Birziņa Valentina (Ryžakova)

Birziņa (Ryžakova), Valentina Valentina Ryžakova (b. 1921; later Birziņa) lived in Rīga. After the Germans occupied the city on July 1, 1941, Ryžakova joined the anti-fascist underground that was active in Latvia. In the summer of 1943, through the underground, Ryžakova met Mikuláš Grošek, a 31-year-old man from Czechoslovakia, who worked in the city of Liepāja for a German construction company. After some time, Grošek confessed to Ryžakova that he was Jewish, and that his family name was Grünfeld. He asked Ryžakova if she would agree to help him in time of need, and she replied that she would. On December 10, 1943, Grošek knocked on the door of Ryžakova’s home in Rīga, after he had managed to flee from Liepāja a day earlier. Ryžakova received Grošek warmly and hid him in her home for four months. Each day, when she went out to work, she locked him in the apartment, where he read or kept busy cooking or cleaning the house. Ryžakova shopped for both of them, and Grošek reimbursed her for the expenses she incurred in keeping him. In March 1944, some underground members found a safer hiding place for Grošek and he bid farewell to Ryžakova. On October 15, 1944, the Red Army arrived in Rīga and later that month the Soviet regime accused Ryžakova of collaborating with the enemy, and she was expelled to Siberia. Grošek returned to Czechoslovakia and settled in Bratislava. He only managed to find his rescuer in 1956, after she was freed from the work camps in Siberia, and from that time on, they remained in touch. On February 16, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Valentina Birziņa (née Ryžakova) as Righteous Among the Nations.