By analysing the action of a beamsplitter on squeezed vacuum states (SVSs), it is found that, if the two inputlight beams of the beamsplitter have the same squeezing amplitude and phase, the output state is a two-modeSVS. If the two input light beams of the beamsplitter have the same squeezing amplitude but a phase difference ofπ, the output state is a direct product state of two single-mode SVSs. Based on these results, we propose to distilla maximally entangled SVS from a partially entangled SVS by using a 50/50 beamsplitter and photodetectors.