Varvaretski Aleksey

VARVARETSKY, Aleksey On the eve of war Sabina Khenkina (nèe Pinchman, b. 1929) lived with her mother Maria Savransaya (b. 1904) and paternal grandmother Khasya in Kotovsk, in the Odessa district of Ukraine. Her father had passed away in 1937. As the Germans approached, the women took refuge with a family friend, Aleksey Varvaretsky, who lived at the edge of town, further from the train station and factories that the bombs were targeting. A few days later Aleksey escorted Khasya and Sabina to the city of Balta, 25 kilometers away, so Khasya could be with her daughter and grandchildren. Meanwhile, in the first week of August 1941 both Balta and Kotovsk were occupied by the Germans. Sabina missed her mother in Kotovsk terribly, and at the first opportunity Aleksey retrieved her from Balta. On the way back to Kotovsk Sabina was baptized at Aleksey’s behest, he believed that this would shield her from harm. Sabina, who considered herself an atheist, removed the cross she wore around her neck the day after her baptism and never wore it again. Soon after her return, the Jews of Kotovsk were commanded to relocate to a ghetto; Aleksey convinced Maria and Sabina to ignore the demand. In November of that year, the town’s Jews were deported from the ghetto and killed. Maria and Sabina attempted to remain hidden with Aleksey, but their presence was already known amongst the neighbors and they were denounced and arrested. Along with other Kovotsk Jews, the women were sent to the Balta ghetto, where they lived with several others in a single room. Aleksey would occasionally bribe his way into the ghetto to visit them. The food he brought helped them survive under difficult conditions. In August 1943 Aleksey was able to bribe someone enough to allow him to take Maria and Sabina out of the ghetto. He brought them back to his home in Kotovsk, where they hid until liberation in March 1944. In the last weeks of the war, Aleksey hid several other Jews in his home as well. From 1946 Aleksey and Maria lived as a common-law couple; they married formally in 1959. Sabina currently lives in the United States with her husband, a mother of two, a grandmother of three and a great-grandmother of five. On 6 February 2011, Aleksey Varvaretsky was recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.