Марія Рожновська

Mariia Rozhnovska was born in 1904.

Rozhnovsky family, with their daughters Mariia and Yuzefa, lived in Kyiv in the Sviatoshyn District at 74 Petropavlivska Street and were members of an underground organisation. Mariia was married to Semen Zhyhaliuk, and the couple raised their daughter Maniusia Sikorzhytska.

Sirenko family lived next door to the Rozhnovskys. Their daughter Valentyna was married to a Jew. Her husband, Shloma Ger, went to the front.

On 29 September 1941, when the Germans ordered all Jews to report to the assembly point, the large Ger family went to Babyn Yar. Valentyna Sirenko-Ger and her sons Sasha and Alik also intended to go. However, her parents persuaded her not to because she was expecting her third child. They brought their daughter and grandchildren to their home in Sviatoshyn.

After the shootings in Babyn Yar, Germans began hunting down the surviving Jews in Kyiv. Fearing for the fate of her grandchildren, Valentyna’s mother turned to her neighbour Mariia Rozhnovska asking her to hide Sasha and Alik.

Mariia and her sister Yuzefa hid them at their friends’ houses, walking them through the streets wrapped up almost entirely, head to toe. They often spent nights with them in basements until they found a suitable apartment at 19 Kruhlouniversytetska Street. Alik was older and understood a lot, but Sasha cried all the time. Rozhnovsky sisters brought the children food and bathed them.

In early January 1942, Yuzefa took the children to Hladchenko family: Trochym and his daughters Shura, Nina, and Liuda. Here, in Kuchmyn Lane, the boys lived until the liberation of Kyiv. They were joined by their mother Valentyna with her newborn daughter. 

One day in the summer of 1943, Juzefa Rozhnovska went on a mission, and upon her return, she learned that her family had been arrested by the Gestapo. Mariia Rozhnovska, her husband, daughter, and other family members were shot in Babyn Yar. They paid with their lives for saving Jewish families and their connection with the partisans.   

After the war, Yuzefa Rozhnovska got married and took the surname Chernetsova. She worked as a painter and plasterer. Valentyna Ger with the three children waited until her husband returned from the front . In 1946, their son Leonid was born. In 1979, she moved to the United States to live with her children Nonna and Leonid, where she lived until 1997.

Mariia Rozhnovska and her sister Yuzefa were honoured with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations. Mariia received the title posthumously. Hladchenko family, who hid Valentyna and her three children during the Nazi occupation, were also honoured with the title of the Righteous Among the Nations.

Links and documents: 

1. Information about Mariia on the search portal of the Documentary Fund of the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War [https://martyrology.org.ua/record/117167]