Varaksa Emilia ; Son: Vyacheslav ; Daughter: Lipen Tamara (Varaksa)

Varaksa, Emiliya Varaksa, Vyacheslav Lipen (Varaksa), Tamara Emiliya Varaksa lived in Minsk with her three children, Vyacheslav, Tamara and Boris. Before the war, most of her neighbors were Jews and her children had many Jewish friends. A short time after the German-Soviet war broke out, when the Germans established a ghetto in Minsk, Varaksa began to assist her former neighbors interned in the ghetto. Her two eldest children, 14-year-old Vyacheslav and 13-year-old Tamara helped her. Despite their young age, they proved to be courageous and wise beyond their years. They sneaked under the barbed wire fence and into the ghetto a number of times each week to deliver food and clothes to their friends. On November 6, 1941, on the eve of the first Aktion in the ghetto, Fanya Kelner and her 8-year-old daughter Inessa (later Degtyarik), and the Kuznetsov, and Margolin families managed to escape the ghetto with the assistance of Vyacheslav and Tamara, who escorted the Jewish families from the ghetto to their home. They hid there for the duration of the Aktion and then returned to the ghetto. During the second Aktion, the entire Kuznetsov family was murdered while 15-year-old Izya Margolin, and the Kelners were hidden in the Varaksas’ basement. In autumn 1943, after the ghetto was liquidated, the Varaksas’ home became a permanent shelter for Inessa Kelner, who stayed there until the liberation. In the meantime, Varaksa obtained false identity papers for Fanya Kelner and Izya Margolin and, equipped with these, Vyacheslav and Tamara took them to a village in the vicinity of Radoszkowice, Wilno District (today Radashkovichy, Minsk District), where they had relatives. The journey to the village was fraught with danger but they managed to arrive there safely thanks to Tamara (later Lipen) and Vyacheslav. Using the Polish name Josef Kozlowski, Margolin joined the partisans and Fanya Kelner lived and worked under an assumed identity until the liberation of the area, inJuly 1944. After the war, the rescued remained in Belarus and maintained contact with the Varaksas. On October 25, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Emiliya Varaksa as Righteous Among the Nations. On March 5, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Vyacheslav Varaksa and Tamara Lipen as Righteous Among the Nations.