Sisters of Saint Elizabeth in Lithuania: The First Twenty Years (1924-1944)

Abstract

The Sisters of Saint Elizabeth arrived in Lithuania in 1924. It was not easyfor the sisters coming from Karaliaučius to settle in Lithuania. They received help from Jesuit monks with ties to Germany, as well as from individual Lithuanian intellectuals and patrons. The sisters worked sincerely, and during the Nazi occupation, they risked their lives to save Jews. The Soviet occupation, the Nazi regime, and the later return of the Red Army with its inhumane atheistic ideology destroyed the established order. Some of the Elizabethan Sisters retreated to the West, while others remained underground, never abandoning their vocation. During the occupations, the sisters were persecuted, their activities restricted, and, as a new wave of Soviet occupation approached, their work went underground.