After the establishment of the Kaunas ghetto in 1941 In August, Sofija Binkienė, having received the approval of her husband, the famous Lithuanian writer Kazys Binkis, decided to help the Jews there. The Binkis’ home became a permanent refuge for many Jews, and it also served as a halfway house where people were encouraged and psychologically supported. Sofija and Kazys Binkis’ were helped by their daughters Lilijana (later Mozuriūnienė) and Irena Nacevičiutė (Sofija's daughter from her first marriage), as well as Kazys’s children from a previous marriage, Gerdas Binkis and Eleonora Binkytė. Vladas Varčikas, Liliana's fiancé at the time, also provided vital aid to the Jews. Since Varčikas was not a family member at the time, and his relatives were unknown to the neighbors of Binkis’s, they presented some Jews as Varčikas family members. At the age of thirteen, Goda Judelevich, who was given shelter in the Binkis’ home from 1942 to 1944, was introduced as Varčikas’s little sister. This rescue of Jews and continued support for the Jews of the ghetto was accompanied by many dangers, and although Binkis himself was already very ill at the time, his family members continued to help the Jews out of purely humanitarian reasons.

"...Whoever survived the German occupation understands what such a house meant to Jews, where you could come in the most difficult moments of life. For us, this was the house of "Aunt Zosia", which we jokingly called the Jewish hotel. There we found not only shelter, but and a warm atmosphere, a willingness to help, and this gave us courage and faith, which was extremely important in those years!

To this day, we cannot understand how Sofija Binkienė could feed so many hungry and outcasts with less than modest earnings. Once we found her sleeping on the floor because she had given her bed to a woman who had escaped from the ghetto that day.

Dear "Aunt Zosia" will always remain for us a representative of those brave and dedicated Lithuanians who were not afraid to challenge the Hitlerite executioners and became symbols of soldiers without weapons..."

Beba Šatenstein-Taborsky, Adina and Samuelis Segaliai, Raja Judelevičienė, Gita Judelevičiūtė, Margalit Stender-Lonke.

From the Israeli newspaper "Our country" 04/05/1984