Lavreniuk Maria

Lavrenyuk, Mariya Mariya Lavrenyuk (b. 1918) lived with her mother and her two young children in the town of Nemirov, district of Vinnitsa (today Nemyriv, Vinnytsya District). In autumn 1941, Lavrenyuk became a member of an underground organization and she was involved with printing and distributing propaganda in the town and area. Through her friends in the underground, Lavrenyuk heard about the Germans’ plans to exterminate the Jewish population of Nemirov and so, in early 1943, she offered Sofya Mostovaya, her prewar neighbor, shelter in her home. In February 1943, Mostovaya and her son, 17-year-old Mikhail, and niece, 20-year-old Asya, escaped the labor camp in the vicinity of Nemirov and for a month they hid in Lavrenyuk’s apartment. Lavrenyuk then made contact with a farmer who escorted Mostovaya and her family members over the Bug River to Transnistria, which was under Romanian control. In the same way, Lavrenyuk also helped Semyon Strizhevskiy and his wife, Yelizaveta; Molka Barskaya and her two children; Rakhil Shanshein; Polina Kanevskaya and others. They all escaped from their places of work, stayed temporarily with Lavrenyuk, and she then handed them over to the man who took them across the river. Most of the Jews who received assistance from Lavrenyuk during the war survived and kept in touch with her for many years afterward. On May 15, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Mariya Lavrenyuk as Righteous Among the Nations.