Danilevich Aleksandr & Stefania ; Adopted Daughter: Sidorovich Anna (Kurilovich)

Danilevich, Aleksandr Danilevich, Stefania Danilevich, Anna Stefania and Aleksandr Danilevich were teachers in Wilno (today, Vilnius). Stefania taught at an elementary school, while Aleksandr, a Moscow university mathematics graduate taught at a high school and wrote algebra textbooks in the Belarus language. The couple was childless and in 1939, following Russia's annexation of east Poland, six-year old Anna Kurilovich, the daughter of Stefania's brother came to live with them. The child's parents had been accused by the Soviet authorities as owners of wealth and were about to be exiled to Siberia. Nina, Anna's younger sister remained with her parents, but for some unknown reason, her birth certificate remained with aunt Stefania. The Germans entered Wilno on June 24, 1941 and immediately began persecuting and murdering thousands of Jews, including women and children. After two and a half months, on September 6 – 7th, the surviving Jews were forced into a ghetto. Among them were Moisiej and Roza Kellner and their seven-year-old daughter Milya. In October 1941, during another murder operation against Wilno’s Jews, Roza and Milya escaped from the ghetto. They met eight-year-old Anna Kurilovich who was herding goats on the banks of the Wilenka River. They asked her for some goat milk, but the girl had no cup to permit them to drink and asked that they come to her nearby home on 14/2 Aukštaičių Street. The Danilevich couple took in both of them. Milya was presented as Anna's younger sister, with Nina's birth certificate serving as proof. The two girls did indeed behave as sisters. They went to school together at Russian Elementary School no. 49 and Anna helped the grownups to keep the real identity of her "young sister” a secret. The Danileviches helped Roza to get forged documents in the name of a Polish woman named Markowski. With that document, Roza decided to register and go as a forced laborer to Germany in order to avoid her real identity being discoveredby neighbors. She survived the war in Germany. On July 1, 1944, just as the Wilno region was about to be liberated, two additional fugitives, Bluma Krasner and her six-year-old daughter arrived at the Danileviches house. They were taken in and hidden in the attic for two weeks until the Red Army entered the town. Roza Kellner returned from Germany in 1945 but the fate of her husband Moisiej remained unknown. During all the time that Milya lived with the Danilevich family, they succeeded in arranging only one meeting with her father outside the ghetto. After that nothing was heard of him although his name appeared on the list of those murdered in the Vilna ghetto. In 1947, Roza and her daughter Milya were allowed to leave the USSR for Poland. They stayed there with the Kurilovich family and thus met Nina, Anna's real sister. Subsequently, they immigrated to the United States. Until 1959, they continued to correspond with the Danileviches. At first, Milya addressed them as Mother, Father and “Anechka” and signed Milya Kellner or “Nina Kurilovich”. Contact between Anna and Milya's children was renewed during the 1990s. On February 1, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Aleksandr and Stefania Danilevich and their daughter Anna as Righteous Among the Nations.