Sara Ginaite-Rubinson (17 March 1924 – 2 April 2018) was a Jewish Lithuanian-born Canadian author and academic. During the

Second World War 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 opposi ...

she was a resistance fighter during the

Nazi occupation of Lithuania The military occupation of Lithuania by Nazi Germany lasted from the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 to the end of the Battle of Memel on January 28, 1945. At first the Germans were widely welcomed as liberators from the re ...

, becoming a Jewish partisan in 1942.

Biography

Born in Kaunas on 17 March 1924, Ginaite was brought up in an affluent family. Her father, Yosef Ginas, was an engineer who had graduated in France while her mother, Rebecca Virovitch, had matriculated from a Polish high-school. She was about to complete her secondary school education when Germany invaded Lithuania in 1941. After three of her uncles had been killed in the Kaunas pogrom, she was imprisoned with the surviving members of her family in 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 ...

. While there, she joined the Anti-Fascist Fighting Organization, a resistance group. Together with Misha Rubinson, whom she married, she escaped in the winter of 1943–44, establishing a partisan military unit "Death to the Occupiers". She twice returned to the ghetto helping others to escape. In 1944, she and her husband participated in the liberation of the ghettos in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ; see also other names) is the capital and largest city of Lithuania, with a population of 592,389 (according to the state register) or 625,107 (according to the municipality of Vilnius). The population of Vilnius's functional urb ...

and Kaunas although most of the Jews had been killed. From her own family, the only survivors were her sister and a niece. She became a professor of political economics at

Vilnius University Vilnius University ( lt, Vilniaus universitetas) is a public research university, oldest in the Baltic states and in Northern Europe outside the United Kingdom (or 6th overall following foundations of Oxford, Cambridge, St. Andrews, Glasgow and ...

. Her husband died in 1977 and in 1983 she moved to Canada, joining her two daughters Anya and Tanya. She became an adjunct professor at York University, and lectured in the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Israel on

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 opposing ...

history and social science. In 2013 she delivered a lecture entitled “History and Personal Memory: The Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania" at a University of Toronto symposium. Ginaite's award-winning book ''Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas, 1941–1944'' was translated into English and published in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the anch ...

. She died at her home on April 2, 2018 at the age of 94; her Yahrtzeit date is 17 Nissan.

Publications

¨* Many books by Ginaite have also been published in Lithuanian.

Awards

Her book ''Resistance and Survival: The Jewish Community in Kaunas, 1941–1944'' won the

Canadian Jewish Book Award The Helen and Stan Vine Canadian Jewish Book Awards were a Canadian program of literary awards, managed, produced and presented annually by the Koffler Centre of the Arts to works judged to be the year's best works of literature by Jewish Canadian ...

for Holocaust History in 2006.

References

External links

Photograph of Sara Ginaite from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

BBC Witness interview with Sara Ginaite, Lithuanian Jewish Partisan

PDF of Ginaite's 2013 talk "History and Personal Memory: The Beginning of the Holocaust in Lithuania"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Ginaite, Sara 1924 births 2018 deaths Canadian women academics Jewish female partisans Lithuanian Jews Writers from Kaunas Soviet emigrants to Canada Academic staff of Vilnius University Kovno Ghetto inmates 20th-century Canadian women writers Jewish women writers