Arkhitiuk Fedor & Olga (Zdanevich); Daughter: Sotnikova Galina (Arkhitiuk)

Zdanevich, Aleksandra Arkhitiuk, Feodor Arkhitiuk, Olga Sotnikova-Arkhitiuk, Galina Aleksandra Zdanevich, a widow, lived in Równe (now Rivne) in a small, private house near the railway tracks. During the war between Germany and the Soviet Union, her five sons were serving in the Red Army. On June 28, 1941, the day that Równe was occupied by the Germans, Leike and Mirlya Fabrykant, two sisters that Aleksandra recognized as local girls, came to her home. The sisters had been on a passenger train that was bombed from the air on its way from Równe to the East. In the resulting commotion, Leike and Mirlya lost the other members of their family and all their belongings. Not knowing where to turn, they asked Aleksandra to let them stay with her temporarily. She agreed and hid them in a barn near her home and provided them with food for several days. Aleksandra told her daughter, Olga, and her husband, Feodor Arkhitiuk, that the girls were staying with her. Although the new authorities had announced the establishment of a ghetto for the Jews, the Fabrykant sisters were afraid to go there. Feodor then began to build a hiding place for the girls in an abandoned field behind the cemetery. It was too dangerous for all involved to let the girls stay in the barn for if they were to be caught, they would all be shot; the girls for being Jewish, and their rescuers for aiding Jews. He dug a pit, placed some boards, blankets, and basic necessities inside, and at night moved the girls there. During the entire period of the German occupation, the Fabrykant sisters hid there. Each day some member of the Arkhitiuk family, usually Olga or Olga’s older daughter, Galina, would bring them food and news. Very rarely would the girls come to their rescuers’ home to wash and change their clothes. In the cold winters, however, Zdanevich would bring them into the house. Since Feodor worked in a meat processing plant, neither his family nor the girls in hiding suffered from hunger. But theother conditions were very difficult: the cold, the wet, the lice, and the constant fear that they would be discovered. In February 1944, when Równe was liberated by the Soviets, and when the girls learned that none of their relatives who had been in the ghetto had survived, they contacted their older sister who was in Central Asia and went to live with her. Contact between the girls and their rescuers was severed for many years until it was renewed recently. On December 10, 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Aleksandra Zdanevich and Feodor and Olga Arkhitiuk, as Righteous Among the Nations. On January 27, 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Galina Arkhitiuk-Sotnikova as Righteous Among the Nations.