Kurochka Nykyfor, Minkovska Tetiana

Tetiana Minkovska lived in Kherson. Ruvyn and Ryvka Kopelev, a married couple of neighbors, took care of her as if they were their own, because their only daughter Sara and her family lived in Turkmenistan. When the German-Soviet war began, Tania was 20 years old.

The Nazis occupied the city on August 19, 1941. Already on August 23, a “Jewish committee” was formed there and Jews were ordered to wear the Star of David on their left chest and back, and from August 24 to 27 to register and hand over all their money and valuables to this committee. Later, by order of the city's military commandant, they were relocated to specially designated quarters on Pankrativska, 4th Forshstadska, Kanatnaia and other streets, from where all residents of other nationalities had to leave the day before. The ghetto formed in this way was surrounded by barbed wire and guarded by the police. In total, about 5 thousand Jews were driven there.

On September 24–25, 1941, the ghetto was liquidated, and the slaves were shot outside the city boundary.

It was on the eve of the war that Sara Kopeleva came to her hometown to visit her parents with her eight-month-old daughter Nelli. They did not have time to evacuate – they ended up in the ghetto together with Ruvyn and Ryvka. When they were being led in a convoy to be shot, Sara saw her neighbor Tetiana Minkovska in the crowd of people standing on the sidewalk and handed her child over to her, pleading with a doomed look to save her. Tetiana and Nelli ran home. Since then, she took care of the girl as her own daughter, explaining to everyone that she was the child of her old girlfriend who killed in the war.

In 1943, a woman and a child were sent to Germany for forced labor. Along the way, she met her future husband Nykyfor Kurochka. After the war the young people returned to Kherson, got married and adopted Nelli. Tetiana and Nykyfor had no children of their own. After the death of her parents, Nelli Zaslavska (Kopeleva) emigrated to Israel with her daughter and grandchildren.

In 2005, Yad Vashem recognized Nykyfor Kurochka and Tetiana Minkovska as Righteous Among the Nations.