Ferens Heorhii

Heorhii Ferens lived in Mohyliv-Podilskyi, Vinnytsia region. On July 19, 1941, the city was occupied by German and Romanian troops. The murders of Jews began from the first days of the new regime. They were mainly committed by the German security police, as well as by German and Romanian soldiers during the occupation of one or another settlement. For example, on July 19, 60 Jews were executed in Mohyliv-Podilskyi. In the fall of 1941, the occupiers organized a ghetto, where they were taken from Romania and Bukovina and later shot in the villages of  Yaruha, Yaryshiv and Sokyryntsi. According to the information bulletin of the gendarmerie inspector in Transnistria, 91,189 Jews from Bukovina and Bessarabia were evacuated in the fall of 1941 through the cities of Yampil and Mohyliv-Podilskyi to that part of the Vinnytsia region that entered the Romanian zone of occupation. In total, more than 97 thousand of them were sent to Vinnytsia.

Heorhii Ferens lived near the ghetto, and all the events took place before his eyes. In May 1942, Lidiia Harnik, who had been deported from Chernivtsi, asked him to rent a room for her and Kalman Harnik – her old father. Heorhii agreed and arranged a shelter for the Jews in a small utility room, where they lived until the return of Soviet power. In order to somehow make ends meet, Lidiia began secretly giving lessons in French and German to local students brought by Heorhii.

At the beginning of March 1944, when the occupying forces were retreating, another 20 Jews found shelter in the house of Heorhii Ferens, among them Sara Kostiner, Izia Nekhman and others.

In 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Heorhii Ferens as the Righteous Among the Nations.

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