Movchan Pavlo and Tetiana

Raisa Derzhanska lived with her parents and brothers in the town of Yaniv (now the village of Ivaniv) in Vinnytsia region. With the beginning of the German-Soviet war, her father Yefym and older brother Abram were mobilized to the front. Raia, along with her mother Riva and younger brother Mykhailo, did not have time to evacuate.

 In July 1941, German troops occupied the town. The occupation authorities immediately took anti-Jewish measures: local Jews had to mark their homes with the letter "J" (Jude - Jew, German), wear a six-pointed star (and later a yellow circle) on their clothes, and were forbidden to leave the town. In addition to grueling forced labor, the Jewish population suffered from looting and abuse by the auxiliary police.

"Adults were driven to work and beaten and killed for every frozen potato or beet. My brother Misha was beaten so badly that he was crippled, could not walk, his ribs and legs were broken. Every night they had fun: so that people wouldn't sleep, they beat the windows, organized a gold collection, that is, they demanded a contribution, and if people had nothing, they beat them. Several times they drove them to the square, surrounded them with machine guns and said: "We'll give you five minutes to say goodbye"... Screams and crying started. Each mother grabs her children and runs, and they shoot after us and kill several people each time." From the memoirs of Raisa Derzhanska

In March 1942, the Jews of Yaniv were driven into the ghetto, and already on May 30, its liquidation began. At dawn, the German gendarmerie, supported by Hungarian units and the local auxiliary police, drove the ghetto prisoners to the outskirts of the town, where units of the German security police shot about 1,000 Jews over pre-dug pits.

Raia was miraculously saved.

"It rained at night, we were sent out to be shot. And when the Germans got distracted, started beating, people rushed at them. At that time, my mother pushed me into a bush and whispered: "Save yourself, tell dad where we are!". I didn't even understand how the dogs didn't find me." From the memoirs of Raisa Derzhanska

Riva ordered her daughter to flee to the neighboring village of Kamianohirka, to an acquaintance woman named Motria, to whom she left family jewels in exchange for help in case of danger. When the exhausted girl finally reached the village, Motria, for the sake of profit, decided to hand her over to the commandant's office, but Raia figured out the trick of the hostess and ran away.

For several months, the Jewish woman wandered through the neighboring villages in search of food and shelter, until she ended up in the village of Osolynka.

Posing as Sofia Yashchyshyna, an orphan from an orphanage in the town of Yaniv, Raia offered people the services of a nanny. That is how she ended up in the yard of the Movchan family, who had a one-year-old son, Petro.

The Movchans were well-known owners in the village. Pavlo worked as a carpenter and built houses for fellow villagers. Locals affectionately called him Pavlunets for his sincerity and kindness.

Until then, Pavlo had already been at the front as part of the Red Army, get captured, escape from forced labor in Germany. After returning to his home village, establish contacts with local partisans.

The owners invited the girl to their home, although they immediately understood who she really was.

To hide Jewish appearance, Raia got her curly hair cut, was given peasant clothes and ordered always wear a headscarf.

"I stayed, they always told me to wear a headscarf (so that the curls were not visible), they guessed who I was, but at the same time they never talked about it, they always told me tactfully so that I wouldn't be scared. They did everything so that no one in the village knew who I was." From the memoirs of Raisa Derzhanska

In order to avoid controversy among the locals, Pavlo with the help of relatives from the neighboring village of Verbivka, obtained "Ukrainian" documents for a Jewish girl. Therefore, "Sofia" was known in the village as the niece of the Movchans from Verbivka, who came to take care of little Petro.

The girl remained in the Ukrainian family until 1946, when, upon returning from the front, her father's brothers found her and took her to Vinnytsia.

After the war, Raisa worked at the Vinnytsia post office, got married and lived in the Far East for some time, and in 1991 she left for Israel. All this time, Raisa Tsodikova (Derzhanska) maintained contact with the Movchans and still maintains friendly relations with their descendants.

On December 13, 1994, Yad Vashem awarded Pavlo and Tatyana Movchan with the title "Righteous Among the Nations."