Arkady Khanuk a"h - NNN 2022

Arkady was born in 1935 to a traditional Jewish family in the Shtetl Brailov, Ukraine. He attributes his survival to two strong women. The first was his mother, Freyda, who realized that when the Nazis rounded up the Jewish families in town, they separated them into two lines: a line of people who would not be useful to the Germans, and a line of skilled potential workers. Although Ark and his mother were not sent to this line, Freyda took the initiative and put themselves into the worker’s line. By doing this, they were saved from execution by the German Einsatzgruppen into a mass grave. The second woman who saved his life was a non-Jewish friend of his mother, a righteous Gentile. She snuck Ark and his mother out of Brailov and brought them to Zhmerynka where his aunt lived in the ghetto. They hid in a tunnel there for three years, and his uncle, a baker, brought them bread to eat. Through it all, Arkady bravely persevered and maintained a steadfast commitment to his Jewish heritage and culture.