Yitzak Malkinson’s stepdaughter Esther survived the massacre of the Shkud Jewish community. Aaron Malkinson recalls,  “My late brother’s daughter, Ester, was saved by a Gentile school friend, and with the consent of the girl’s father was hidden in an attic where she lived for two years” (“My Shtetl Shkud” 21; see link on this page).

Yad Vashem’s “Righteous” database provides this information on Esther Zelikovich Malkinson and her rescuers:
“Stasys Žukauskas, the former teacher at the Lithuanian gymnasium in Skuodas, Kretinga County, lived with his daughter, Stasė Jankienė, and her husband, Augustinas Jankus, in the village of Gintalaičiai. In December 1943, Stasė’s former classmate Esther Zelikovich appeared on their doorstep and appealed for shelter. Originally from Skuodas, Zelikovich had escaped from the Šiauliai ghetto in October 1943, and had wandered around the rural villages, until she arrived on the outskirts of Gintalaičiai, and remembered her friend Stasė. She was warmly received in Žukauskas’s home, but because it had many people staying there, they decided to look for another place of shelter for her. They found a hiding place for Zelikovich with a neighboring peasant couple, who agreed to give her shelter in exchange for two sheep that Žukauskas gave them. Zelikovich stayed there for only a short time and then she returned to the home of Žukauskas and the Jankuses, where they kept her hidden in the attic, until the Red Army arrived in the area. Zelikovich (later Sharvit) left Lithuania, and set out for Eretz Israel, arriving in September 1945. She lost contact with her Lithuania rescuers until 1990, when she managed to reconnect. Žukauskas had died in 1945, and the Jankuses had been exiled to Siberia, until they were allowed to return to their village in the 1950s. On November 13, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Stasys Žukauskas, Stasė Jankienė, and Augustinas Jankus as Righteous Among the Nations” (http://db.yadvashem.org/righteous/righteousName.html?language=en&itemId=4037053).