Bogdan Bazyli

Bogdan, Bazyli In the autumn of 1942, after the Germans had begun to liquidate the Jewish communities in the vicinity of the city of Dubno in the Volhynia district, Mendel Titelman and his wife somehow succeeded in escaping from the slaughter. After wandering through the villages and fields in the area for two weeks, exhausted from hunger and the cold, they knocked on the door of a hut in the remote village of Pańska Dolina, belonging to Bazyli Bogdan, a poor farmer. Disregarding the danger to his own life and welfare, Bogdan arranged a carefully concealed hiding place under the pigpen in his farmyard for the Jewish refugees. There he cared for them, sharing the little food he had with them. Because other members of the Mitelman family were still hiding in the forest nearby, Titelman asked Bogdan to take pity on them and save their lives too. Without receiving any reward whatever for his actions and motivated purely by altruism, Bogdan went to the forest and brought Malcia, Titelman’s sister and Sara Winokur, a relative, back with him to the hideout, taking care of all their needs too. After a short while, Bogdan encountered another group of Jewish refugees in the forest, among them Nachum and Rachela Titelman, their son Aszer, Batja Lewi, her daughter Szoszana, and Jona Winer. He brought them back to the hideout in his yard and until another more permanent shelter could be found, fed and gave them a chance to rest. A while later, some of these people, together with other Jews hiding out in the area, fought alongside the Polish residents of the village, defending themselves against attacks from Ukrainian ultranationalists. Mendel Titelman and his wife remained under Bogdan’s protection together with Malcia and Sara until their liberation by the Red Army in March 1944. After the war, the survivors immigrated to Israel and the Bogdan family moved to an area within Poland’s new borders. On October 19, 1965, Yad Vashem recognized Bazyli Bogdan as RighteousAmong the Nations.