Petronėlė Lastienė

Petronėlė Lastienė
Born
Petronėlė Sirutytė

(1897-08-09)9 August 1897
Died29 November 1981(1981-11-29) (aged 84)
Alma materPoltoratskaya's Higher Courses for Women
University of Kaunas
OccupationsTeacher, university lecturer
EmployerKaunas Polytechnic Institute
SpouseAdomas Lastas
AwardsRighteous Among the Nations

Petronėlė Lastienė née Sirutytė (9 August 1897 – 29 November 1981) was a Lithuanian teacher and university professor. She was recognized as one of the Righteous Among the Nations for rescuing Jewish children from the Kaunas Ghetto during the Holocaust.

During World War I, Lastienė worked as a nurse with the 10th Army. During the interwar period, she worked as a teacher and edited a journal for girl scouts. In 1946, she was arrested for an anti-Soviet memorandum addressed to Western powers and sentenced to eight years in Gulag. She returned to Lithuania in 1953 and was able to get a job teaching Russian language at the Kaunas Polytechnic Institute until her retirement in 1963.