Janina Bižienė was born in 1921. She lived with her husband Juozas Bižys in Radvilioniai village in the Veisiejai area.

In 1943 the Bižys family became involved in rescuing the children of the Fridkauskas family who had escaped from the Kaunas ghetto.

The Fridkauskas family came from Kapčiamiestis, where before the war they owned a shop visited by many residents of the surrounding villages. Three of the family's children – Sara, Liza (Lea) and Ben Cion – were imprisoned in the Kaunas ghetto during the war. In 1943 they managed to escape and, with the help of a Lithuanian cart driver, reached the area around their native Kapčiamiestis.

At first the fugitives were hidden by the Žarnauskas family in Barčiai village. Later, when the police began searching for them, the Levulys family joined the rescue effort. Albina Levulienė arranged with her brother Juozas Bižys for the Bižys family to take in Sara Fridkauskaitė.

Juozas managed to obtain forged documents for Sara under a Russian surname. With this identity she could live without remaining in hiding and even work as a hired farmhand. Later Liza (Lea) Fridkauskaitė also moved into the home of Juozas and Janina Bižys. She remained there until the persecution of Jews ended in 1944.

The rescue took place in a rural community where the arrival of a stranger could easily be noticed, and helping Jews endangered not only the rescuers but their families as well. The Bižys home became one of several interconnected places of refuge that enabled the Fridkauskas children to survive.