Doshchynskyi Zynovii and Felena

Zynovii Doshchynskyi lived with his wife Felena and daughter Evhenia in the village of Bronyky in Zhytomyr region. He worked as an accountant in a collective farm.

During the occupation, the family sheltered a 10-year-old Jewish girl, Henia Ocheretenko, in their house. In November 1942, Zynovii noticed an exhausted girl in a thin coat in the collective farm yard. The child was looking for any work in exchange for food. Zynovii guessed who she was: her eyes and hair indicated Jewish origin. He brought the baby into the room, fed her, and in the evening took her home and convinced his wife that it was necessary to help Henia.

The girl confided in the rescuers and said that she was from the town of Baranivka. Her father Borys Ocheretenko was killed there in the middle of the street, and her older brothers Semen and David were taken to the ghetto in the city of Novohrad-Volynskyi (current Zviahel). Henia with her mother and 13-year-old brother Yakiv ended up in the Baraniv ghetto. In the fall of 1941, a woman and a boy were shot, and she was lucky to escape.

Together with another girl, Fania Flockman, she went to the city of Novohrad-Volynskyi, where she hoped to find her older brothers. There she learned that they also escaped from the ghetto, and thus joined the partisans. Henia was given shelter by a Ukrainian family, where she looked after two children. However, in November, raids swept through the city, announcements appeared that those who would hide Jews would be punished by firing squad. The owners did not want to risk their lives for someone else's girl, so one morning they took her out of the city by cart and dropped her off on the road. Henia walked for several hours. Wandering, she found herself in the village Bronyky, where the Doshchynskyi family sheltered her.

Zynovii and Felena took care of the Jewish child until the end of the occupation. None of the neighbors' suspicions and superstitions about her origin affected the Doshchynskyi's attitude towards her. After the war, Henia's brothers sought her out. In 1979, she emigrated to Israel, but always maintained contact with her saviors and their daughter Evhenia, whom she considered a sister.

In 2006, Yad Vashem recognized Zynovii and Felena Doshchynskyi Righteous Among the Nations.