Dobrovolskaya Yevdokia ; Husband: Isachenko Danil

Isachenko, Danil Dobrovolskaya, Dunya (Yevdokiya) Polina Parizer was born in 1928 in Odessa. Before the war, she lived with her mother and grandmother, and had finished the 6th grade. At the beginning of the German and Romanian occupation, she and her family were incarcerated in the Odessa ghetto. From there, in February 1942, all her dear ones were sent to their death. Left alone, the girl started leading the life of a homeless child, hiding in cellars and warehouses. One day, she was caught and sent to the Odessa prison. On April 1, 1942, Polina and other Jewish inmates were loaded into cattle train wagons and driven toward an unknown direction. At Berezovka station they were forced to get off and marched in the direction of a big camp near the hamlet of Mostovoye. After a few days' stay in the camp, Polina realized that she would starve to death there and decided to flee. She and two other girls secretly left the camp. On their way, policemen caught the eldest of the girls; the two others managed to flee and reach the village of Novo-Semenovka, Mostovoye County, Nikolayev District. The appearance of Polina and her friend betrayed them: tattered clothes, exhausted looks. It was clear that they had run away from a Jewish detention camp. Hardly being able to stand on their legs, they, nevertheless, asked passers-by if they needed household help. Among those they approached was Dunya Dobrovolskaya, a local childless farmer, around 40 years of age. She understood perfectly where the girls had come from; still, she invited one of them, namely Polina, to her home. The first thing Dunya did was to wash the girl and change her clothes. Then, after a meal, Polina fell asleep. Dreaming, Polina heard her hostess speaking with someone about her. It took her many weeks to recover after all she had gone through. Dunya and her husband, Danil Isachenko, cared for Polina, giving her the chance to regain strength. Later, the girl started helping her benefactors withhousehold chores, went along with them to work in the kolkhoz fields. Dunya and Danil did not hide her because many villagers had witnessed Dunya's reckless, but courageous, decision to shelter a Jewish child. The hosts changed her name, however, to Olga since Polina sounded too Jewish. Nonetheless, a few months later, in August 1943, a local policeman started threatening the Isachenko family. Polina did not wait to be arrested and fled, without knowing where to go. After long wanderings, she was accepted as a nanny in the village of Moldavka. Her new hosts were afraid that their neighbors would find out she was Jewish, so they did not allow her to go outside the house. Nevertheless, a rumor about her presence spread in the village and Polina was asked to leave. During that cold and snowy winter at the beginning of 1943, she made her way back to Novo-Semenovka, where she was heartily accepted back by her first rescuers. Danil and Dunya hid their "Olga" until the liberation of the area on March 30, 1944. Polina stayed in the village for another year, and then left for Odessa. She visited Dunya and Danil regularly and treated them as if they were her own parents. As a sign of her gratefulness she kept the name they had given her. Dunya Dobrovolskaya passed away in 1970; her husband survived her for a couple of years. At the beginning of the 1970s Olga Parizer (married name, Giber) left the USSR for Israel, and after a short stay there, immigrated to the USA. On December 26, 2007, Yad Vashem recognized Yevdokiya (Dunya) Dobrovolskaya and Danil Isachenko as Righteous Among the Nations.