Helene Holzman
2019-09-17
Bal MAKHSHOVES
2020-09-29
Rosian Bagriansky
Once upon a time there was a girl smiling in a meadow in Kulautuva... Her name was Rosian Bagriansky (Zerner).
Her parents Polis and Gerta wanted to save her daughter and thus dug a hole next to the fence of Kaunas Ghetto and pushed Rosian through it to the hands of their former employee Bronė Budreikaitė.
Bronė baptised Rosian giving the girl her own surname. She thus became Irena Budreikaitė or Ira for short. The girl was guarded by the so-called angels – the savers of the Jews of Kaunas, Natalija Fugelavičiūtė, Natalija Jegorova and Lidija Golubovienė who had a farmstead in Kulautuva. Rosian was brought to this town just like most of the children guarded by the angels at the end of war. During those summer days of 1944, a photo of Rosian was taken at Kulautuva. It recently became famous around the world. In 2013, curators of an exhibition for the International Day of Commemoration in memory of the victims of the Holocaust (January 27), chose this photography on purpose. It is a wonderful testament of life in the face the horrors of war and death. Who is this girl, what is her destiny, the organisers of the exhibition knew nothing. And how surprised was Rosian, when she saw her own face in one of the US airports, smiling from a big poster. The same face from the childhood, the picture of which was taken in the meadows of Kulautuva. “I am the child in the photo!” she called and told the curators. “I am a living proof that miracles do happen...”
Helene Holzman recalls her first meeting with Rosian:
There was a six-year-old girl with long brownish hair sitting in the room of Liudmila one day, with a cute nose and dark eyes. /.../ The brave Bronė took her from the barbed fence and here she was, but no one had an idea where she could live. “The child must live” I have paraphrased the words of the old spokesperson to a little girl standing in front of me. But the child did not want to see a strange woman; Regina and the angels had to convince her for a long time for her to give me her hand and go together.
Once upon a time there was a girl smiling in a meadow in Kulautuva… Her name was Rosian Bagriansky (Zerner).
