Zabielavicius Family

Zabielavičius Juozas (1900 - 1990 )

Rescue Story

Zabielavičius, Juozas

Juozas Zabielavičius was born and spent his childhood on a farm near the town of Virbalis (Vilkaviškis District), near the border with Germany. Among his childhood friends was Liza (later, Lipšic), the daughter of a Jewish family in the town. The two remained friends even after they each married and had children. In the fall of 1941, a few months after the German occupation of Lithuania, Juozas moved to Kaunas and searched for Liza. He found her and her family confined in the Kaunas ghetto. He gave Liza his address in Kaunas and offered his help if necessary. Liza and her husband, Yakov Lifshitz, had already wanted to entrust their six-year-old daughter, Pepa, to Juozas but the child refused to part from her parents. Pepa remained in the ghetto until the end of the children's murder operation (Kinderaktion) on March 27, 1944, which she survived. At the end of that Aktion, the child asked her parents to send her to Juozas. In that period, Juozas was working as manager of a dairy factory in Kaunas, while his wife and two children remained back in Virbalis. Juozas would visit them once every few weeks. Since his apartment in the city was not suitable for hiding a child, he planned to take Pepa to Virbalis. Until then, the child stayed with acquaintances of Juozas in exchange for payment. In late April 1944, Pepa was taken to the farm of Juozas's father, who was unaware that she was Jewish, but later discovered this. On the farm, Pepa stayed with the housekeeper, who was brought in on the secret, and who presented Pepa as her niece. When the Soviet advance drew near the area, the Zabielavičius family moved to Germany, and took Pepa with them. Until the end of the war, she had no information about the fate of her family. When the Zabielavičius family returned to Lithuania, Pepa was reunited with her mother. Her father had not survived. In the 1970s, Pepa (later Sharon) and her mother Liza (later Rozen) immigrated to Israel.

On October 27, 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Juozas Zabielavičius as Righteous Among the Nations.