Yakovchuk Feodosiia and Olha, Martyntseva Motrona, Petruk Mariia

Feodosia Yakovchuk and her three daughters – 26-year-old Motrona, 19-year-old Olha and 16-year-old Mariia – lived in the village of Trostianets in Khmelnytskyi region. Befriended the Jewish family of Samuil and Bronia Piven, who moved to the village with little Feliks and Mariia on the eve of the war and were their neighbors.

During July 1–17, 1941, units of the 17th German Army occupied the region. The persecution of Jewish people began almost immediately. At the end of July, thousands of them were shot in the northern part of Khmelnytskyi. In March 1942, the Jews of the village of Trostianets began to relocate to the ghetto in the city of Slavuta. Bronia with her children, sisters and father ended up in the ghetto, and Samuil managed to hide in the house of the Yakovchuk family, later he joined the partisans.

Motrona and Olha Yakovchuk periodically visited their friend and her family in the ghetto and brought the food. Later, Bronia and her younger sister Olha Barats were transferred to a labor camp. On June 25, 1942, the Nazis shot about 2,500 inhabitants of the Slavuta ghetto. Among the victims were Bronia's children, sisters and father. The woman herself and her sister managed to escape from the camp and returned to the village. The Yakovchuk family sheltered the Jewish woman in their house. Feodosia and her daughters took care of the fugitives and helped them establish contact with the partisans. In this way, Bronia managed to find her husband and, together with him, as part of a partisan unit, wait for the expulsion of the Nazis from Khmelnytskyi in January 1944.

Throughout their lives, Bronia and Samuil maintained friendly relations with their saviors. Based on their testimony, in 1996 Yad Vashem recognized Feodosia Yakovchuk and her daughters Motrona, Olha and Mariia as Righteous Among the Nations.

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