Nechiporuk Ivan

Nechiporuk, Ivan Doctor Abraham Avrech (b. 1909) worked in a hospital in the town of Maciejów, Kowel County, Volhyn District, Poland (today Lukiv, Ukraine). In June 1941 the German army entered the area. They killed 150 Jewish men in the first few days, and after a while they placed the remaining Jews in an open ghetto before killing them all. Ivan Nechiporuk, a paramedic who worked with Abraham in the hospital, offered him refuge in his home. At night they left Maciejów together, and after a 5 km walk they arrived at the village of Okunin. Ivan introduced Abraham to his mother and showed him his hiding place in the hayloft of the barn. Ivan and his mother brought food to Abraham every day. When it got very cold, they brought him inside the house to a separate room that was locked from the outside. One day a neighbor saw Abraham, which frightened Ivan, so he moved him to an abandoned house formerly owned by Jews. Abraham stayed there for a short time and then spent some more time with a pharmacist friend of Ivan’s, but a few days later, Ivan brought him back to his home. Abraham stayed under the protection of Ivan and his mother for over a year, until the fall of 1943. They took care of him out of concern for a fellow human being, without any thought of a reward. After the year with Ivan, Abraham and a group of young people from the village joined a battalion of Soviet partisans, where Abraham served as a doctor. He stayed in Russia until 1960 and kept in touch with Ivan as much as he could. In 1960 he immigrated to Israel, where he worked as a doctor. On March 21, 2016, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan Nechiporuk as Righteous Among the Nations.