Makarenko Pelageya

Makarenko, Pelageya Golovchenko, Pyotr Golovchenko, Sofya Pelageya Makarenko (b. 1913) lived with her three children and an elderly mother in the city of Brześć nad Bugiem, Polesie (today Brest, Brest District). Her brother, Pyotr Golovchenko, his wife, Sofya, and their family, inhabited half the house. In October/November 1942, when the Germans began the mass slaughter of the Jews incarcerated in the local ghetto, Makarenko and the Golovchenkos’ home became a shelter for four Jews. The Manker family – Israel and his teenaged children, Nechemia and Lily (later Guterman) – stayed under the care of the Golovchenkos, and Makarenko hid nine-year-old Mikhail Engelman. After some time, when Makarenko discovered that the house was to be searched because someone had informed on them, she immediately moved the Mankers to a trusted friend who hid them in a mud hut. Throughout this time, Makarenko and the Golovchenkos brought them food several times a week until the Mankers could return to their home. In the meantime, Makarenko kept Engelman hidden in her part of the house. In late 1943, despite the risk to their own lives, the Golovchenkos and Makarenko welcomed into their home the sisters Maya and Zhenya Katsaf, young Jewish women, who had been previously hidden in the attics and basements of abandoned buildings. The Katsaf sisters spent the winter of 1943/44 with Makarenko and the Golovchenkos. The Mankers remained in their care until the Germans retreated from Belarus, in the summer of 1944. Engelman, who was orphaned during the war, considered Makarenko his second mother and she continued to raise Engelman even after the war. He remained in Belarus and established a family. The other survivors immigrated to the United States and to other countries. On January 18, 1998, Yad Vashem recognized Pelageya Makarenko, and Pyotr and Sofya Golovchenko, as Righteous Among the Nations.