Elena Lukauskienė (1 January 1909 – 17 March 1959), ''

née A birth name is the name of a person given upon birth. The term may be applied to the surname, the given name, or the entire name. Where births are required to be officially registered, the entire name entered onto a birth certificate or birth re ...

'' Stankevičiūtė, married Raclauskienė, also Raclauskienė-Lukauskienė, was a

Lithuania Lithuania (; lt, Lietuva ), officially the Republic of Lithuania ( lt, Lietuvos Respublika, links=no ), is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea. Lithuania ...

n chess master. She was a two-time Lithuanian Women's Chess Champion (1938, 1949) and a participant at the

Women's World Chess Championship The Women's World Chess Championship (WWCC) is played to determine the world champion in women's chess. Like the World Chess Championship, it is administered by FIDE. Unlike with most sports recognized by the International Olympic Committee, wher ...

(1939). For saving two Jewish children during

the Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust in Lithuania resulted in the near total destruction of Lithuanian (Litvaks) and Polish Jews, living in '' Generalbezirk Litauen'' of ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' within the Nazi-controlled Lithuanian SSR. Out of approximately 20 ...

, she was recognized as the

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( he, חֲסִידֵי אֻמּוֹת הָעוֹלָם, ; "righteous (plural) of the world's nations") is an honorific used by the State of Israel to describe non-Jews who risked their lives during the Holocaust to sav ...

in 2006.

Chess career

From the late 1930s to the early 1950s she was known as one of the strongest chess players in Lithuania. She participated in the pre-war chess tournaments under the surname of her first husband. In 1938, she won the first Lithuanian Women's Chess Championship. In 1939 she participated in the

Buenos Aires Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...

and took 18th place (tournament was won by

Vera Menchik Vera Francevna Mencikova (russian: Вера Францевна Менчик, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; cz, Věra Menčíková; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in En ...

). After

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, she continued to participate in chess tournaments. In 1948, she represented the team of the

Lithuanian SSR The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; lt, Lietuvos Tarybų Socialistinė Respublika; russian: Литовская Советская Социалистическая Республика, Litovskaya Sovetskaya Sotsialistiche ...

in the Soviet Team Chess Championship. In 1949, she won the second Lithuanian Women's Chess Championship. Then three years in a row she became the bronze medalist of this tournament (1950, 1951, 1952).

Righteous Among the Nations

In spring 1944, she and her second husband Mikas Lukauskas (1911–1996) saved two Jewish children, Pesach and Khana Joselevich, ages nine and five. Before the war, their father Shimon Joselevich was the owner of the Spindulis printing house where Lukauskienė worked as a

linotype machine The Linotype machine ( ) is a "line casting" machine used in printing; manufactured and sold by the former Mergenthaler Linotype Company and related It was a hot metal typesetting system that cast lines of metal type for individual uses. Lin ...

operator. He died in the liquidation of the

Kovno Ghetto The Kovno Ghetto was a ghetto established by Nazi Germany to hold the Lithuanian Jews of Kaunas during the Holocaust. At its peak, the Ghetto held 29,000 people, most of whom were later sent to concentration and extermination camps, or were sho ...

, and their mother Leah Joselevich was imprisoned in the

Stutthof concentration camp Stutthof was a Nazi concentration camp established by Nazi Germany in a secluded, marshy, and wooded area near the village of Stutthof (now Sztutowo) 34 km (21 mi) east of the city of Danzig (Gdańsk) in the territory of the German-a ...

. At the end of the war, both children returned to their surviving mother. On 1 March 2006, Lukauskienė and her husband Mikas Lukauskas were recognized by

Yad Vashem Yad Vashem ( he, יָד וַשֵׁם; literally, "a memorial and a name") is Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust. It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; honoring Jews who fought against th ...

as two of the

References

External links

*
Elena Lukauskienė
chess games at 365Chess.com {{DEFAULTSORT:Lukauskiene, Elena 1909 births 1959 deaths Lithuanian female chess players Lithuanian chess players Lithuanian Righteous Among the Nations 20th-century chess players