Ivanovskaya Valentina

Iwanowska, Walentyna Szepczenko, Katarzyna In 1943, during the occupation, Walentyna Iwanowska, who lived in Warsaw and was originally Russian, was asked by a Jewish friend to help his relative, twelve-year-old Helena Rosenmann (later Harel), who had escaped from the Bialystok ghetto and made it to Warsaw, bearing “Aryan” papers. Since Walentyna shared an apartment, she couldn’t take Helena in herself, so she arranged for her to stay with her friend, Katarzyna Szepczenko, who was also Russian. Helena stayed there from March 1943 until the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising in August 1944, when both she and Katarzyna were deported to Ravensburg in Germany. Walentyna also helped Helena’s uncle and his family to find hiding places and acted as a messenger between them and Helena. During the Warsaw Uprising, she was deported to Pruszkow and from there she requested and was sent to Ravensburg to join Helena and Katarzyna. After the war, Walentyna took Helena to her relatives in Austria, where she stayed until immigrating to Israel in 1948. In May 1967, Walentyna joined Helena and her family in Israel. On October 26, 1978, Yad Vashem recognized Walentyna Iwanowska and Katarzyna Szepczenko as Righteous Among the Nations.