Anna Ran lived in Vilnius with her parents and brother. In 1941 the Jewish family had to move into the ghetto, and Anna Ran had to perform forced labor outside the ghetto. In 1943 she met an old acquaintance on her way to the ghetto, Juozas Rutkauskas. The civil servant forged identity papers for Jews. Rutkauskas asked Ran for her support. She forged contacts to ghetto inmates for him and smuggled papers into the ghetto.
Shortly before the ghetto was evacuated, Ruthauskas gave her his daughter’s identity card. Rutkauskas had reported it stolen. Using the name Margarita Rutkauskaitė, Ran reported to the staff of Reich Leader Alfred Rosenberg in Minsk. Since she spoke fluent German, she was given a job as a translator. She was also making contact to Belorussian partisans at the time.
Rutkauskas was arrested in 1944, which threatened to unmask Ran. She fled Minsk and survived the war with the help of partisans. She was the only person in her family to survive.
Anna Ran (right) with her parents Grigory and Revekka and her younger brother Aleksandr, Jonava, 1937. Source: Vilniaus Gaono Žydų Istorijos Muziejus
