On Lithuania’s Independence Day, we remember declarations, battles, and political leaders. Yet independence was not achieved only through diplomacy or armies. It was built in towns, in classrooms, and in the shared efforts of citizens who believed Lithuania could become a democratic state belonging to all who lived within it.
One such place was Ukmergė.
In 1919, during Lithuania’s Wars of Independence, the country’s future was still uncertain and contested. Borders were not secure, and the young state was still fighting for survival. In this atmosphere, civic
life mattered as much as military defense. That summer, local leaders in Ukmergė founded the Ukmergės Aido draugija—the Aidas Society—to promote civic consciousness and spread the idea of an independent Lithuania with Vilnius as its capital.
The society organized Lithuanian language courses, educational meetings, and cultural events meant to strengthen democratic participation. From the start, it understood that Lithuania’s future depended on cooperation between communities. On September 7, 1919, the society convened a public meeting to address Jewish–Lithuanian relations. Around five hundred people gathered, and after long discussion the assembly adopted a resolution declaring:
“We, Jews and Lithuanians, having gathered (…) to discuss Jewish-Lithuanian relations, have decided to work for the benefit of an independent Lithuania and defend it from all enemies. And at the same time, we demand that the government implement the laws of democracy in its work.”
(Lithuanian Farmer, 1919-09-14, No. 28, p. 3)
Many of those involved in the society were themselves connected to the military effort, and some members were serving as soldiers in Lithuania’s forces during the independence wars. The civic and military struggle for the state were inseparable in these years.
This moment reflected something essential about Lithuania’s founding: independence was envisioned as a shared civic project.
Among the society’s founders was Jurgis Kubilius, who had already played a significant role in the creation of Lithuania’s armed forces shortly before
the society was established. From November 1918 he served as Chief of Staff of the Ministry of National Defense, and on November 23, 1918, he signed Order No. 1, which formally initiated the creation of the Lithuanian army. He later served as Deputy Head of National Defense, representing a generation of officers who helped organize Lithuania’s military structures during the state’s earliest and most uncertain months.
Another founder, Elvyra Budreikaitė, stands out for a different reason: she was the only woman among the founders. Remarkably, she was still a teenager at the time, part of a generation of young Lithuanians who were not waiting for the state to be built for them, but helping to build it themselves. Her participation reminds us that Lithuania’s independence was not only defended on battlefields but also built through civic organization, education, and local leadership.
These same years saw many Lithuanian Jews actively participating in the life of the new state. During the continuing Independence Wars, Elvyra’s future husband, Jacob Gens, joined Lithuania’s army as a young man and served the republic while its survival was still being fought for on multiple fronts. Like many of his generation, he seized the opportunity to fight for Lithuania’s independence, shaped in part by the persecution he had experienced as a Jew under the Russian Empire during the First World War years.
He was one of many young citizens who took part in Lithuania’s struggle for survival, belonging to a generation of Jewish Lithuanians who saw themselves as active participants in the country’s civic and military life, contributing in different ways to the building and defense of the new state.
In this environment of civic responsibility and national struggle, Jacob Gens and Elvyra Budreikaitė raised their daughter Ada in the Lithuania that had emerged from the wars of 1918–1923—a country still fragile, but shaped by the belief that democracy required participation from all its citizens.
That world would not last.
During the German occupation and the destruction of Jewish life in Lithuania, the ideals of the independence generation were tested under the most extreme conditions. Elvyra and her sister Bronė Budreikaitė helped save Jews from persecution, acting at great personal risk. For her efforts, Bronė Budreikaitė was later awarded Lithuania’s Life Saving Cross and recognized by Israel’s Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations. Their actions reflected the continuation of the same civic and moral commitments that had shaped their lives in the independence years: responsibility toward others, belief in human dignity, and the obligation to act when those principles were threatened.
For Ada, these events were not distant history. As a teenager, she experienced persecution firsthand and witnessed the reality of the Vilna Ghetto alongside her father and the Jewish half of her family. At an age when most young people are only beginning to understand the world, she saw the collapse of the civic society in which she had grown up and the suffering of those around her. The contrast between
the democratic Lithuania of her childhood and the brutality she witnessed left a lasting mark on her life. Rather than turning away from public responsibility, those experiences strengthened her determination to protect others from the kinds of injustice and persecution she had survived.
After the war, Ada carried that determination into her work with displaced persons in postwar Germany, helping survivors and refugees rebuild their lives in the immediate aftermath of catastrophe. Later, in the United States, she continued a life of public service—working with immigrants, assisting governmental institutions, and serving as an interpreter for U.S. government officials both in the United States and in the Baltic region, helping facilitate communication connected to Lithuanian and broader Baltic independence efforts. Her life demonstrates how the democratic ideals of Lithuania’s first republic survived not only in political institutions, but in the people shaped by them.
As the United States approaches the 250th anniversary of its own independence, Ada’s life also reflects the deep connection between Lithuania and America. The United States became a place where survivors and refugees could rebuild their lives, and Lithuanian immigrants in turn contributed to American civic life. Through people like Ada, the democratic traditions of Lithuania and the United States became linked—not only through diplomacy, but through shared commitments to civil society, public service, and human dignity.
Today, the civic world of 1919 cannot be restored, and the communities destroyed during the war cannot be replaced. But their legacy can be remembered. The story of Ukmergė, of civic organizers like Elvyra Budreikaitė, soldiers like Jurgis Kubilius and Jacob Gens, rescuers like Bronė Budreikaitė, and survivors like Ada, reminds us that Lithuania’s independence has always been more than a political achievement. It has been a shared democratic effort shaped by people who believed in responsibility toward one another.
On this Lithuanian Independence Day, and as America approaches its own historic anniversary, that shared effort is worth remembering.
Today, the work of remembering and reconnecting these histories continues through initiatives such as the Gens Family Project, which seeks to preserve the stories of Lithuania’s Jewish citizens and their role in the country’s civic life. By documenting personal histories, supporting research, and building educational resources, such efforts help ensure that the shared democratic legacy of Lithuania’s past remains part of its future.
General Nagevičius speaks at the Jewish cemetery in honor of the fallen soldiers in Kaunas, 1928. Photo Credit: E-Kinas. 
Act of Independence of Lithuania. 
From left to right: Jacob, Elvyra, Bronė, and Ada. 
Ada working with displaced persons after the war. 
Present day mural in Kaunas of Rosian Zerner and her mother, who Bronė is credited with saving from the Kovno Ghetto. 
Photograph of Bronė with both awards.