Kotelnicki Teodozy

Kotelnicki, Teodozi Zhmur, Yaroslav Zhmur, Olga Before the war Yehezkiel Braun, an agronomist, managed a large agricultural estate near the city of Brody (Tarnopol region), Poland (now Ukraine). In 1939, when the Soviet Union annexed eastern Poland, he, his wife, Hana, and their children, 15-year-old Regina and six-year-old Shmuel, moved first to Brody and then to a large farm nearby, where they were the only Jews. After the Germans occupied Brody on June 29, 1941, his non-Jewish friend Teodozi Kotelnicki, an engineer, helped Yehezkiel get a job as an agronomist in the village of Czechy (Tarnopol), and his family lived with him. They remained there until September 1942, when the Germans expelled the Jews from their homes in the vicinity and sent them to the Brody Ghetto. Yehezkiel looked for a way to avoid moving to the ghetto, and with Kotelnicki’s help, a plan was hatched. The villagers witnessed the Brauns leaving the village on a horse-drawn cart loaded with their possessions, headed in the direction of Brody. They stopped and bought some food, then found temporary shelter until nightfall, when they secretly returned to Czechy. Yehezkiel and Shmuel hid in a prearranged dugout in a field. Hana and Regina were hidden in the home of Kotelnicki’s elderly mother, where they stayed for a number of months, but they left when the old lady expressed her fear of the roaming Ukrainian nationalist gangs. Not knowing where to turn, they decided to join the men. The dugout was on property that belonged to Yaroslav and Olga Zhmur. There was a barn nearby, and a trench was dug from the barn to the hole. The Zhmurs brought the Brauns food once a day, and an air duct allowed daylight to filter in. Living conditions were harsh, but the family persevered together. Olga brought Regina wool to be knit into socks, which were then sold. This helped to pay for the family’s food. On the day of their liberation, they had great difficulty walking after being confined in a small space underground for so long. They secretly left the village because of the chaotic and dangerous situation in the immediate aftermath of the Red Army’s arrival in June 1944. The Braun family stayed in Brody for a year and then went to western Poland, where Hana died. Yehezkiel and his children immigrated to Israel in 1950. In 2012 Shmuel Braun took his family to Ukraine to learn the family history and to see where he had been hidden in Czechy (now called Lugove). There were old-timers there who said that they knew that a Jewish family had been saved by the Zhmur couple. On January 21, 2014, Yad Vashem recognized Teodozi Kotelnicki and Yaroslav and Olga Zhmur as Righteous Among the Nations.