Agopyan Ashkhen

Agopyan, Ashkhen Ashkhen Agopyan, an Armenian, resided in Odessa with her husband and two daughters. Their apartment was in a four-story building on 41 Serova St. Among Ashkhen’s neighbors and friends was Olga Rabinovich. In the first days of the German-Soviet war both Olga’s and Ashkhen’s husbands were conscripted to the Army. Left without the breadwinners, the women and children tried to survive, supporting each other. With the occupation of Odessa by the Germans and their Romanian allies the financial hardships were supplemented by fears for the fate of Olga’s daughters, the three-year-old Dina and the baby Manya, whose father Yakov Rabinovich was a Jew. At first the authorities allowed Olga and her daughters to remain in their apartment, under the condition that Olga register daily at the police station. One day at the end of December 1941 Dina and Manya were forcefully taken from their home first to the Odessa prison, and then to the Jewish ghetto. Olga followed her children. As soon as Ashkhen found out about their arrest she headed to the ghetto, with groceries, a blanket and some diapers for little Manya. She found Olga living in unbearable conditions: an unheated shack that served as a home for several Jewish families, without any furniture or elementary sanitation. Olga was desperate and her children cried of cold and hunger. Ashkhen tried to calm them down by promising to help. Over the next few months Ashkhen and her teenage daughters provided Olga with food and other necessities. Once in a while Olga would leave the children under the care of her neighbors in the ghetto and visit Ashkhen or her relatives, planning an escape. In the summer of 1942 Olga and her daughters were transported out of the ghetto to one of the camps outside Odessa. En route, while still in the city, someone attempted an escape. Using the moment of turmoil Olga grabbed her daughters and ran. Late in the evening they came to their apartment building on 41 Serova Street;but by now others had occupied their flat. Ashkhen and her neighbors from the ground flood, the Bilich family, led the escapees to the coal cellar, where they spent the following 18 months. Together they cleaned part of the cellar and made beds and a table out of old wooden boxes. In spite of all the efforts to turn the place into habitable living quarters, the cellar remained damp and cold, full of rats. When the cold became unbearable, Olga and her children would risk being caught and go to Ashkhen or their relatives in order to warm up. After the liberation of Odessa, in April 1944, Ashkhen was informed by the army that her husband had died in battle. Yakov Rabinovich returned home safe and sound. Ashkhen and Olga remained friends until the latter’s early death, in 1955. On January 17, 2010, Yad Vashem recognized Ashkhen Agopyan as a Righteous Among the Nations.