Safonov Gennady

Safonov, Gennadiy Gennadiy Safonov (b. 1913), a Soviet army lieutenant, escaped German captivity near the town of Mołodeczno, Wilno District (today Maladzechna, Minsk District), in the very first days of the German-Soviet war. He eventually became one of the organizers of the “Narodnyye Mstiteli” (People’s Avengers) partisan unit operating in the Rudniki forest. Alongside those activities, Safonov helped Jews who escaped from the ghettos in the area and were hiding in the forests. Among them were Simcha Fogelman and Fajwe Solomianski (later Shraga Degani), who escaped from the ghetto in the town of Ilja during its liquidation on June 7, 1942. In November 1942, Safonov met them wandering in the forest and brought them to his partisan unit. Around the same time he met Brajna Katz, an eldery woman who had run away from her native Dołhinów, after the Aktionen carried out in April, and since then was hiding in the forest with some other Jews. Katz was ill and Safonov took her to the nearby village and ordered the locals to treat her. When she regained her health, Safonov took Katz to his unit, under the pretext that the partisans needed a cook, and the 70-year-old Jewish woman became a Soviet partisan, and thus survived. Katz was not the only elderly member of the unit: some other Jewish men and women, who were unable to fight, were living in the unit’s camp and mended clothes and boots. Safonov knew the whererabouts of several dugouts where Jews were hiding and supplied them with food and winter clothing. Safonov’s efforts were not supported by other members of his unit, who did not regard helping Jews as their mission and believed that they should focus their strength on fighting the Germans. Nevertheless, Safonov was not deterred from helping Jews. He endangered his own life to help save people, motivated by his love of humanity and his sympathy for persecuted people. After the war, Safonov settled in Wilejka (Vileyka) and thanks to his efforts a memorial forthe Jewish martyrs was erected in nearby Ilja (Illya). The majority of his rescued left the Soviet Union and settled in Israel, including Katz, Fogelman and Degani. On November 3, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Gennadiy Safonov as Righteous Among the Nations.