Marijona Bagurskienė lived with her husband Juozas and their children in Mikalinava, near Kaunas. The family farmed and ran a small shop. The Bagurskas family raised daughters Danutė and Aldutė and a disabled son, Vytautas.

The Bagurskas family were religious. Maksimas Broeris remembered an interesting detail of life in their home: at set times the family members prayed together, but they did not force the Jewish boy they were hiding to pray.

In 1944 three-year-old Maksimas Broeris arrived at the Bagurskas home. He had been born on 1 January 1941 in Kaunas. His mother Roza (Reizel) Ring came from Pabradė and his father Šlomas (Šleimė) Broeris from Šiauliai. Both were tailors. During the German occupation the family was confined in the Kaunas ghetto.

After people willing to hide the boy had been found, a guard at the ghetto fence was bribed and Maksimas was carried out of the ghetto in a sack of potatoes. He was entrusted to the Bagurskas family.

In Marijona's home Maksimas became like another child of the family. At first he spoke mostly Yiddish, but quickly learned Lithuanian. To protect him, Maksimas was baptised and given the name Albinas Bagurskas.

Maksimas's recollections reveal Marijona not only as a rescuer of Jews but also as a person. She taught the boy always to tell the truth and explained that God saw and heard everything. This prompted the entirely natural question from the child: how could God see and hear them from so far away? Although Marijona herself was religious, she did not force Maksimas, as a Jewish child, to pray.

As an adult Maksimas also remembered how he addressed his guardian: he called her Mrs Bagurskienė.

At the Bagurskas home Maksimas had to be hidden from outsiders. Sometimes he hid in the attic together with the family's disabled son Vytautas, who himself was avoiding possible deportation for forced labour in Germany.

As the Germans retreated from the Kaunas area, a match factory near the Bagurskas home was blown up. During bombing raids the family hid in a shelter dug in the garden. During one explosion Maksimas, frightened, remained near the house. The Bagurskas daughter Danutė ran out to get him and carried him back to the shelter.

In 1944 Maksimas's father returned and took his son from the Bagurskas family. The boy later entered a Jewish children's home, where he remembered there being too little food and inadequate heating. Marijona's care for Maksimas did not end there. She and her daughters came to the children's home and, when the children went out for walks, gave Maksimas more nourishing food. Maksimas testified that eventually he asked her not to come because the other children envied the food he received.

When Maksimas's mother returned from the Stutthof concentration camp, the Broeris family was reunited. Their relationship with the Bagurskas family nevertheless continued. Maksimas spent summer holidays at their home and worked alongside the Bagurskas children at everyday farm tasks, caring for the animals.

Maksimas also remembered Marijona's attitude toward Soviet rule. She was hostile to the Soviet regime and viewed Hitler and Stalin equally negatively. When Soviet rule returned, the Bagurskas family lost almost all of their property, although they were not deported to Siberia.

Many years later Maksimas asked the Bagurskas daughter Aldutė why her parents had taken him in despite risking their own family. Aldutė replied that their brother Vytautas was disabled, so in the future the farm would have needed a man able to work. Maksimas remembered being surprised by this simple answer. It was the daughter's later explanation of the family's decision and cannot be regarded as the sole motive behind Juozas and Marijona's choice.

Marijona Bagurskienė died in 1971. In 2019 Yad Vashem recognized Marijona and Juozas Bagurskas as Righteous Among the Nations, file no. 13907. Their awards were presented to relatives in Vilnius in 2022.