Pechenezhskaya Yelena

Pechenezhskaya, Yelena Yelena Pechenezhskaya was a young woman in her thirties who lived in Minsk with her Jewish husband, Levin. Fanya Stolov, whose husband, Abraham Stolov, had died in 1937, was Yelena’s sister-in-law. On June 22, 1941, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and one week later seized Minsk. Yelena Pechenezhskaya’s husband, succeeded in fleeing just in time. However, Fanya Stolov and her 13-year-old son, Matus, remained in occupied Minsk and soon were interned in a ghetto. In the course of 1941-1942 when murderous operations were conducted in the ghetto, Yelena Pechenezhskaya hid Fanya and her son Matus in her apartment. At the same time, Yelena was also active in the Communist underground. Thanks to her connections, Fanya and Matus were able to join partisans in November 1942. A neighbor of the Stolovs from the ghetto, 18-year-old Esfir Idelchik, managed to escape at the very last moment on October 1943, and make it to Yelena Pechenezhskaya’s apartment. Yelena procured forged documents for Esfir and explained to her in turn how to also reach the partisans. Fanya Stolov, her son and Esfir Idelchik all survived to see the Soviet liberation of the area. Thereafter, Yelena Pechenezhskaya was persecuted by the Soviet secret service and had to settle far away from Minsk. Fanya Stolov and her son Matus were nonetheless able to maintain relations with their rescuer until the mid-60s. On October 15, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Yelena Pechenezhskaya as Righteous Among the Nations.