saying, “it was something we had to do”. My mother had just given birth to their first child, my oldest sister Ausra. From my mother’s perspective, the most important task at hand was to get out from under the control of the Nazi’s and that the family should follow their own plans to escape westward, ultimately, to the United States. To my mother, at the time, this was a dangerous and unnecessary undertaking for women they had never known or met before and my father and grandfather were willing to risk not only their lives, but the life of their first born.
I called my older sister, Ausra Anuzis Klimas, who was now living in Florida to ask her about the story. She said she had never heard of it and was very surprised. My other older sister, Gailute Anuzis Dedinas and my brother Andrius Anuzis both lived in the metro Detroit area and we saw each other almost daily as we visited my mom and dad. When I brought this up to them, neither had any idea. We were all surprised and honored that Hasia was going to share our families story with Yad Vashem. I found out later Hasia was also interviewed by Steven Spielberg’s project to archive the history of Holocaust survivors before the passed away.
What follows is a narrative of what I learned from my conversations with Hasia, my father and mother about the events and circumstances that played out over a year or so of their lives.
At the Lithuanian Embassy receiving medals posthumously for my parents & grandparents for helping save Jew’s during WWII. With Lithuanian Ambassador Rolandas Krisciunas, Rabbi Andrew Baker, me, Deputy Foreign Minister Mantvydas Bekesius and Consul General Marijus Gudynas.
My grandparents were Ignas and Elena Anuzis. They lived outside of Vilnius (Vilna) near a convent. My grandfather was in the import/export business and had done a lot of work with Germany and Russia. Interestingly enough, he also served in the private guard of the Czar. One of the prize photos he had was one with him and a few of his colleagues on horses with the Czar. My father said they had to destroy that photo and other proof of their association with the Czar during the Revolution, as they had fled “in” to Russia before coming back to Lithuania.
My parents, Ceslovas and Elena Anuzis, lived in Kaunas. My father worked at the train station for the railroad. His connections with various customs officials was how they were able to move these young women out of Lithuania. My mother had just given birth to their first child and were quietly preparing a plan on how to escape Lithuania. The war went back and forth with the Nazi and Communists pushing each other in and out over several years of battle.
In addition to his business, my grandfather Ignas loved gardening. He had volunteered for years in the local Catholic Convent to tend to their gardens on the outskirts of Vilnius (Vilna). As the war encroached Lithuania and Nazi’s started hunting Jews, the convent started taking young girls in for refuge. The Mother Superior, knowing my grandfather’s business, hatched a plan on how they could secretly move young women in and out of Lithuania through the convent and out of the Vilnius (Vilna) Ghetto. But they needed my grandfather’s willingness to forge documents because of the various official stamps he had for his import/export business.
My grandfather summoned my father to a private conversation outside their homes to discuss the plan. In general terms, the convent was taking in young Jewish women from the Ghetto and sheltering them. In order to avoid suspicion, the convent could only help a few women at any given time. Meanwhile, the nuns from the convent were trying to recruit help to smuggle them out of Lithuania to safety. My grandfather said he would create travel papers for them and wanted my father to escort them out of the country and safely to the Estonian port of Tallin, where they would take a ferry to Helsinki or into Belarus. A critical step in the plan was that as they moved the girls out of the convent and back into Kaunas and Vilnius. While my grandfather prepared all the paperwork, they would have to pose as nanny’s or caregivers, who had come out of the countryside to help my mother with her newborn.
My father said they spent several days going back and forth developing a plan. My grandfather had arranged several other friends to help and because of my father’s position at the railroad, he thought my parents were in a perfect position to help. My father was reluctant at first, but my grandfather insisted that this was the right thing to do, and they were in a position to do it. The next step was to break the plan to my mother and grandmother.
My grandfather briefed my grandmother before they came to my parents’ house to lay out their plans to my mother. Needless to say, she was horrified and couldn’t believe they were willing to risk their lives for women they had never met, and more importantly put their first-born daughter and granddaughter at risk before she had a chance to experience life. They spent several days walking through the plans and ultimately all coming to an agreement that this had to be done.
Here is how the process developed and played out.
My grandfather would work with the convent to bring these girls out of the convent into private homes and then smuggled out of Lithuania. One of the nuns would bring these young Jewish girls to the various homes that had agreed to help with this process, including to my parent’s home in Kaunas. My grandfather had involved several others to help in smuggling others out based on their connections. In the end, he didn’t know who they were or how many young women were ultimately saved and moved through this “underground railroad” of sorts.
They put together a typical outfit for a “country girl” to wear and quietly brought them to my parent’s home. They used the same hat, coat and boots many times over. My mother would go out for daily walks with the young Jewish girl and clandestinely get to various locations my grandfather had set up to get photos taken, travel papers arranged and train tickets to the various locations they were ultimately traveling to.
My mother said the experience of taking a walk was horrifying. The police chief of Kaunas lived on one of the streets near their house and they had to walk by his house daily. Every time she looked in their window, she feared she might have to introduce her nanny to the police chief and expose their scheme. My father thought that eventually the police chief figured out what they were doing but turned a blind eye to their efforts.
My brother Andrius shared another story my father had told him. My father was able to get one of the girls a temporary secretary/clerks job at the local German Army headquarters while they were finalizing her papers. My dad shared “what a better place to hide her than right under their noses”.
On the day of travel my father would take the young woman on the train with him. He would find her a seat by his work station and provide cover so no one else could “check on her” during the train ride to their final destination.
On the train, they would give the young Jewish woman a change of clothes so they could return to the convent with the same clothes the previous girls had worn and do the whole process again.
This process went on for about a year. I’m not sure how many young Jewish women were lucky enough to make it out of the Vilna Ghetto, but far less than anyone could have hoped for. They were able to get some Jewish girls out of the Kovno Ghetto as well. In the story telling, he specifically mentioned at least three different young women, but I never thought to ask how many actually made it out of the convent, let alone how many came through my parent’s home.
My father Ceslovas, passed away in March of 1996. I never met my grandparents. My grandmother Elena Anuzis died in a displaced persons camp in Germany near the end of WWII and my grandfather Ignas Anuzis died in Toronto, Canada.
About 4 years later, I received a call from the Israeli Consulate in Chicago. They had gone through the steps that Yad Vashem has to verify the stories from the Holocaust survivors and the woman I spoke to said the Consul General would like to come to the local synagogue in East Lansing to present my mother with the award. My mother was unfortunately suffering from Alzheimer’s and was living with us in Lansing. Sometime in 2000, we attended a ceremony to honor my parents and grandparents. She didn’t quite understand what was happening, but I was proud to accompany her to the synagogue to receive the honor on her behalf, and on behalf of my father and my grandparents.
The ceremony was very moving and emotional as Survivors from both the Vilno and Kauno Ghetto were coming up to thank my mother. They would give her a hug and take her hand to kiss it. One gentleman came up who said he was from the Kovno Ghetto and said his sister was saved by a nun in a similar story and showed me his numbered tattoo. The impact of what my parents, and grandparents had done finally sunk in. I remember sitting at home that night wondering if I would have had the fortitude and righteousness to do the same. I could not have been prouder.
Over the years, several of my sons took school trips the Holocaust Museum and I always shared their grandparents and great grandparents’ story with them. I encouraged them to look up their names at the Memorial as all the Righteous Among the Nations were listed there. Finding their names engraved on the wall gave them a sense of history and understanding that might otherwise be glossed over by too many.
It was always a great sense of pride when some of my Jewish friends visited Yad Vashem on one of their trips to Israel and sent back a picture they took at the memorial where my parents and grandparents were listed. Inevitably they would say, “I never knew…Mazeltov”.
Years later I had an opportunity to participate on a trip to Israel that Governor Mike Huckabee organized. In preparing for the trip, I shared my story with the Governor. I was excited to visit Yad Vashem, as it was one of the stops on our tour.
Without letting me know, Governor Huckabee reached out to Yad Vashem and asked if they could find one of the sons or daughters of one of the girls my parents and grandparents saved and if they could arrange a meeting.
When we arrived at Yad Vashem we took a tour of the museum, walked the gardens and found the spot where my parents’ and grandparents’ names were engraved. We then went to the somber hall where the eternal flame was lit and the room was packed with people. They had found Hasia’s sons, Yoel who is a doctor in Haifa and Arie. They had arranged a very special opportunity for these two families to meet. Yoel couldn’t attend because he had a scheduled surgery he had to do, but his wife Lea, Yoel’s brother Arie and Hasia’s grandson Nevo were all there. Needless to say, the emotions that emerged while meeting Hasia’s children and grandchildren were numbing. I made new friends whom I shared a unique history with, while realizing they would have never been on this earth if it hadn’t been for what my parents and grandparents were willing to do. The entire day seemed to be surreal and impossible to express in words. I later met Yoel and Lea the following evening…exchanging hugs and stories.
At the ceremony, renowned violinist Maurice Sklar played the violin and I was asked to lay a wreath in honor of my parents and grandparents. I’m guessing at this hallowed place, it’s not unusual to see a grown man in tears as I laid the wreath. My trip to Israel, visiting Yad Vashem and meeting the Geselvich family changed my life.
Maurice Sklar playing violin at wreath laying ceremony at Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum in Israel. The wreath was laid by Saul Anuzis in honor of his parents who helped young Jewish girls escape during the Holocaust. There were many local attendees who survived the “Vilno” (Vilius) and “Kovno” (Kaunas) ghetto where my parents & grandparents helped save young girls from.
Later that week, Governor Huckabee had arranged a meeting with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Our group arrived in the meeting room and were seated waiting for the Prime Minister to arrive. As he walked into the room, he shook the Governor’s hand and asked, “which one of you is the Righteous”. As Governor Huckabee introduced me, Prime Minister Netanyahu walked over and gave me a hug.
Upon returning home I shared my experiences with my family. These kinds of feelings and emotions are so hard to put into words. But I felt an inner drive to do something, say something and make sure we never forget the atrocities of the Holocaust and the selfless bravery of those willing to risk their lives for people they didn’t know…because it was the right thing to do.
As time has passed since WWII and the Holocaust, children and generations to come who have not witnessed the atrocities that happened seem to be forgetting the lessons of the past. The Holocaust has been minimized, Israel being demonized, and I felt the connection to our shared history being lost.
I’ve heard of many organizations that Jews around the world have formed to support Israel, remember the Holocaust and to put it simply, remind the world so they would never forget how easy it is for evil to triumph.
Although not being Jewish, I was lucky enough to be invited to various events Jewish friends of mine would attend. We often discussed the politics of Israel and the challenges that existed worldwide. Back in 2005 when I ran for the Chairmanship of the Republican National Committee, a column in Town Hall written by Joel Mowbray entitled ‘Vowing to “Never Forget” Family’s Legacy, Saul Anuzis Fights for GOP Chair’ reminded me of the important legacy my family shares. I remember speaking to a Republican Jewish Conference (RJC) chapter in my travels and when the head of the chapter introduced me he said “Saul is a better Jew than many of you in this room because of what his family did during the Holocaust”. Well, that made for interesting follow-up conversations.
In 2019, I came up with a concept to start a foundation to bring together the sons and daughters, grandchildren, and future generations of Survivors and Righteous. I wrote up a one-page executive summary and shared it with a number of my Jewish friends. I suggested this would be a great undertaking that might make sense for some existing organization to undertake or to start a stand-alone foundation to put together a program like this. Everyone thought it was a good idea and offered to help but soon after COVID hit, virtually everything stopped.
Fast forward to 2021 one of my friends that I shared this concept with was William Daroff, who is President of the Conference of President of Major American Jewish Organizations. He and I had batted around this idea and he promised to share it with some of the folks he worked with that he thought might be interested.
Bill Daroff shared the idea with Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Center. He then arranged a Zoom call between Rabbi Cooper, Bill Daroff and me. The Rabbi could not have been more supportive, enthusiastic, and encouraging. He suggested that I should move forward and start a new foundation committed to the ideas and principles I had written up in that one-page executive summary. He urged me to just move forward, and he was sure there would be broad support for the idea. The Rabbi and Bill both agreed to serve on the Advisory Board to help us get started and implement the program. Rabbi Cooper also had a great idea to include “Liberators” into the concept. There were many soldiers and partisans who fought the Nazis and liberated the concentration camps. What they witnessed and felt was just as important to share with the world and that this group would be a natural expansion of the mission I had envisioned.
And so, in April of 2021 I decided to start my “passion project” of putting together the “Next Generations Project”. For far too many of the “next generation” the Holocaust is becoming little more than an asterisk in history. As Survivors, Righteous and Liberators pass away under life’s normal circumstances, sons and daughters, let alone grandchildren of the same, have little connection to the past and too often take for granted the horrors their families witnessed.
Creating a program for the “next generations” to never forget and help create a worldwide constituency to remember and engage in keeping that history alive is critical.
Connecting the next generations of Holocaust Survivors, Righteous and Liberators creates a powerful network of historical, civic, political and business leaders that can help ensure the world never forgets and that their respected communities bear witness to the history that is quickly fading without a personal connection.
Next generations: Saulius “Saul” Anuzis, son and grandson of Righteous Amongst the Nations…followed by Matas Anuzis, grandson and great-grandson…followed by Sigita Anuzis, great granddaugher and great-great granddaugter. The power of generations.
A program like this could have all kinds of direct and side benefits for many of the challenges Israel and Jews face around the world as the memories and lessons of the Holocaust fade or are ignored.
This was the genesis of the Next Generations Project to do our part to help ensure the world Never Forgets.