Katsuk Klavdia

Lapchinskaya, Galina Chayun, Agrippina Beletskaya, Anna Katsuk, Klavdiya Galina Lapchinskaya lived in Proskurov, district of Kamenets-Podolsk (today Khmel’nyts’kyy, Khmel’nyts’kyy District) with her mother, Agrippina Chayun. Lapchinskaya was friendly with her neighbor, Revekka Feldberg, who lived with her husband and daughter Yevgeniya. The Germans conquered Proskurov on July 7, 1941. On December 1, 1942, Revekka and her husband were murdered. Thirteen-year-old Yevgeniya managed to escape to Lapchinskaya’s home, where she was hidden for one month. Then, as the search for Jews in the area intensified, Lapchinskaya arranged a safer hideout for Yevgeniya. Anna Beletskaya, a neighbor who was the principal of the local school where Yevgeniya had been a pupil before the war, agreed to take the Jewish child to the home of her elderly parents in the village of Ivankovtsy (Ivankivtsi). Yevgeniya stayed there for a month and then she was returned to Lapchinskaya in Proskurov. In Lapchinskaya’s home, Yevgeniya had places to hide in one of the closets, in the attic, and in the bed of the elderly Agrippina Chayun. However, despite their caution to keep Yevgeniya’s presence a secret, one of the neighbors found out and, totally unexpectedly, he offered his assistance. He managed to obtain a false Romanian ID with which she traveled by train to Transnistria. Thus, Yevgeniya reached Kryzhopol (Kryzhopil’), to the home of this man’s sister, Klavdiya Katsuk. Although Katsuk knew that Yevgeniya was Jewish and despite her difficult financial situation, she hosted Yevgeniya for one year, until the liberation, in March 1944. After the liberation, Yevgeniya returned to live with Lapchinskaya because none of her family had survived. Yevgeniya and Lapchinskaya remained very close until the latter’s death in 1982. On January 31, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Galina Lapchinskaya, her mother, Agrippina Chayun, Anna Beletskaya, and Klavdiya Katsuk, as Righteous Among the Nations.