Zavorotnaya Ludmila

Savitski, Vladimir Savitskaya, Pelageya Zavorotnaya, Lyudmila Tkachenko, Nataliya Yevgenyeva, Ioanna Isaak Brodski lived in Kiev and worked in a kiosk on Babi Yar Street, which was named for the valley the street encircled. Most of the street’s residents shopped at the kiosk and knew Brodski well. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, Brodski joined the Red Army, but his unit was surrounded that September and he was taken captive. Two weeks later he escaped from the POW camp and returned to Kiev, where he learned that his wife and children had been evacuated to the east and that a massacre of Jews was being perpetrated in the city. Seeking refuge, Isaak Brodski turned to two of his clients, Vladimir and Pelageya Savitski who hid him in their home. They shared the secret with Pelageya’s sister, Nataliya Tkachenko, and with her nieces, Lyudmila Zavorotnaya and Iohanna Yevgenyeva, who lived nearby. Isaak was able to take refuge in either home, and hid whenever a stranger lingered outside. One day at the beginning of 1942, a boy from the neighborhood who was playing with the rescuers’ children noticed Isaak and told his family. That very day the police searched Zavorotnaya’s home, but Isaak had managed to escape. Lyudmila persuaded the police that no Jew had been in her home. Two days later the fugitive reappeared and the two families again took him in. Fearing another search by the police, the Savitskis moved with Isaak to a different neighborhood. At first, he hid in the Savitskis’ new dwelling. Later he became more confident and started to go outside, believing he would not be recognized in this distant neighborhood. In any event, he carried a document bearing a Ukrainian name, which he had obtained with Tkachenko’s help. Unfortunately, in December 1944, Isaak was recognized and subsequently arrested. Vladimir and Pelageya Savitski were arrested with him, and Nataliya Tkachenko was taken into custody a few days later. As punishment, Savitskiwas sent to Germany to do forced labor and Tkachenko was thrown into Syretski KL, a concentration camp near Kiev. There she encountered Isaak again, who was enslaved in Unit 1005, which had the task of burning the bodies of those murdered at Babi Yar. In the summer of 1943, the inmates breached the prison doors in an attempt to escape. Isaak Brodski was one of the few who were not gunned down by the guards. He survived to see the liberation of the area on November 7, 1943, and was among the first to testify before the Soviet commission investigating the German crimes in Kiev. Isaak rejoined the Red Army at the beginning of 1944 and fell in Poland. His wife had received a few letters from him, and upon returning to Kiev located the people who had rescued her husband. On May 22, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Vladimir and Pelageya Savitski, Lyudmila Zavorotnaya, Nataliya Tkachenko, and Ioanna Yevgenyeva as Righteous Among the Nations.