Hruzevych Mariia, Barnashevska (Hruzevych) Hanna

Mariia Hruzevych lived with her daughter Hanna in the village of Dashkivtsi in Khmelnytskyi region. During the Nazi occupation, they saved the lives of a Jewish family.

By the end of the summer of 1941, the occupiers conducted about 25 “Jewish actions” in the region, during which more than 31 thousand people were executed. During May – October 1942, Jews were systematically exterminated in the greater part of the region. On May 9, 450 people were shot in the village of Vinkivtsi and 588 in the village of Zinkiv The day before, on May 8, the Nazis stoned alive 2,500 Jews from Dunaivtsi in phosphorite mines 5 km from the settlement. After the “cleansing” of the ghetto in the territory of the region from the end of 1942 to the beginning of 1944, there were periodic captures and individual murders of Jews who managed to hide. In general, during 1941–1944, about 115 thousand Jews were exterminated on the territory of Khmelnytskyi region (which is equal to 94.7% of all who lived in the region before the war), of which more than 100 thousand were local and 10–12 thousand were deported from Hungary.

Sometime in the spring of 1942, Mariia Hruzevych noticed a woman on the street with a child in her arms, looking around and hiding her face. She guessed that it was a Jewess, and decided to speak. The stranger's name was Mariia Shyferman. Together with her younger daughter, Rena, she escaped from a column of Jews who were being taken to be shot in the village of Vinkivtsi. With the eldest – five-year-old Rosa – they were separated in the ghetto, and the mother hoped that the girl was alive. Mariia Hruzevych brought the fugitive home, ordered Hanna to look after her and the baby, and the next day she went to the nearby village of Vinkivtsi to find out about Rosa's fate. Local peasants told where the Nazis were keeping Jews. In the end, Mariia was lucky enough to negotiate with the guard for a certain fee and take the baby away.

Mariia Shyferman and her children hid in the Hruzevich family bypass until September 1943. However, periodic roundups forced them to look for a more reliable shelter for Jewish women. The hostess asked an acquaintance to transport them to the territory controlled by the Romanians. Hidden in a cart, the woman and the girls were transported to Kopaihorod village, where they stayed until March 1944.

After the war, Mariia Shyferman and her daughters emigrated to Israel.

In 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Mariia Hruzevych and her daughter Hanna Barnashevska as Righteous Among the Nations.