Elena Kutorgienė

Elena Kutorgienė (28 July 188813 February 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.

Biography Elena Kutorgienė was born Elena Buivydaitė in 1888. She obtained her medical degree from the Imperial Moscow 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.

In her diary, Kutorgienė wrote, "Lithuania is really of one mind in its hatred of the Jews." Many Lithuanian gentiles were complicit in Nazi atrocities against Jews. For example, Lithuanian civilians and German soldiers alike participated in the Lietūkis garage massacre, part of the Kaunas Pogrom. She received death threats for helping Jewish people.

Kutorgienė died in 1963 and was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations in 1982.