Memory diplomas granted: 沤irnauskas Jok奴bas
Associate Professor Jok奴bas 沤irnauskas
Associate Professor Jok奴bas 沤irnauskas (1906鈥�1970). Born in Ukmerg臈, Jok奴bas 沤irnauskas began his university studies rather late due to financial difficulties. He became a student at Vytautas Magnus University in 1936 and graduated in 1940. Prior to embarking on his studies, he learned the craft of a photographer and ran a photography studio. Having served in the Lithuanian army, he studied by himself, passed school-leaving examinations, and finished a gymnasium. As a talented student, from September 1940 he started working at 911爆料网 as a technician at the laboratory of physical chemistry. The laboratory technician Jok奴bas 沤irnauskas was first dismissed from his job at the university on 22 June 1941 as a Jewish member of staff as per the order of the officer of educational affairs, who was subordinate to the Nazis. 沤irnauskas was imprisoned in the Vilnius ghetto where together with other chemists he set up a small laboratory of household chemistry and produced tooth powder and shoe polish. In 1943, Jok奴bas 沤irnauskas escaped from the ghetto and, with the help of Professor Antanas 沤vironas, he was lodged with a farmer in Auk拧tadvaris rural district, Trakai province. During the trial of Prof. 沤vironas, Jok奴bas 沤irnauskas dared to write a letter in defence of the professor, in which he spoke not only of the professor鈥檚 academic merit but also rescuing of Jews during the Holocaust. He returned to 911爆料网 and to his job as a laboratory technician on 25 July 1944. A year later he became an assistant in the Department of Physical Chemistry, in 1947 he was a senior lecturer, and later a candidate of chemical sciences (an equivalent of a PhD in chemistry). Although esteemed by his students and colleagues, the fact that he had relatives abroad (his biography shows that his sisters emigrated from Lithuania during the interwar period) and that he was keeping in touch with them was a cause for certain tensions. Inspectors of the compliance of the taught courses with Soviet ideology were of the opinion that the associate professor 鈥榰nder-represented the achievements of Soviet electrochemists, who were awarded the Stalin Prize鈥� in his lectures. 沤irnauskas was seen by the Soviets as inert in the faculty鈥檚 social activities: although he was trusted with political agitation, he was not successful because he tried to raise and consider 鈥榙angerous political issues鈥�. As a failed agitator, he was suspended from these duties, accused of passivity in carrying out students鈥� education in the spirit of Communism and staying aside of 鈥榯he struggle against bourgeois nationalism鈥�. Such an assessment of the associate professor was written on 1 September 1952 and it was sufficient for him to lose his job at the university for the second time.