Perepelytsia Yustyna

The Ukrainian Perepelytsia family and the Jewish Rozenshtein family lived next door in the town of Mohyliv-Podilskyi in the Vinnytsia region. Both adults and children were extremely friendly, they always celebrated family and national holidays together. One son and two daughters each grew up in both families.

When the war started, men went to the front, and women and children stayed in the city. German-Romanian troops occupied Vinnytsia in the period from July 14 to 29, 1941. The territory of the region was divided between the Third Reich and Romania. The southwestern regions along the Mohylv-Podilskyi-Zhmerinka-Bershad line were handed over to the Romanians and became part of the so-called Transnistria with the center in Odesa. The murders of Jews began from the first days of the occupation. Mainly representatives of the German security police, as well as German and Romanian soldiers carried them out. For example, 31 Jews were killed in the village of Tereshpil on July 14, on July 15 in the village of Yaryshiv – 25 person, on July 19 in Mohyliv-Podilskyi – 60 ones. In the autumn of 1941, mass extermination of Jewish residents began in the district center. A ghetto was organized in the city. Jews from Romania and Bukovina were driven there, who were then shot in nearby villages.

Ryvka Rozenshtein and her children, like all her Mohyliv-Podilskyi tribesmen, ended up in that ghetto, and later were transferred to a concentration camp in the village of Pechera. In 1942, she was lucky enough to escape from there and return to the city. Together with her, her sister Ida Heller and her daughter Sonia, as well as relatives Mykhailo and Moisei Nudel, survived. Ryvka asked her friend Yustyna Perepelytsia for help.

The woman gladly opened the door of the house to her former neighbors, fed and bathed the children. Ryvka offered to stay with her. However, within a few weeks, the local police came for the Rozenshtein family and took them back to the ghetto. Despite the warning that the next time she would be punished for helping the Jews, Yustyna visited Ryvka and her children in the ghetto almost every day and fed them as much as she could, even though she and her family lived very poorly. In 1943, the youngest daughter of the Rozenshteins, Zoia, died during a typhus epidemic.

After the war, Ryvka returned to her home with her two children. The Perepelytsia family helped her to adapt and establish a normal life. The Jewish woman was always grateful to Yustyna for helping her in difficult times.

In the 1990s, Ryvka Rozenshtein's children emigrated to Israel and the USA with their families.

In 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Yustyna Perepelytsai as the Righteous Among the Nations.