Jūratė Kristina Kazickas-Altman

Jūratė Kristina Kazickas-Altman (born February 18, 1943) is a retired American journalist and campaigner for refugee rights. She was born in Lithuania during World War II, and her family fled ahead of the 1944 Soviet re-occupation. After graduating from Trinity Washington University, Kazickas worked as a volunteer teacher in Kenya with the Consolata Missionaries. She met some US soldiers on leave from the Vietnam War while traveling in Asia and decided to report from the conflict. Kazickas reported from the front lines for about a year before being wounded by artillery fire at the Battle of Khe Sanh and returning to the US.

Kazickas later reported on the women's liberation movement for the Associated Press and, with Lynn Sherr, published the Liberated Women's Appointment Calendar and Survival Handbook annually for ten years. In 1976, with Sherr, she wrote the American Woman's Gazetteer, a listing of locations in the country associated with women in historic events. Kazickas reported from the 1973 Yom Kippur War and on the Office of the First Lady Rosalynn Carter. In recent years, Kazickas has advocated for refugee rights and been president of a family charity supporting education in Lithuania.

Early life Kazickas was born to Joseph and Alexandra Kazickas in Vilnius in German-occupied Lithuania in 1943. Her father was an opponent of communism and after the Soviet re-occupation of 1944 he and his family fled to the West. At one point they escaped detection on a train when German soldiers agreed to hide them under a pile of bandages. After the train reached the end of the line at Dresden, Germany, the family stayed there until the Allied bombing that devastated that city on February 13, 1945. The family found their way to an American-run displaced persons camp.

After the end of the war Kazickas and her parents traveled to the US on the SS Ernie Pyle, a former type C4-class troopship used to transfer displaced persons arriving on US soil on February 18, 1947.

Vietnam Kazickas became interested in the Vietnam War during a solo hiking trip in Asia. She encountered some US soldiers on leave in Bangkok and, on their recommendation, visited Saigon. Determined to return, she sought a position there as a journalist. Unable to secure official accreditation and payment of expenses she bought her own airline ticket using US$500 she won as a contestant on the gameshow Password.

In October 1973 Kazickas covered the Yom Kippur War for the AP.

Kazickas became an advocate for refugees and has visited Bosnia, Rwanda, Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2010, she received an award from the International Rescue Committee for her work in this field. Kazickas is a member of the board of the Women's Refugee Commission and president of the Kazickas Family Foundation, a charity supporting education in Lithuania. Kazickas climbed Kilimanjaro again in 2011. She lives in New York City and has three children.