Waiting for a baby in the woods

Marytė Vaidilaitė grew up in a communist family. Her father Jonas Vaidila from the village of Miliškės was an ardent communist, he worked as the head of agriculture in the Pabiržė parish (chairman of the land distribution commission). However, her daughter Marytė turned away from her father, her beliefs were changed by her beloved Jonas Marciukas. As Bronius Skiauterė told us, “Even before the Germans, they were openly friends, they were preparing to get married, but the approaching front disrupted all their plans, and Marciukas built a bunker in Marytė’s parents’ house to hide from the Bolsheviks. As long as he was there, as long as he was not there, when the Russians came, he went out into the forest, and Marytė went with him.” She went from one bunker to another with her husband. “I saw Marciukas Jonas from Papilė twice. He was one of the larger leaders of our region. His wife Marytė Vaidilaitė’s father was a scumbag.”

The biggest problem for a partisan was expecting a baby. Of course, partisans had children who were born out of love and were welcomed, but living in the forest there were no conditions to take care of a baby. Marytė and Jonas Marciukai had two children. Unfortunately, they did not become parents to either of them. B. Skiauterė said that “After the death of the first baby, Marytė gave birth to the second and left it with her relatives, but they, afraid of taking risks, informed the elder Papilis about the child.”29 The daughter of Marytė and Jonas Marciukai was adopted by the Jakovlev family from Suvainiškis. She was baptized after her mother Marytė.

“After the appearance of this girl, the Marciukas lived for about a year. They had a bunker set up near the Papilis town in the unfinished house of Matuzevičius in the village of Griauzdė.” There they died in a shootout with the partisans. “They were also unsuccessful. On April 6, 1952, in the village of Griauzdė in the Pandėly district, the partisans came across a partisan hideout in an uninhabited house. The partisans returned fire for an hour and a half. When the Chekists set fire to the house, the leader of the Papilis partisan unit, J. Marciukas, and his wife, a partisan, Marija Vaidelaitė, died while trying to break out of it.” The murdered were brought and laid to rest near the Papilis church, and then buried in the resistance cemetery.

Partisan fiancées often willingly chose death with their surrounded loved ones. M. Vaidilaitė sacrificed even more, not only her life, but also the opportunity to be a mother.