Sukhenko Yakov

Sukhenko, Yakov Yakov Sukhenko lived in Równe (today Rivne), which the Germans conquered on June 28, 1941. Many of Sukhenko’s Jewish friends found themselves in the ghetto that was established in the city and Sukhenko came to their aid in many ways. In July 1942, Sukhenko arranged the escape of Varvara Barats and her daughter Miriam Rycer and for two weeks they hid in his apartment, during which time the ghetto was liquidated. Sukhenko obtained identity papers for the two women using his family name and then smuggled them from Równe to Zdołbunów (Zdolbuniv) and from there to the town of Pomoshnaya (Pomichna) in the district of Kirovograd in eastern Ukraine, where no one knew them. There the women presented themselves as Poles. When the women were settled in Pomoshnaya and had found work, Riva Tov, a good friend of Miriam’s from school, appeared at their apartment. She arrived with Ivan Shevchenko*, a young Ukrainian. It emerged that Tov had also escaped the Równe ghetto with Shevchenko’s assistance in July 1942 and he had moved her, at her request, to the Zdołbunów ghetto, where she had relatives. In Zdołbunów Shevchenko and Sukhenko became acquainted. Just a few days before the liquidation of this ghetto in October 1942, Tov married Shevchenko fictitiously and changed her name to his. Sukhenko helped them arrange this marriage. Barats, Rycer, and Tov stayed in Pomoshnaya and Shevchenko returned to Równe. There, he and Sukhenko collaborated to help smuggle Jews out of Równe and its environs to eastern Ukraine, and to provide them with false papers. Thus, in the spring of 1943, the two men obtained documents for a group of Jews, among them Tov’s brother, and escorted the group to Kiev. When they arrived at the apartment that Sukhenko had rented for the purpose of hiding the Jews, they were ambushed. They were all arrested and after interrogation, executed. The three women living under false identities in Pomoshnaya soon became concerned after not hearing fromtheir rescuers for some time and decided to send Tov to Kiev to find out what had become of them. When she discovered their tragic fate, she did not return to Pomoshnaya, as she feared that she was being followed, and she headed for Moldavia. There, her Jewish identity was found out and she was killed. Varvara Barats and her daughter Miriam Rycer survived the war and later immigrated to Israel. On March 17, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Yakov Sukhenko as Righteous Among the Nations.