Stanislovas and Stanislava Burba lived in Vydmantai village near Varniai in the Telšiai region, where they worked a 17-hectare farm. Both came from exceptionally large families: one had ten children, the other twelve. Three of Stanislovas’s brothers emigrated to America before the war. The Burbas had no children of their own, but from 1936 raised Birutė, the orphaned daughter of deceased neighbours.

The Burbas knew their neighbours Šlioma and Estera Kacas, who had fourteen children. At the beginning of the German occupation, Chana, Feiga, Ita and Šolomas Kacas and their niece Sara Buchaitė were caught up in persecution. On 24 December 1941, on the eve of the liquidation of the Telšiai ghetto, Feiga, her sisters and their niece escaped and sought help in their home village. The Burbas took in eighteen-year-old Feiga. Because everyone in the village knew her, a hiding place was made beneath the kitchen floor. As rumours spread about surviving Kacas children, the homestead was searched repeatedly. When police began making threats, Stanislovas temporarily moved Feiga to his friend Jonas Budginas. She hid in the hayloft there, and her hosts regularly brought warm bricks to keep her from freezing. When the danger subsided, she returned to the Burbas. On their advice, she was baptized: priest Juozas Gasiūnas issued a baptism certificate in the name of Zita. Feiga’s recollections state that the Burbas also became her godparents.

Zita helped Stanislava with housework, played with Birutė and sometimes went to Mass with them, but still hid whenever the police arrived.

When the Nazi occupation ended in October 1944, Zita stayed with her rescuers. After marrying, she became Zita Sabaliauskienė. She regarded the Burbas as her second parents, and she and Stanislava remained in contact for the rest of their lives. The Burbas spoke little about the war years, often remaining silent or ignoring questions. Their land was nationalized after the war, but they remained attached to farming: even while living in Varniai, they kept a cow, pigs and chickens. Relatives remembered them as simple, hardworking people who loved their region and land.

The family preserved an unusual memory about Stanislava’s documents: through an error, they recorded the male name Stanislovas instead of Stanislava. According to relatives, this mistake prevented the Soviet authorities from finding her. It remained even at her wedding, when confirmation from several witnesses was sufficient, and was corrected only when documents were prepared for her recognition as Righteous Among the Nations.

On 14 January 2007, Yad Vashem recognized Stanislava and Stanislovas Burba as Righteous Among the Nations.