Jonas Kadžionis

“I do remember when Lithuania was occupied by Germans. People were waiting for them and met like liberators. Girls were bringing flowers to them. Lots of people ran to meet them: they were throwing some food, some flowers. One young soldier was standing in the truck hitch, he was hit with flowers to the face and injured, and I pitied him very much. The village didn’t feel the pressure of the German occupation, they were doing nothing, and the church was not persecuted, Lithuanian flags were allowed to raise. There were some policemen with Germans. The Germans ordered to pay some tributes; the German soldier came to our house together with the local policemen. The soldier was sitting with the gun in his hands and the policemen were w carrying out a search. They were searching for the grain, wanted to find out the number of people living in the family and the amount of land owned. After the search policemen explained the soldier that there was no spare grain. They made a note and left. There was no reference made to extortion of property. Inquestor: “Were there any Jews? Were there any shootings? How many Jews were there in your village?” J.K.:” There were some Jews in each small town, in Kavarskas too. At the beginning I didn’t know, but later I learned that Jewish communists were ready “to drink glasses of our blood“. Inquestor: “But not everybody was like that? Were there any women, children? J.K.: “Outside Kavarskas I am not sure whether a German or an insurgent had shot some Jewish activists, and 2 Lithuanians who were infected with communist bacillus, but there were no families killed. People were talking that the Savickai were killed. According to natives they were not bad people, but they were spreading the communistic ideas. At the shooting Savickas’ wife raised her hand and proclaimed: ‘I am dying for Stalin!’ 16 people, mainly Jewish were shot. There was an insurgent in our village who nagged Jewish people; he wouldn’t let them walk on the pavement. The locals hated him and he was given a nickname “The king of Jews”. The Jews were shepherded for some time, there were no ghettos in Kavarskas, so they were closed in their own houses. The people were not allowed to communicate with Jews. Some time passed, the Jews were taken from Kavarskas, several families tried to hide in the woods. I know that a few families were caught and brought back to Kavarskas. Later they were taken to Ukmergė and fusilladed. There were some Lithuanians who took part in shooting. I know personally: Ganietis, Čiukštys, Mitašiūnas – I was in the labour camp together with him, he told me that he couldn’t even look at those Jew-shooters. I told him that he himself had shot some of Jews. He explained me: ‘Jonas, I was young and not experienced insurgent. We were ordered to gather in Kavarskas. We did as were told. We were taken to Ukmergė, picked up by the Germans, armed. I was young and really frightened and couldn’t resist anyway but I shot only once. Now I can’t look at the people who were shooting Jews.’ And these partisans were explaining that, ‘we have to wash the Jew-shooters guilt with our own blood’. At the beginning some of Jew-shooters joined partisans, but they were not eager to fight into the partisan war, but wanted to bluff it out and get hired by KGB. But when it came into the open that they were shooting, they were brought to the labour camp. Jew-shooters had been hated by everyone. Inquestor: “What was the ordinary people reaction when the Germans started killing the Jews?” J.K.:“Village people reacted really badly. I do not know any particular surnames of people who saved the Jews, but I know that there were such people. Those people helped them not for money, maybe grateful Jews gave them something, I don’t know. Personally I was on good terms with Jews in the labour camp. Being an old prisoner I explained them some wile how to get used to the prisoners life. We were on good terms with Jews.”

“I remember that in Kavarskas appeared Albertas Šiaučiūnas, he was a komsomolec. He was thought to be a bad man with the worthless soul. He shot his cousin and a schoolboy. The women were frightened to death of him and the others like him. If the house wives had to do some work at home on holidays like May Day, they would lock the door not to be noticed by anyone. It was forbidden to work during such holidays. When the first deportations started, we couldn’t understand what was going on. Two teachers were exiled from our village: Kostas Čiukšis and Petras Jurkėnas. I remember that before the “elections” some agitators came to our village. One of them very actively agitated to vote for Šupikov and Morozov. He was running around and shouting. The other one, the village commissary, was a little more reasonable. All the village people hated the reds.“