Born: 1888
Died: 1963
Biography:
Elena Kutorgienė (née Buivydaitė, 1888 – 1963) was a Lithuanian physician who resisted the Nazi occupation of Lithuania during World War II. Kutorgienė and her son took Jewish children out of the Kovno Ghetto and placed them in gentiles’ homes to save them from genocide. She is recognized as Righteous Among the Nations.
Elena Kutorgienė was born Elena Buivydaitė in 1888. She obtained her medical degree from Moscow State University and moved to Kaunas, Lithuania for work. Kutorgienė specialized in ophthalmology. She began her career at a local Jewish health organization which provided healthcare to impoverished Jews.
From 1941 to 1945, Elena Kutorgienė and her son, Viktoras Kutorga, resisted the Nazi occupation of Lithuania. Kutorgienė hid Jews in her office and her home. She rescued Jewish children from the Kovno Ghetto by hiding them in her home, obtaining false identity papers for them, and placing them in the homes of gentiles. She also brought food into the ghetto.
One of the children she helped was Sulamith Gordon, a 14-year-old girl. With Kutorgienė’s help, Gordon found work as a live-in maid in a goyische woman’s home. Gordon reunited with her father after the war ended.
Kutorgienė also tried to persuade other Lithuanian intellectuals to protect their Jewish neighbors and colleagues. She kept a diary from June 23, 1941 to December 31, 1941, offering a first-person account of life in Kaunas under Nazi occupation. In her diary, Kutorgienė wrote about the atrocities against the Kaunas Jews, her own work, and the attitudes of Lithuanians toward Nazi occupation. She also documented the harsh conditions faced by Soviet prisoners of war who were starved and forced into slave labor.
Despite facing death threats for helping Jewish people, Kutorgienė remained undeterred. She even purchased weapons for resistance fighters in the Kovno Ghetto and sent news of the occupation to the USA. She collaborated with poet and resistance fighter Chaim Yellin, managing to save his diary.
Elena Kutorgienė passed away in 1963. In 1982, she was posthumously recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for her courageous efforts to save Jewish lives during the Holocaust. Her actions stand as a testament to the power of compassion and moral courage even in the face of extreme danger.
Awards:
– Righteous Among the Nations (1982)