Varushkina Ulita

Varushkina, Ulita Ulita Varushkina (b. 1896) a Russian Old Believer, worked in the home of the Tager family in the town of Rēzekne, Latgale, where she took care of their only son, Mordechai, to whom she became very attached. After the Germans occupied Rēzekne, on July 3, 1941, they brought all the Jewish men to the local prison. Later they also concentrated there the Jewish women, children and the elderly. Varushkina went to the prison in an attempt to see the Tagers and give them food. She managed to exit the place with two-and-a-half year old Mordecai hidden under her coat. The following day, Varushkina baptized him and changed his name to Mikhail. The two left town and settled in the village of Bekši, in the Rēzekne County, where Varushkina had been born, and her brother and his family lived. In the village, the child was passed off as Varushkina’s son, and although some of the village inhabitants knew she was too old to be his mother, no one informed on her to the authorities. The two remained in Bekši until the end of the war, and then returned to Rēzekne. A few years later, when there seemed to be no hope that any of the Jewish child’s relatives had survived, Varushkina officially adopted the boy. Although adopted by a Christian woman, he was raised with the knowledge that he was Jewish and was encouraged by his adoptive mother when he began to take an interest in Judaism and Zionism. In 1973, after Varushkina’s death, Mikhail (Mordechai) Varushkin immigrated to Israel. On June 2, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Ulita Varushkina as Righteous Among the Nations.