We did not choose the May exhibit by chance. It is this month that Ukraine celebrates the Day of Remembrance of Ukrainians who saved lives during World War II: the Righteous Among the Nations1, as well as those who, due to various circumstances, were never awarded this honorary title.
The subject of our conversation is the medal “Righteous Among the Nations” of Vasyl and Maria Zubkov, presented in the permanent exhibition of the Museum. A simple family from Dnipropetrovsk (Dnipro), who, risking their own lives, saved the Jewish girl Nellie Gordon (Tsypina).
Nellie Gordon was born in 1932 in the city of Horlivka, Stalin (Donetsk) region, to a family of a mining rescue engineer, Lev Mendelevich, and a housewife, Zinaida Borisovna Gordon. Three years later, Nellie had a brother, Emmanuel.
After finishing first grade, Nelly was on vacation in Dnepropetrovsk with her grandfather Boris Hershkovich Frumin and aunt Rozalia Borisovna. They lived on Dzerzhinsky Street (now Vernadsky Street). And together with them, the girl ended up in the Nazi-occupied city.
On October 12, 1941, the family, together with other Jews of the city, walked in a column that was led from Karl Marx Avenue (now Dmytro Yavornytsky Avenue) to a deep ravine on the territory of the Botanical Garden's forest nursery. Soon, long machine-gun bursts were heard from the ravine. The executions lasted for two days. At the end of the second day, the family approached the edge of the ravine. It so happened that a moment before the shots, Nellie fell to the ground. She managed to escape.…
The Zubkovs were approached by their neighbor with a request to provide shelter to a 9-year-old girl, Nellie Gordon, who was left alone after the death of her aunt and grandfather a week earlier. The childless Zubkovs agreed.
After the liberation, Jewish families began to return to Dnipropetrovsk. Doctor Chegrynska learned about the fate of Nellie Gordon and decided to look for her relatives. Finally, on March 16, 1945, Nellie's father came to pick her up. The family was reunited.
Over time, Tsypina Nelly Lvivna petitioned for the Zubkovs to be awarded the honorary title “Righteous Among the Nations.” It was awarded to them posthumously in November 1998.
In Dnipro, in 2019, a street in the Sobornyi district (formerly Yasna Street) was named in honor of the Righteous Zubkov family.
You can learn more about the feat of the Zubkov family and the history of other Righteous Ones of the Dnipropetrovsk region:
- from the book “Those Who Restore Faith in Man”: Righteous Among the Nations of the World of the Dnipropetrovsk Region / edited by I. Ya. Shchupak. Dnipro: Tkuma Institute; PP “Lira LTD”. 2019. 108 p.;
- from the documentary film by Y. Tytarenko “The Righteous”
1. More information about the title, as well as the criteria for its award, can be found on the official website of the Yad Vashem National Memorial.