Zelinskiy Nikolay & Zelinskaya Anna

Zhilinskaya, Anna Zhilinski, Nikolay Nelli Ring-Shuv was born in 1926 in Cesky Tesin, Czechoslovakia, the only daughter of Moritz and Bronislava Ring. The family was involved in commerce and was quite wealthy. In 1938 the area was annexed by Germany, and the Ring family dispersed. Nelli’s parents went to Nowy Sacz, Poland, where Bronislava had been born, and in 1939, when the war started, they escaped to Lvov (today Lviv, Ukraine). In one of the Aktionen (mass executions) before the ghetto in Lvov was liquidated, Nelli and her mother were arrested while Moritz was at work. They were sent to the train headed for the Bełżec extermination camp. At some point someone opened a small gap in the window bars of the train, and Nelli’s mother pushed her out. Nelli met others who had also escaped through the gap, but they were all captured by the Ukrainian police. A small boy showed her how to escape through a little opening, and they hid in the forest with two other women. In the morning they saw two men gathering wood and begged for help. One of the men, Nikolay Zhilinski, took them home and his wife, Anna, made some food for them and welcomed them. Nikolay told them that he and Anna were Karaites and that he would help them get to the ghetto. However, Nelli was exhausted, so it was decided that Nikolay would only take the two other women to the ghetto and would tell Nelli’s parents that she was alive, while Anna would take care of Nelli. They then discovered that Bronislava had also escaped and joined Moritz. Nelli’s parents made her promise not to return to the ghetto, and they sent her some money and clothing. Anna and Nikolay Zhilinski lived in the small village of Kalinówka Hora, near the town of Halicz, where there was a large community of Karaites. The Zhilinskis opened their home to Nelli and made a room for her in the barn. They ate together and told stories, and they never mentioned payment of any kind. When the Germans started searching the village, they found Jews hidden in a neighboring house and killed both the Jews and their hosts. Next, they searched the Zhilinskis’ house, and it was a miracle that Anna managed to hide Nelli in time. That was when Nelli decided to leave. She took a train without knowing where it would stop and ended up in Lvov. She joined a group of Polish and Ukrainian girls going to Germany to work in agriculture and assumed the fake identity of a Polish girl named Janka Czubek. Eventually, she came to Gratz, Germany, where she worked until the end of the war. After the war was over, she made her way to Israel on her own. On March 8, 2016, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Zhilinskaya as Righteous Among the Nations. On February 2, 2017, Yad Vashem recognized Nikolay Zhilinski as Righteous Among the Nations.