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The municipality of the capital of Lithuania decided to honour the memory of the Righteous among the Nations by naming new Vilnius streets.

As of January 2013, 831 persons in Lithuania were recognized as the Righteous among the Nations.  Among the Lithuanian citizens who during the Second World War rescued their Jewish countrymen was Ona Šimaitė, a librarian in Vilnius University, who took advantage of her freedom of movement into the Jewish ghetto, ostensibly to retrieve books loaned to Jews before the war, as a pretext to secure valuable literary works by Jewish authors. She also looked after Jews in hiding them outside the ghetto. Arrested during an attempt to smuggle a Jewish girl outside the ghetto, she was tortured and sent to a concentration camp. She survived.

To leave a lasting memory of the bravery of our compatriots, new square in Vilnius Verkiai area will be called “the Righteous among the Nations square” and a street nearby will be called “Ona Šimaitė street”.

Ambassador of Lithuania Asta Skaisgirytė Liauškienė commented that “the historical importance of this decision taken by the Vilnius municipality council cannot be underestimated or overlooked.  This is yet another reminder of the continuous need to honour those who rescued their compatriots and to present the history of Lithuania to the wider public and especially to the younger generations”. 

On 4 April 2013, during the meeting with representatives of world litvaks gathered in Vilnius for the traditional “March of Life”, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Lithuania Linas Linkevičius said: “Such cooperation is indeed the best monument to the Holocaust victims and provides a firm foundation for the future”.  He further stressed the need to cultivate links with the Jewish organisations in Lithuania and the Lithuanian Jewish diaspora worldwide in our common aim to fight any manifestations of anti-semitism, old prejudice and myths.