In 1930, Tykhon Ivanovych Babanskyi, 1891, was involved in the case of “Vesna”, whose defendants were mostly former officers of the tsarist army. Actually, the “officers” became his stigma for life. However, this former officer was a man of bravery and honor, as evidenced not only by his courage on the battlefield during World War I, but also by rescuing several Jewish families of Yelisavetgrad (now – Kropyvnytskyi) during the Hryhorievskyi uprising in the stormy 1919…

At the risk of his own life, wearing a military uniform with awards, he stood on the threshold of his house along Oleksiivska Street (now Haharin Street) and stopped the brutal Black Hundreds. For his courage, the Jewish community of Yelisavetgrad gave Tyhon Ivanovych a valuable silver-framed icon and wrote sincere gratitude on the sheet. The grateful saved wrote in their letter: “…we, Jews, have met a true Christian in your actions.” This icon fed the Babanskyi family in the terrible 1933. It saved from starvation, however could not save from the mass repressions of the 1930s.

Tykhon Ivanovych Babanskyi was convicted “for using the existing difficulties for anti-Soviet agitation, a formal attitude to his work and ... anti-Semitism” and was shot, according to the decision of the “NKVD troika”, on November 19, 1937. Data on the place of execution, as well as burial, are missing. Tykhon Ivanovych was rehabilitated only in 1957. It seems that this case is no different among thousands of similar ones. But perhaps it is precisely because of its typicality that it is interesting.

Documents from the family archive were kindly transferred to the Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine” by Nina Babanska, Tykhon Ivanovych’s granddaughter. And a letter of gratitude from countrymen-Jews took a worthy place in the museum “Jews of Yelisavetgrad” at the Kropyvnytskyi synagogue.

Liudmyla Sandul,

Chief Custodian of Funds,

Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine”