Rudakovskaya Antonina

Verbitzki, Adam Rudakovskaya, Antonina Seventeen-year-old Adam Verbitzki and 37-year-old Antonina Rudakovskaya, a widow and the mother of three children, lived in Mrochki (Minsk District). The two were not related but maintained good friendly relations. The German Army occupied their area in the first days of the German invasion of the USSR. On June 29, 1941, Adam Verbitzki noticed that someone was hiding in his garden. It was a young Jewish woman, Rozalia Gurskaya, with her eight-year-old daughter, Izabella, who had been frightened to see that German soldiers had reached the village so quickly. Rozalia and Izabella were from Minsk and had fled with the German onslaught. Rozalia’s non-Jewish husband, Konstantin, was a teacher at The Minsk Pedagogical Institute, was drafted into the Red Army and later fell in combat. Rozalia had left her infant son with a childless couple that had previously been her husband’s students. Adam took Rozalia and her daughter in and hid them in his barn. Adam’s elderly parents were initially opposed to the idea but finally consented. Rozalia who knew sewing, offered Adam and his family her services. After the Germans left the village, she began to wander around adjacent villages and provide tailoring in return for food. On February 25, 1942, she was arrested by a joint unit of Germans and local collaborators and murdered as being a Jew. Consequently, Adam decided to hide little Izabella in the cellar. When it was quite in the village, the girl was allowed to go into the yard at night. She could also come upstairs to wash and warm herself. Only a very few among his relatives and friends knew that a Jewish girl was concealed in his house. Some offered food and others medicines because the girl was often sick in view of the harsh conditions. Twice, in the winter of 1942 and and again in 1943, Izabella was secretly transferred to Antonina Rudakovskaya’s house where she could hide in a warmer cellar for periods which lasted about twomonths. She was warmly treated, and Antonina’s daughters were warned that any leakage of information about the girl was mortally dangerous. Izabella stayed with Adam Verbitzki until the Soviet Army liberated the area in July 1944. Then, Adam sent a message to Izabella’s address in Minsk. Eventually, an aunt came to pick her up. After the war, Izabella and her family maintained warm relations with her rescuers and their descendants. On March 29, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Adam Verbitzki and Antonina Rudakovskaya as Righteous Among the Nations.