Fomienko Witold

Fomienko, Witold Witold Fomienko, a Catholic Pole, was born in 1905 in Warsaw, and played various wind instruments. Having grown up among Jewish children, Fomienko knew Yiddish. In 1934, Fomienko and his family moved to Luck, in the Volhynia district, where he and his father joined a military orchestra. Several years before the outbreak of war, Fomienko was ordered by his doctor to stop playing, and found work in a barbershop run by Nachum Sofer, a Jewish barber and saxophonist. In the course of his work, Fomienko once again mixed with Jews, and became interested in Jewish youth movements, particularly Betar. When the Germans occupied Luck, Fomienko felt compelled to help his Jewish friends. He opened a large barbershop, and took on six Jewish employees, and arranged for other Jews to be employed in Christian barbershops. When the Jews of Luck were interned in the ghetto, Fomienko smuggled bread, firewood and medicines into the ghetto for them, without expecting anything in return. Affluent Jews, who had entrusted their property to Poles for safekeeping, could count on Fomienko to sell their assets when necessary. Fomienko also paid a lot of money to obtain official Ukrainian identity cards for Jewish refugees whom he smuggled out to the Aryan side of the city. Thanks to these documents, a number of Jews with gentile appearances were able to live outside the ghetto. Fomienko also received forged permits from an acquaintance who worked in the municipality. However, when Esther Milner, one of his charges, was identified by a Ukrainian nationalist and interrogated, her connection with Fomienko was discovered. Fomienko was tortured by the Gestapo, and it was only thanks to a German officer who was a client of his, that he was released. With the liquidation of the Luck ghetto on August 22, 1942, Fomienko hid a number of Jews, including David Prital and his sister, and arranged hiding places for others – including Pola Kroin and Mieczysław Radanek – with Polishacquaintances, promising to reimburse them after the war. He took Raizel Grinszpun home with him, and supplied Rachel Zafran and Benzion Bernholz with “Aryan” documents, enabling them to work in Germany under assumed identities. Fomienko kept up ties with all his 36 Jewish charges, among who were Israel, Miriam and Eugenia Friedbojm. After the war, Fomienko married Eugenia Friedbojm and the two immigrated to Israel. Most of the people saved by Fomienko immigrated to Israel in the course of time. On December 12, 1967, Yad Vashem recognized Witold Fomienko as Righteous Among the Nations.