Khodosevich Peotr & Yanina ; Mother: Antonina

Khodosevich, Peotr Khodosevich, Yanina Khodosevich, Antonina Peotr Khodosevich (b. 1912) and his wife, Yanina (b. 1914), lived with their young daughters Tanya, Maya and Valya, in the town of Logoysk (today Lagoysk) in the Minsk District. In late June 1941, several days after Logoysk was occupied by the Germans, the Khodoseviches welcomed a Jewish family, consisting of Chana Kantorovich, her 11-year-old daughter Tamara, and Chana’s parents, Abram and Revekka Bengis, into their home. Mother and daughter Kantorovich had come to Belarus from Stalinabad (today Dushanbe), Tajikistan, to visit Chana’s parents, residents of Minsk, at the beginning of the summer. Together they rented a summer house in Logoysk, but were expelled by its owners right after the occupation. On August 30, 1941, all of the Jews were ordered to assemble on the edge of the town. Leaving Tamara with the Khodoseviches, Chana and her parents went to the assembly point and later that day, it became known that the Jews were massacred. The Khodoseviches started hiding Tamara from neighbors and visitors but in other aspects they treated her as a family member. In spite of their dire financial situation, the Khodoseviches not only hid the Jewish girl, but also helped the Soviet partisans, which led to their arrest, on March 13, 1943. A few days earlier, the couple sent Tamara and their older daughters to Peotr’s mother, Antonina Khodosevich (b. 1881), who also lived in Logoysk. Peotr and Yanina Khodosevich, and their three-year-old toddler, were executed shortly after their arrest. Antonina cared for Tamara and her orphaned granddaughters until the liberation of Logoysk on July 3, 1944. After the war, Tamara (later Ziserman) settled in Riga, Latvia, and maintained close contact with the surviving members of her rescuers’ family. On June 24, 1996, Yad Vashem recognized Peotr and Yanina Khodosevich, and Antonina Khodosevich, as Righteous Among the Nations.