Hrokholsky Kostiantyn and Paraska

Kostiantyn and Paraska Hrokholsky lived in the farm near the village of Volosha, Rivne region. According to the memories of descendants, in particular son Oleksandr, they were brought in the spirit of humanness, ready to help anyone who needed help regardless of their age, gender or ethnic origin. In the autumn of 1942, they saved the Jewish girls Sonia (Sofia) Viner and Maria Berger, risking their lives.

They escaped from the group of the Jews who were taken to the area of Kostopil for being shot dead. This was one of the mass extermination actions against the Jewish population in the Rivne region during the Nazi occupation. The region took a special place in the Nazi administrative structure: in the city of Rowno, now Rivne, instead of Kyiv, the Nazis decided to establish the administrative center of the Reichskommissariat “Ukraine”. The administration of the Reichskommissar Erich Koch and the main offices of all bodies of the occupation authorities functioned there. That is why the Nazis paid close attention to the “Jewish question” in the Rivne region.

Before the war, nearly 23,000 Jews lived in the city. Their numerous communities also lived in the settlements of the region, sometimes reaching half of the general population there.

Until September 1941, Rowno and the outskirts were ruled by the military administration. After the Nazi civil administration was established, the pressure on the Jewish population increased: the Jews had to wear the marks on the clothes, they were forced to do hard work.

In December 1941, in Rowno, the towns of Stepan, Berezne and many other settlements of the region, the ghettos were established. According to the decree of the administration, the “Jewish council” (“Judenrat”) and the Jewish police were formed there. The ghetto prisoners, who, in the opinion of the occupiers, were incapable of working, were executed.

One of the sites of the mass murders of the Jews was the forest between the cities of Rowno and Kostopil, where the captured Soviet soldiers dug the trenches previously.

Sonia and Maria had to be victims of one of the shootings. In August 1942, together with the other prisoners of the Stepan ghetto, they were taken for extermination and went along the road to Kostopil. The girls escaped to the forest. There they separated for some time: Sonia stayed in the forest while Maria went to the town of Stepan, hoping to find shelter at her friends. However, she was caught by local police on the road. They brutally beat and raped the girl and left to die under the bridge.

Maria was nearly dead when the member of the local Baptist community Hordii Bahnii found her. Thinking she was dead, he decided to bury her. When he found that the girl was alive, he took her home, provided with first medical assistance and let her recover after the horror she experienced. However, she did not stay in the house of Bahnii for a long time: probably, the house owner decided not to put himself and his family under danger, so the escapee was hiding in the forest again.

She stayed there until the winter of 1943. Maria had little chance to survive having no warm clothes and food, as well as without possibility to burn fire. That is why, in one evening she decided to take a risk and come to the farm near Voloshyn, where she knocked on the door of the Hrokholsky family. By this time, Sofia Viner had been already hiding at Paraska and Kostiantyn.

At the Hrokholsky family, the girls felt relatively safe: the family lived distantly from the neighbors and rarely welcomed guests. However, the danger still existed, that is why Kostiantyn and Paraska followed some conspiracy rules. During the day Sonia and Maria were in the attic of the shed, in the straw, and came to the house only after dark. The son of the couple Oleksandr brought food for the girls. They developed special signals with the escapees: coming into the shed with food, the boy whistled several times and then climbed upstairs. The girls knew that if they heard the steps without whistle, some stranger was in the shed and they needed to hide in the straw immediately.

In the summer of 1943, they separated again: Sofia learned about the partisans in the forest and decided to join the unit. Maria stayed with the Hrokholsky family. Once, this decision nearly cost her life. The raids and searches of the houses by the auxiliary police started. During one of them Maria was in the house. Having no opportunity to take the girl to the safe place, Kostiantyn hid her in the barrel, covering her with the grain. Maria nearly died of asphyxia, waiting for the policemen and German soldiers to leave. They beat Kostiantyn with the cleaning rod, asking about the Jews in the house. Despite the pain, the man did not say anything about Maria. Then one of the policemen pierced the barrel with his bayonet. The weapon cut the girl’s shoulder, but the wound was not dangerous. However, after the horror she suffered, the girl decided to leave her saviors.

Then the contradiction appears in the story of Maria Berger. Therefore, according to one version, she left the house of Hrokholsky the same day and went to the forest to find protection among  the partisans, where she stayed until the expulsion of the Nazis from the region. According to Oleksandr, the son of the Grokholsky family, Maria was sick and Kostiantyn built the dugout for her in the forest, where she hid until 1944. Learning about the advance of the Red Army, the girl asked her savior to take her to the troops.

After the war, the Hrokholsky family restored contacts with Sonia and Maria. Sonia went to Western Germany, and then to Australia. Maria lived in Kursk, migrated to Israel and then to the USA. She did not forget their rescuers.

On November 3, 2009, Kostiantyn and Paraska Hrokholsky were posthumously recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations.