Divakova Maria

Divakova, Mariya Mariya Divakova and her three children were living on the same street as the Jewish family of Wolf and Yevgenia Naginski and their three children, on the outskirts of the city of Voroshilovgrad (later, Luhans’k). While the two families were not well acquainted, they did recognize each other. Mariya’s husband died shortly before the outbreak of the war, and her eldest son, Ivan, was called up for service in the Red Army. Immediately after the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, many of the Jews in Lugansk fled eastward. The Naginskis, however, did not sense the looming danger, and in any case were certain that no harm would befall working Jews. It was only after the city’s conquest on July 17, 1942, when rumors spread about the murder of Jews and Communists, and after the Germans imposed a regime of terror in general and against the Jews in particular, that they understood that they had made a mistake and that their lives were in danger. But by then it was too late. In the meantime, the two mothers, Yevgenia and Mariya, had become friends and they would go together to neighboring villages to barter items for food. Yevgenia would also spend many hours in Mariya’s home, and when the Germans began to plunder Jewish property she placed her family’s valuables in Mariya’s safekeeping. At the end of October 1942, Yevgenia informed Mariya that she and her family were being forced to leave the next day for an unknown destination and that they had been told to take their clothing and valuables with them. Yevgenia, knowing that they were being deported in order to be killed, begged Mariya to hide her and her family. Mariya acceded to the desperate request. On the day of the deportation and on the following day, the Naginskis hid with Mariya. Following the two critical days they left Mariya’s home and began to wander from village to village masquerading as Russian refugees, all the time heading towards Soviet forces. They were liberated by the Red Army inJanuary 1943 in the village of Ponamarev (Selivanov County, Rostov District). Upon returning to Lugansk, they discovered that their house had been destroyed. Mariya took them in and again they were the beneficiaries of her support and encouragement. The Naginskis left the city at the end of the war. Ties with the family of Mariya Divakova were renewed at the beginning of the twenty-first century. On November 28, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Mariya Divakova as Righteous Among the Nations.