Sparinopta Samuil

Serebryansky, Isaak Sparinopta, Samuil Mazur, Ikim Isaak Serebryansky, Samuil Sparinopta, and Ikim Mazur were Moldavian farmers, who lived in the village of Broshteny (today Broşteni) not far from Rybnitsa (today Rîbniţa), in the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in Ukraine, which in1940, became the Moldavian SSR (today Moldova). During the period of Romanian occupation of Transnistria, the three farmers helped Naum and Raisa Gomelfarb, whose parents, residents of Broshteny, had been murdered in September 1941. The children, who had been staying with friends at the time of the murder, had been hiding from then on in the villages and fields around Broshteny. Most of the village residents knew about the existence of the Gomelfarb children and helped them with food, but they were able to stay for several days in a row in the homes of the Serebryansky, Sparinopta and Mazur families, although they were risking their lives and that of their families. Isaak Serebryansky prepared a hiding place for Naum and his sister, by digging a pit under the cowshed, where the children, together or separately, hid throughout the time they were in the village. Samuil Sparinopta built a secret hiding place inside the house, behind the Russian stove. The children stayed with him on especially cold days, and always received food and a kind word there. Ikim Mazur, who lived at the edge of the village, kept the children in the barn. Naum Gomelfarb came to Mazur’s home after crawling out of a death pit on the night of March 9, 1942. Several days earlier, he had been apprehended (without his sister) by policemen and held captive together with a group of Jews caught in the nearby villages. The Jews were shot to death near the town of Krutyye (today Kruty), from 1940 in Odessa (Odesa) district in Ukraine, and during the war in Transnistria. After getting out of the pit in his blood-soaked clothes, Naum walked several hours until he got to Mazur’s home. Mazur took him in,washed the blood off his body, gave him clean clothes, and hid him until the boy managed to recover. Afterwards, Naum searched for his sister, and learned she had gone into the Rybnitsa ghetto, where she hoped to find relatives. Naum decided to go to Rybnitsa, but for various reasons, he did not succeed in doing so, and in April 1942, he came to the town of Balta (from 1940, in Odessa district and during the war in Transnistria). There he went into the ghetto where he remained until the liberation, in the spring of 1944. After the war, the two survivors returned to their parents’ house in Broshteny, and later moved to Rybnitsa. From there, Naum immigrated to Israel and his sister Raisa to the United States. On October 13, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Isaak Serebryansky, Samuil Sparinopta, and Ikim Mazur, as Righteous Among the Nations.