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RIGHTEOUS
AMONG THE NATIONS
 Tkuma
Center Museum Archive contains a number of materials concerning “Righteous
among the Nations”. This honorary title is given to the people of different
nations who rescued Jews during WWII (1939-1945). The procedure is monitored by
the special committee, established at the Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes'
Remembrance Authority Yad Vashem in Jerusalem. Among the materials one may find
the tremendous heroic story of Lidia Kotliarevskaya, who rescued Jews during
Nazi occupation in Dnipropetrovsk.
Lidia
Kotliarevskaya has been involved in Yuriy Savchenko’s underground organization as
well as worked as a nurse in German hospital. She carried out her underground activity
jointly with Boris Sondak who was hiding in her flat. During Dnipropetrovsk
occupation L. Kotliarevskaya sheltered in her house Jewish family: Tatiana
Rabovskaya with her sons Viktor and Nikolay. When the city has been occupied, Tatiana
Rabovskaya with children tried to avoid bombing in entrenchments. Lidia
Kotliarevskaya also hid there with her little daughter Aleksandra. Lidia
offered Tatiana to stay in her house. Little children Viktor and Aleksandra were
taken care by Nikolay, Lidia’s mother Elena and her husband A. Verivskiy.
In
November 2002 Yad Vashem has notified L. Kotliarevskaya that she was given
honorary title of Righteous among the Nations for helping Jewish nation during
WW II.
 Delivering
the documents to the future Holocaust History Museum Lidia Kotliarevskaya paid
our attention to the fact that in1912 her grandparents Emeljan and Tatiana Khodosenko
have rescued the Leikins Jewish family from pogroms, happening in
Ekaterinoslav. She has told us the following: “In 1912 my grandparents lived in
Torgovaya Street in the neighbourhood with the big Jewish family of Leikins. When
the pogroms had begun, Sara Leikina rushed into my grandmother’s house and begged
for hiding her family. My grandmother hid them in the cellar located under the
kitchen. The Leikins family had sheltered in Khodosenko’s house until the pogroms
finished and Black-Hundreders left the streets”. “But the story had its
continuation, – Lidia kept on telling. – In December, 1941 an old man came to our
house on Karl Marks St., 149. He was scared and trembling. When I gave him a
cup of tea he broke into crying and said to my mother in a low voice: “Elichka,
your mother rescued my family when Black-Hundreders were committing pogroms. I
remembered this the day before when police officers took away our documents and
forbade go out”. Lidia clearly remembers this episode. Unfortunately, nobody
knows what has happened with the man and his family.”
Having stayed
on the occupied territory, Lidia Kotliarevskaya set the task to rescue people
and did her best to fulfill it. But Lidia suffered irreplaceable losses which
cannot be forgotten till the end of her life.
 Her
husband, Aleksandr Kotliarevskiy, was killed in the beginning of the war. Her
father-in-law, Andrei Verivskiy, had participated in Yuriy Savchenko’s
underground city organization and was hung by Nazis before they left the city. Her
mother - Elena Verivskaya (Khodosenko) had been tortured in Gestapo, when Nazis
learnt what Lidia Kotliarevskaya was doing. After the tortures she had been
thrown into the ditch, but she accidentally survived. Lidia’s school friend
Esfir Padkina was shot down together with her parents during Jews mass killing
on October 13-14th,
1941
in Botanical Gardern. Her brother-in-underground Brois
Sondak was exterminated in the same place…
But in
spite of those horrible events Lidia Kotliarevskaya remembers everything that
has been done for the sake of people’s lives.
Alla
Farimets,
Tkuma Center Museum Programs Coordinator
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