Khomenkova Pelageya (Paraschuk)

Khomenkova, Pelageya Parashchuk, Yoakhim Parashchuk, Kristina Pelageya Khomenkova, a widow, lived in Tarnopol (today Ternopil’) and earned a living renting out rooms in her home. In late July 1943, the sisters Anna (Chana) and Tosia (Ester) Federbusz came to Khomenkova’s home. They had been interned in the forced-labor camp that had been established alongside the ghetto at the beginning of the year, administered by the sadist SS-Untersturmführer Richard Rokita. The day before the camp was to be liquidated the Federbusz sisters fled the camp and headed for Khomenkova’s home, after hearing about her from acquaintances in the camp. Khomenkova hid the sisters from the other lodgers and in return they helped Khomenkova by cleaning, washing clothes, and cooking. Toward the end of 1943, one of the other tenants in Khomenkova’s home, who worked as a municipal clerk, noticed the Jewish girls. He became suspicious of them and asked Khomenkova to expel them within two hours, threatening to turn them in to the Gestapo if she did not do so. Khomenkova therefore dressed the sisters in local garb and escorted them to a house at the edge of the city belonging to her brother, Yoakhim Parashchuk, who lived with his wife, Kristina, and their five children. There the Federbusz sisters found a prepared shelter, where Wilo Hofrichter, an acquaintance from the ghetto, was already hiding. The three Jews stayed in the Parashchuks’ home until spring 1944, when, just a few weeks before the liberation, they were moved to Marta Mazarska* (see volume Poland) in the village of Janowka (Ivanivka), eight km west of Tarnopol. After the war, the Federbusz sisters left the Soviet Union and later moved to Israel. Every attempt they made to renew contact with Khomenkova and the Parashchuks failed. On July 7, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Pelageya Khomenkova, her brother, Yoakhim Parashchuk, and his wife, Kristina Parashchuk, as Righteous Among the Nations.