Pokrovskaya Anna

Pokrovskaya, Anna Anna Pokrovskaya (b. 1904), an art teacher, lived in the city of Taganrog in the Rostov-na-Donu district, together with her mother and ten-year-old son Rostislav. She was active in the local teachers organization. In the first days of the German-Soviet war, Pokrovskaya became friendly with Tamara Arnson, a native of Leningrad, who was a drama teacher. In October 1941, when the front was drawing near to Taganrog, Pokrovskaya decided to move eastward together with her family, and to take Arnson with them. They failed to evacuate because of the rapid advancement of the Germans, who occupied the city on October 17, 1941, and ordered all the Jewish residents to gather at a certain place immediately. At the time, Pokrovskaya had moved to the outskirts of the city in order to take Arnson as far away as possible from everyone who knew her, and entrusted her apartment to her sister. But it soon turned out that the neighbors at her new place of residence were suspicious of Arnson’s identity, so Pokrovskaya had no choice but to return to her previous home, where her sister’s family was also living. A little while later, Pokrovskaya also came to the aid of 15-year-old Vladimir Kobrin, whose parents, close friends of hers, had been executed by the Germans. It was very risky to shelter two Jews, since Taganrog was close to the frontline and the Germans conducted an especially strict occupation regime there. When Pokrovskaya realized she could no longer keep hiding Arnson and Kobrin in her apartment in the center of the city, she decided to leave Taganrog with her son and the two Jews to find a safer place. The journey was dangerous because Pokrovskaya had not managed to obtain all the documents necessary for traveling in the occupied area. After many hardships, the four arrived at one of the villages in the vicinity and found work as farmers. At a certain point, Pokrovskaya and Arnson had to separate from Kobrin and return to Taganrog, and the three met again only after the liberation at the end of August 1943. On March 18, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Anna Pokrovskaya as Righteous Among the Nations.