Palaguta Ivan & Praskovia

Palaguta, Ivan Palaguta, Praskovya Ivan Palaguta and his wife Praskovya lived in the Stavropol territory. In summer or early autumn of 1942, they took in a seven-year-old Jewish boy called Ivan Bortnikov. His family had been evacuated in 1941 from Kishinev into one of the villages in Stavropol territory. In July-August 1942, they were all murdered by the Germans except for Ivan who managed to escape. After wandering for a long time, he was taken by peasants to the village of Arzgir where he was sheltered by the Shinkarenko family, then denounced and arrested. When Ivan and the other Jews arrested in the village were being taken to murder site, a local policeman saved him with the pretext that he was needed for interrogation. Ivan Bortnikov was then taken into the Palaguta family. They hid the boy and took care of him as long as there were Germans in the village and even after the liberation of the area in early 1943. They formally adopted him after the war. When Ivan Palaguta-Bortnikov grew up, he tried to find out if anyone of his family had survived, but there was none. Then, he stayed in the village and married there. On June 24, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan and Praskovya Palaguta as Righteous Among the Nations.