A love story that ended in war
This story tells of the love and struggle for survival of Pranas Laucevičius and Rūta Gurvičiūtė during World War II. It testifies to courage, sacrifice, and death, when the atrocities of war suppressed national boundaries, but not human feelings.
In 1937, in Telšiai, Lithuanian Pranas Laucevičius met Jewish Rūta Gurvičiūtė. Their friendship ended when Rūta went to Kaunas to study at Vytautas Magnus University, where she married engineer Cemech Ginzburg. Later, the newlyweds returned to Telšiai.
In 1941, the Nazis occupied Lithuania. All Jews, including Rūta and her family, were herded into the Telšiai ghetto. Her husband and father were soon shot. Rūta, who spoke German, managed to escape to work at the Telšiai “Alkos” Museum. Having learned about the threat of the liquidation of the ghetto, Pranas secretly took Rūta to his home and began to hide her. Their feelings were renewed. At the insistence of her grandmother, they secretly married in a Catholic ceremony.
To be safer, Pranas and Rūta moved to Laižuva, where Pranas taught and Rūta worked as his assistant. To avoid suspicion, Rūta changed her surname to Viktorijā Laucevičienė. On November 6, 1942, their son Telesforas was born. As the threat grew, they handed the baby over to Pranas' mother in Telšiai. They themselves fled further - to the village of Balsiai near Tryškiai. Unfortunately, they were recognized by a local resident who was Rūta's former acquaintance from university. On October 5, 1944, just a few days before the arrival of the Red Army, Pranas and Rūta were arrested by German gendarmes. It is said that Pranas was offered to shoot Rūta in exchange for his life, but he refused. Both were shot on the bank of the Virvytė River. Rūta was pregnant with her second child at the time.
After the war, Telesforas was raised by his grandmother and aunt. He graduated from school in Telšiai and became a chemist, as his mother had dreamed.
