Kateneva Olga (Mičko)

Mičko, Vladimir Kateneva, Olga Vladimir Mičko (b. 1911) and his sister Olga Kateneva (b. 1905) lived in a two-room apartment on the ground floor of an apartment house in the center of Rīga. One night in December 1941, they opened their home to Genia Knoch (later Carolina Taitz), a 13-year-old Jewish girl. Knoch, who had fled the Rīga ghetto that day, came to Mičko and his sister by chance, and after they received her warmly, their home became her hiding place for three years. Mičko and Olga, ardent Adventists, sheltered the Jewish girl because of their religious convictions, without asking anything in return. At Knoch’s request, Mičko used to sneak into the ghetto to take food to her mother and younger sister, until they were killed in a later Aktion. To ensure Knoch’s safety, Mičko dug a hole, two-and-a-half meters wide and a meter deep, under the floor of the apartment, and covered it with the floorboards fastened with four bolts that could only be opened from the inside. Disposing of the dug out soil was a problem, so Vladimir In time of danger, Knoch would jump into the hole and close the cover after her, so that the Germans who searched the house never even noticed the hiding place. Throughout the whole period of Knoch’s stay with Vladimir and Olga, they cared for her with devotion and did all they could to raise her spirits. When Rīga was liberated in October 1944, Knoch left Mičko and his sister, but continued to keep in touch with them even after she immigrated to the United States in 1965. On January 23, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Vladimir Mičko and Olga Kateneva as Righteous Among the Nations.