Torbik Trofim

Torbik, Trofim Trofim Torbik was born in 1903 in the Bryansk District, Russia. At the beginning of 1941 he traveled to Latvia and settled in Liepaja, where he had found work. There he became acquainted with a Jewish woman Bluma Roberman and her ten-year-old daughter Marta, who also came to Latvia from Russia. Following the outbreak of the German-Soviet war Trofim and Bluma lost contact: Trofim, who took part in the city’s civil defense, was taken prisoner and sent as a slave laborer to Germany. Some time later he fell ill and was sent back to Liepaja. After his recovery Trofim found a job in the Gestapo’s auxiliary facilities. His duty was to clean the stables and the cowshed and take the cows out to pasture. Amongst other people who worked there were a number of Jews. Through them Trofim found out Bluma’s whereabouts – she was a prisoner in a camp where both Jews and non-Jews were interned. Apparently Bluma had claimed that she was Russian, using the fact that she was new in town, had no connection to the Jewish community and her name never appeared on the community lists. In the late fall of 1941 Trofim figured out a way to take Bluma and Marta out of the camp and hide them in his small private house. From that day on he sheltered and provided for the two. He built a hideout in the house attic where Bluma and Marta stayed while Trofim was out. Late in the evening, with the door and the windows shut, they would come down to the room, cook and eat together with the rescuer. On several occasions Trofim transferred them temporarily to other places: either to an acquaintance or an empty building, all the while looking for another house or apartment as he feared to keep them too long in one place. He continued to work at the Gestapo auxiliary facilities and did not miss his chance to help other Jews as well. At the end of 1943 he assisted in the escape of Iosif Mandelshtam, Shmerl Skutelski and Misha Libauer from the Kaizervald concentration camp. The three ofthem were later sheltered by the Seduls* couple, and survived. After the war Trofim and Bluma got married. They went on living in Liepaja, but had no children together. Trofim passed away in 1984. Bluma passed away 19 years later. On November 3, 2009 Yad Vashem recognized Trofim Torbik as a Righteous Among the Nations.