Syvokhin Zinaida and Tetiana

Zinaida Syvokhina lived with her daughter Tetiana in the town of Berdychiv in the Zhytomyr region. Her husband died at the front in the first days of the German-Soviet war. Already on July 7, 1941, the Germans entered the district center. The first mass extermination of Jews took place on September 15. The next shooting was on November 3. The 2 thousand people were killed then. After that shooting, according to researchers, 226 Jewish artisans remained in the town of Berdychiv.

In the fall of 1941, two women, Vira Heltman and Nadia Ermes, rented an apartment opposite Zinaida Syvokhina's home. Both belonged to a local underground organization, were Jewish, but lived with false documents. Later, their apartment became a meeting place for underground members and partisans. Then Zinaida joined them. One day, one of the underground members brought Roza Motovylivska to the apartment and asked to hide her. Zinaida took the woman to her home. The situation in the city was tense, so after a few months, they decided to take Roza out of there. The fugitive reached Vinnytsia, but later Zinaida was told that she had been killed.

In the winter of 1942, Zinaida Syvokhina and her daughter took on the task of hiding 14-year-old Naum Epelfeld. Tetiana knew the boy well, having studied at the same school with him. His mother, sister, and grandmother were killed in November 1941, and his father, Asher, was hiding outside the city. Zinaida Syvokhina and her daughter took care of Naum until the end of the occupation. After the war, the boy was found by his father. Asher Epelfeld was grateful to the Ukrainian family for saving his son all his life.

In 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Zinaida Syvokhina and her daughter Tetiana as Righteous Among the Nations.

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