Lipinskaja Yekaterina

Lipinskaya, Yekaterina Yekaterina Lipinskaya (b. 1900) lived with her husband and their two children in the town of Uściług, district of Wołyń (today Ustyluh, Volyn’ District). On September 5, 1942, Lipinskaya entered her barn and heard someone calling her from the loft. It was the voice of Henryk (Henry) Orenstein, a local 18-year-old Jew with whom she was acquainted. With him were his elder brothers, Shmuel (Seymour) and Felek (Felix), and their father, Leib. The four Jews had escaped an Aktion in Uściług on September 1, and for five days they hid in a shuttered workshop, where they were starving, thirsty and exhausted. Despite the danger, Lipinskaya allowed the Orensteins to stay and she brought them food and drink. They hid in a haystack until September 30, during which time none of Lipinskaya’s family knew about their presence. Later, at the Orensteins’ request, Lipinskaya contacted a local girl, a friend of Felek’s, who was their contact with their relatives in the town of Hrubieszów, across the Bug River, in the Lublin District, Poland. The Orensteins asked Lipinskaya to accompany them to the Bug River where they parted. Shortly after, Lipinskaya harbored 24-year-old Matilda Gertel in her home. Over the following 18 months, until the liberation, she hid alternately in Lipinskaya’s barn and house. After the war, Gertel and the Orenstein brothers settled in the USA. Leib Orenstein perished in Hrubieszów in 1943. On September 7, 1988, Yad Vashem recognized Yekaterina Lipinskaya as Righteous Among the Nations.