Nedelyak Ivan & Anna

Nedelyak, Ivan Nedelyak, Anna Ivan and Anna Nedelyak (both of Bulgarian origin) lived with their two children in the Tiraspol suburb called Kirpichnaya Slobodka, (in the Moldavian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic in Ukraine, from 1940 in the Moldavian SSR [today Moldova]), which was occupied by the Germans and Romanians in July 1941, and which was included in Transnistria, under Romanian control, since September 1941. In December of that year, Anna traveled to Odessa, capital of Transnistria, to visit her relatives. On her way back to Tiraspol, two boys sat next to her. They introduced themselves as the Lorenko brothers and said they were traveling to visit their aunt. The truck they were traveling in arrived at its destination late at night, and Anna invited the boys to spend the night in her home. The following morning, the older brother confessed to her that they were Jews, natives of the city of Ochakov, in the Nikolayev (today Mykolayiv) district of Ukraine. They told Anna they were the only Jews of Ochakov who remained alive after the massacre carried out there a week earlier. The boys’ real names were Yefim and Semeon Mirochnik, and they had no papers. After talking it over with her husband, Anna offered to give the two brothers shelter in her home. From December 1941 to April 1942, they hid in the attic during the day and came down to sleep at night. After they had learned the local customs and mode of behavior of the inhabitants, Anna helped the two Jewish brothers obtain farm work with some friends of hers. Until the area was liberated, in April 1944, the Mirochnik brothers worked as hired laborers for many farmers and enjoyed the protection of the Nedelyak family, in whose home there was always someone to give them words of encouragement and listen to them. After the liberation, Yefim Mirochnik enlisted in the Red Army and was killed in battle in Poland. His younger brother Semeon stayed in touch with their rescuers and their offspring formany years, even after his immigration to the United States, in the 1990s. On December 1, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan and Anna Nedelyak as Righteous Among the Nations.