Boris Lozhkin - The Righteous People of My City

The “Righteous of My City” project, launched by the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine, is continuously expanding. In the village of Blagodatnoe in the Dnipropetrovsk region (this village is leading by the number of streets renamed after the Righteous who saved Jews from the Nazis) one of the streets was renamed in honour of the Zirchenko family.

Due to the courage and resourcefulness of Pavel Zirchenko and his son Mikhail, 32 Jews were able to escape death in the bloody horror of the Holocaust.

Here is their story.

In 1941 a group of Jews from Yenakiyevo, fleeing from the Nazis, moved to the outskirts of Rostov-on-Don. A year later, when Rostov was occupied, they hid in the villages in the South-East of Ukraine, without settling anywhere for long. In the winter of 1942, a group led by Matvey Gontov ended up in the village of Blagodatnoe, Dnipropetrovsk region, where Pavel Zirchenko worked as an accountant at a local collective farm.

The people of Blagodatnoe village provided shelter in their homes to these exhausted and starving people. Pavel Zirchenko delivered to them several sacks of flour and vegetables from the collective farm. Due to their actions, none of the Jews who had sought refuge in their village died of starvation that winter.

Pavel’s 16-year-old son, Mikhail, a former art school student, made a fake seal with which Pavel forged documents for Matvey Gontov and his dependents. This allowed the Jews to “legally” work in the field along with the other villagers.

Under the protection of Pavel, these Jews survived in Blagodatnoe until the liberation of the village in October 1943.

On November 16, 2004 the Yad Vashem World Holocaust Center in Jerusalem awarded Pavel and Mikhail Zirchenko the honorary title “Righteous Among the Nations of the World”.

Find out more about The Righteous People of My City.

By Boris Lozhkin

Join me, Boris Lozhkin, on Twitter @lozhkin_boris.

Follow me, Boris Lozhkin, on Facebook for updates on the Righteous of My City.

Find out more about me and the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine here.