Strashnaya Maria ; Son: Strashnyi Ivan ; Sister-In-Law: Ksenia

Strashnaya, Mariya Strashnyi, Ivan Strashnaya, Kseniya Mariya Strashnaya, in her 60s, lived in the village of Beleavinţi, in Bessarabia, Romania (from 1940 in the Moldavian SSR [today Moldova]), with her son Ivan, her daughter-in-law Kseniya, and her two young granddaughters. Before the war, the grocery store in the village was owned by the Gurvits family, and Mariya and her family shopped there. After the Germans and Romanians invaded the Soviet Union and occupied the area, which again came under Romanain control, Benyamin Gurvits, the former owner of the grocery store, appealed to Mariya for temporary shelter. There had already been cases of Jews being murdered in the area, and notices were posted in the village streets forbidding the local population to help Jews. Nonetheless, Mariya did not refuse to shelter her neighbors, and at nightfall Benyamin Gurvits, his wife, Ita, and their children, Yefim and Manya, arrived at her home and were hidden in the attic. The fact that they were hiding there was kept secret from the Strashnyi children, and only Mariya, her son and daughter-in-law looked after the persecuted Jews. The Gurvits family stayed in the hiding place for a number of days, and when they heard that the murders had stopped and that the Jews of the area were being interned in ghettos, they left the Strashnyis' home. They experienced many ordeals, were in various ghettos and labor camps of Transnistria, and managed to survive to witness the end of Romanian rule. After the war, they did not return to the village of Beleavinţi, but kept in touch through letters with the Strashnyi family. On March 27, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Mariya Strashnaya, her son, Ivan Stashnyi and his wife, Kseniya, as Righteous Among the Nations.