Malinovski Roman & Malinovskaya Sofija

Malinovski, Roman Malinovski, Sofija Roman and Sofija Malinovski, devout Baptists, lived in the town of Baranowicze, Nowogródek District (today Baranavichy, Brest District), where they owned a grocery store. Opposite their home was a labor camp where Jewish men who worked on the construction of railway tracks were interned. They were motivated by their religious beliefs to help the Jewish labor camp inmates. In autumn 1942, Arye Torfstein, a young man originally from Warsaw, who was deported to Baranowicze from Prague, knocked on the Malinovskis’ door, on the verge of physical collapse and suffering from malnutrition. The Malinovskis, who at the time were sitting at their table eating a meal, invited Torfstein to join them. Thereafter, they told him to come to their home every day at lunchtime and, as the security at the work camp was not strict, he managed to do so. The elderly Germans that guarded the camp were aware of his daily disappearance but they overlooked it because of their business connections with the Malinovskis. One day, however, when Torfstein was at the Malinovskis’ home, Gestapo agents entered their store and intended to search their house. Malinovski bribed them and persuaded them not to conduct the search and, despite the increased danger, the Malinovskis continued to host Torfstein in their home. Torfstein survived thanks to the food that he regularly received from the Malinovskis. He later escaped the camp and fled to the forest to join the partisans. After the war, Torfstein immigrated to Israel, from where he regularly wrote and sent food packages to the Malinovskis. On September 23, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Roman and Sofija Malinovski as Righteous Among the Nations.