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

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

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

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, 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, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

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 is a chess match played to determine the Women's World Chess Champion. It has been administered by FIDE since its inception in 1927, unlike the absolute World Chess Championship, which only came under FIDE's ...

(1939). For saving two Jewish children during

the Holocaust in Lithuania The Holocaust resulted in the near total eradication of Lithuanian Jews, Lithuanian (Litvaks) and History of the Jews in Poland, Polish Jews in ''Generalbezirk Litauen'' of the ''Reichskommissariat Ostland'' in the Occupation of Lithuania by Na ...

, she was recognized as the

Righteous Among the Nations Righteous Among the Nations ( ) is a title used by Yad Vashem to describe people who, for various reasons, made an effort to assist victims, mostly Jews, who were being persecuted and exterminated by Nazi Germany, Fascist Romania, Fascist Italy, ...

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, controlled by the government of the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires, is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Argentina. It is located on the southwest of the Río de la Plata. Buenos Aires is classified as an Alpha− glob ...

and took 18th place (tournament was won by

Vera Menchik Vera Francevna Mencikova (, ''Vera Frantsevna Menchik''; ; 16 February 1906 – 26 June 1944), was a Russian-born Czechoslovak chess player who primarily resided in England. She was the first and longest-reigning Women's World Chess Champ ...

). After

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

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

Lithuanian SSR The Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic (Lithuanian SSR; ; ), also known as Soviet Lithuania or simply Lithuania, was '' de facto'' one of the constituent republics of the Soviet Union between 1940–1941 and 1944–1990. After 1946, its terr ...

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 which is 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 one-time use. Li ...

operator. He died in the liquidation of the Kovno Ghetto, 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-an ...

. 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 (; ) is Israel's official memorial institution to the victims of Holocaust, the Holocaust known in Hebrew language, Hebrew as the (). It is dedicated to preserving the memory of the Jews who were murdered; echoing the stories of the ...

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