Movchan Pavlo & Tatiana

Movchan, Pavlo Movchan, Tatyana Pavlo Movchan, his wife, Tatyana, and their two children were residents of the village of Osolynka, district of Vinnitsa (today Vinnytsya District). In late summer 1942, a 12-year-old girl with black hair appeared in the village and introduced herself as Sofiyka and told people that she had come from an orphanage in the town of Yanovo (Ivaniv), district of Vinnitsa. The Movchans invited her into their home and a rumor soon spread that they were harboring a Jewish child. Indeed, Sofiyka, whose real name was Ruzya Derzhanskaya, was a Jew from Yanovo whose father had been consripted into the army when the war broke out; her mother, Riva, brother Mikail and she remained in the occupied territories. In spring 1942, when the Jewish population of the area was being taken to the death pits, Derzhanskaya had managed to escape and for the entire summer she had wandered around the villages until she reached Osolynka. In order to protect Derzhanskaya, Pavlo spread a rumor that “Sofiyka” was his niece and he eventually managed to procure papers for her made out in a Ukrainian name. Derzhanskaya never left the Movchans’ home and always wore a scarf to cover her black, curly hair. She stayed with the Movchans until the liberation, in spring 1944, when she returned to Yanovo (Ivaniv), where she found her father. After the war, she continued to keep in touch with the Movchans and their offspring. Derzhanskaya (by then Tsodikova) immigrated to Israel in 1991. On December 13, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Pavlo and Tatyana Movchan as Righteous Among the Nations.