Rudion Davyd & Anastasia

Rudion, Davyd Rudion, Anastasiya Davyd Rudion and his wife Anastasiya lived in the hamlet of Mokwin, Kostopol County, Wolyn District. There were six children in the family. By the time of the war, some of them were already grown and living separately. The family had land and animals to support them. Among their neighbors was the Jewish Schneider family – parents and four children. In 1941, their youngest son Eli had turned twenty. He was a good friend of Nikolay and Vladimir Rudion, the twins, and the three of them spent much time together. On July 6, 1941, the Germans occupied Mokwin. Punitive measures against the Jews started immediately: the German authorities and the newly organized Ukrainian police abused and molested them; deprived of civil rights, they had to perform forced labor without any payment. Up until mid-June 1942, the Schneiders and the rest of Mokwin’s Jews were still living in their homes. They were then ordered to move to the town of Berezne, 10 km from Mokwin, where a ghetto had already been functioning for several months. On August 25, 1942, the ghetto was liquidated and approximately 3,000 of its inhabitants were shot. During this Aktion, several dozens of young people succeeded in fleeing, including Eli Schneider, who came to the Rudions a few days later. After his escape, he had spent several days in the forest, but hunger forced him to approach his former neighbors. Eli’s parents, Pesah and Mindel Schneider, had been murdered in front of his eyes, but he was hoping that his brothers Abram and Yakov and his sister Ruchl were alive. The Rudions decided to save Eli. Davyd Rudion built a fake ceiling in the attic, with a movable board, and Eli spent the daytime hiding there. At night, when the rescuers’ youngest child was asleep, he would descend to the rooms below to eat and stretch. In winter, it was too cold to stay in the attic, so the host prepared another hiding place, inside the cellar, under a pile of potatoes. One day theGermans carried out a round-up in the hamlet to catch youngsters for forced labor in Germany. They came to the Rudions searching for their twin sons and rummaged the house from top to bottom, including the cellar. In the meantime Nikolay and Vladimir Rudion were hiding in the neighbors’ garden. The Germans noticed them and opened fire. As a result Nikolay was killed. It was a heavy blow for entire family, but despite their personal grief the Rudions continued sheltering Eli and caring for him. After a while, a Soviet partisan group started operating in the area, some of its fighters were Jews from Berezne and the vicinity. At nights, the partisans used to visit the various farms looking for food. When they came to the Rudions, Eli asked to join them. He stayed with the group in the forest until the liberation of the area by the Red Army in January 1944. After the liberation, it became known that none of Eli’s family members had survived. In 1945, he came to say goodbye to the Rudions before leaving for the Land of Israel. They never met Eli again, but received several letters and pictures from him. Eli Schneider passed away in 1993. His daughters, born in Israel, found the Rudions’ daughter Olga 60 years after the end of the war. On January 4, 2006, Yad Vashem recognized Davyd and Anastasiya Rudion as Righteous Among the Nations.