Bankovich Alfred

Bankovich, Alfred Alfred (Fred) Bankovich, born 1908, of German origin, lived in the town of Kārsava, Latgale. On the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union, he married a Jewish woman, Rachel Edelman, in spite of his parents’ objections. On July 4, 1941, the Germans occupied Kārsava, and shortly thereafter the Jews of the town, including Rachel, were ordered to move into the area of the ghetto. It took a month before Bankovich managed to get his wife out of the ghetto, and Judif Zilber, her six-year-old niece, fled together with her. Bankovich prepared a hiding place for the two of them in the kitchen behind a false wall. A week later, on August 23, 1941, the Jews interned in the ghetto were taken to the death pits prepared on Naudas Kalnas Hill and shot to death. One of those left alive was the hairdresser Sonja Minkin, who came to Bankovich’s home and joined her friend Rachel. Since people in Kārsava knew that Bankovich was married to a Jewish woman, his neighbors and the local police suspected him, but whenever they came to search his home, he insisted that since his wife had moved into the ghetto, he had no idea where she was. The Baltov* family from the nearby village of Mazā Zeļčova shared in the secret, and throughout the occupation helped Bankovich with food for the women he was hiding. The Barkan* family from the village of Jēči also knew about the Jews in hiding. Late in the summer of 1941, Bankovich had brought them Lev Udem, a young businessman from Karsava who had escaped from a convoy of Jews being taken to their execution. Udem asked Bankovich to shelter him, instead of which he took him to the Barkans. On August 15, 1942, Rachel gave birth to a son in her hiding place. Since the baby’s crying might have given everyone away, Bankovich turned to his good neighbor, Helena Spiridovich*. Helena, who had given birth to a daughter two weeks earlier, agreed to take in both Rachel and the baby, to allow her to continue nursing it. Bankovich alsobuilt a camouflaged hiding place in Helena’s home, where Rachel, and sometimes also her niece Judif hid, while the baby remained in the house. Bankovich visited Helena nearly every day, brought the hiding women food and played with his son. The neighbors thought this was suspicious, and during the occupation they thought there was some kind of relationship between Bankovich and Helena. In July 1944, when the Red Army was at the outskirts of Kārsava and the town was being bombarded from the air, Bankovich smuggled his wife and her niece outside the city, where they remained until the liberation. After the war, since he was of German origin, Bankovich was arrested by the Soviets and held in jail for six months. He was released thanks to the efforts of his wife and other survivors. The Bankoviches continued to live in Kārsava until their death in the early 1990s. Minkin immigrated to Israel. Udem moved to Russia, and Judif (later Morein) to Germany. On March 17, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Alfred Bankovich as Righteous Among the Nations.