Though I have never placed my faith in God,
I keep this medallion to this day–
In memory of the roads my feet have trod,
And her whose blessing lit my way.
From Roman Levin’s poem The Medallion (dedicated to Floria Budishevskaya).
Little is known about Floria Budishevskaya’s childhood and early years. Even her year of birth is given only approximately in historical sources–around 1906. Floria was born in Kamenets, a small town in southwestern Belarus, where she lived with her parents and sister. The family later moved to Brest. There, Floria attended a secondary school, where she met Sonya Fefer, the daughter of a local pharmacist. Fate would bring the two women together again during the war, in the town of Zhabinka near Brest.
Floria received an excellent education and was fluent in German. She married a train engineer named Ryszard, and in 1929 they had a son, Marian. The young family lived for a time in Białystok before settling in Zhabinka. Their marriage ended before the outbreak of the war. After Western Belarus was incorporated into the Belarusian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1939, Floria worked in the accounting office of the railway depot. As Roman Levin–whose story will be told later–recalled, she was a woman of extraordinary beauty, with perfectly proportioned, almost classical features. More importantly, however, Floria possessed a rare gift: the ability to persuade people and inspire their trust. These qualities would soon become her greatest weapon in the personal war she waged to save those who were dear to her–and many others besides.
From the very first days of the occupation, two German officials were quartered in Floria’s house: the Kreislandwirt (head of the district occupation administration) and the Bezirkslandwirt (chief of agricultural affairs). At first, Floria’s duties were limited to cooking, cleaning, and serving meals. But before long, her excellent command of German and her natural charm won the men’s complete confidence. They began asking her to help sort and prepare parcels to be sent to their families in Germany.
German officers became frequent visitors to Floria’s home. Over coffee and cognac, they spoke openly about developments at the front and about their “local concerns”: the establishment of the ghetto, the search for Soviet officers and their families who had gone into hiding, and the fight against the emerging underground resistance. Later, they began mentioning a new word that had entered their vocabulary–partisan. During such conversations, no one paid any attention to Floria. What could this cheerful, attractive woman possibly understand about men’s affairs?
Yet Floria could not ignore the horrors unfolding around her. Her own life and safety were not immediately at risk, but many of her friends–including numerous Jews and so-called Easterners (people from the eastern regions of Belarus)–were now in mortal danger. On the very first day of the occupation, the Germans blew up the local synagogue. Soon afterward, a ghetto was established in Zhabinka. About 1,500 people were imprisoned there: 820 local Jews and nearly the same number of refugees from surrounding towns and villages.
The head of the local police was a man named Gudyma, a former officer of the Red Army and a notorious sadist. Under his command, the Nazis devised brutal forms of “entertainment.” Jews were harnessed to artillery guns and forced to drag them until they collapsed from exhaustion. Then, in September 1941, the first Aktion took place. Two hundred and seventy-eight Jews were murdered.
Gradually, Floria’s hatred of the occupiers grew stronger. Deeply religious since childhood, she could not come to terms with the violence around her–especially violence carried out with such inhuman, almost satanic cruelty. She continued to smile at the officers quartered in her home and at their guests, joked with them with apparent ease, and seemed to remain the same carefree Mrs. Floria. But with each passing day, she became more certain that she could no longer stand by and do nothing. So when the partisans made contact with her, she agreed to work with them without hesitation.
Floria became an underground operative–a partisan agent working in the very heart of the enemy’s stronghold–and her contribution can hardly be overstated. She passed on intelligence about the deployment of German units, the routes of military trains, planned raids, and enemy informers. Thanks to her, several arrested partisan couriers were freed. On one occasion, the partisans entrusted her with a particularly dangerous mission: to identify two German agents who had infiltrated their unit. She succeeded, and the names of the infiltrators were passed on to the forest. They were never seen again. On the eve of 1944, Floria and her friend Sonya Fefer also supplied the partisans with desperately needed medicines. At the beginning of the war, Sonya’s father, a pharmacist, had hidden a cache of medical supplies known only to his daughter. Floria informed the partisans about the cache, and the medicines saved the lives of more than one wounded fighter.
By then, Floria had already been hiding Sonya from the Nazis for a year and a half. In the summer of 1942, on the eve of the liquidation of the Zhabinka ghetto, she warned her friend in time, allowing Sonya to escape literally at the last moment. Floria concealed her in the attic of her house. Sonya remained there for many long months, unable to set foot outside. Downstairs, German officers feasted around the dining table; above them, a fugitive lay hidden, scarcely daring to move. When Sonya suffered severe bleeding after a miscarriage, Floria climbed to the attic every day carrying buckets of warm water. She secretly washed the bloodstained linen and did everything she could to ease her friend’s suffering.
The risk was enormous. The Germans knew that a single person had survived the liquidation of the local ghetto and never stopped searching for her. Had they found Sonya, not only she but also Floria and Marian would have been executed.
In October 1942, twelve-year-old Roman Levin, a Jewish boy, miraculously survived the execution of two hundred prisoners from the Brest ghetto at the Petrovichi estate. That day, he lost his mother. Barefoot, exhausted, and suffering from the cold, Roman walked eighteen kilometers to reach his sister Tamara, who worked at the Telma railway station. But she could not hide him without risking her own life–and, tragically, her fears would soon prove justified.
Leaving his sister, Roman set out in what he believed was an eastward direction. Like many children, he dreamed of reaching the front lines and finding his own people. In reality, however, the front was still far away, near Stalingrad, and the frightened boy was unknowingly heading back toward Zhabinka. For several days he wandered alone, trying to avoid being seen. Exhausted and with nowhere else to turn, he reached the village of Stebrovo. There, a lonely woman known as Baba Darya took him in. But the village head informed the police, and Roman was taken to Zhabinka.
He was interrogated by Gudyma himself. Roman had prepared a story: his mother had died in a hospital in Brest, and his father was serving at the front. Gudyma did not believe him. What if this emaciated boy had escaped the mass execution at Petrovichi–or worse, was acting as a partisan courier? Roman was handed over to the commander of the German gendarmerie, a man named Edward. Edward was not outwardly harsh. He even listened with apparent sympathy, nodding as the boy spoke. But then, almost casually, he gave a quiet order: “Abschießen.” Roman knew exactly what that terrible word meant: “Shoot him.”
Fortunately, Floria overheard their conversation. She knew that, despite his position, Edward was soft-hearted. She also knew that the commander of the gendarmerie was fond of her. And she had already heard about the massacre at Petrovichi, suspecting that the boy was almost certainly not who he claimed to be. Floria waited until Roman had been led away, then entered Edward’s office.
No one knows exactly what she said to him. Whatever her words were, she persuaded Edward to release the boy into her care. He could, she suggested, become a companion for her son Marian.
Only an hour after being sentenced to death, Roman Levin walked out of the police station holding the hand of a woman he had never met before. She took him home, bathed him, fed him, dressed him in one of Marian’s old suits, and placed around his neck a medallion bearing the image of the Virgin Mary. “I’ve brought you a brother,” she told Marian. For Roman, who had lost both his mother and his sister, a family had been restored.
On October 27, 1942, the families of the so-called Easterners were ordered to assemble outside the Zhabinka district administration building, supposedly for registration before being sent back to their homeland. Women arrived with their children, some having traveled from nearby villages.
The moment Floria learned about the “registration,” she sensed that something was terribly wrong. She rushed to the administration courtyard, where a column of people already doomed to die had been formed. Scanning the crowd, she spotted an SS captain who had visited her home on several occasions.
“My friends are here,” Floria said firmly. “They are not going anywhere.”
“Which ones? Show me,” the officer replied.
Floria began calling out names. Her voice was steady, but fear was unmistakable in the eyes of the beautiful Polish woman. Hands reached toward her from every direction, and desperate cries filled the air: “Floria! Me too! Please, save me!” It is hard to imagine what she must have felt in those moments.
She managed to lead four families–about twelve people in all–out of the crowd. One of those she saved, a passport clerk named Shura Chufarina, later escaped with her young son to the village of Ozyaty, where she joined the very partisan unit with which Floria was secretly working.
The remaining people–around 380 in total–were driven toward a ravine known as Mukhina Yama. “What do you mean, not to the railway station?” cried those who clung to the last fragile hope that they were truly being deported. As they marched along, they threw away their belongings. Suitcases, bundles, sacks, and parcels marked the road to their deaths. At the ravine, the victims were ordered to undress; the surrounding bushes soon hung heavy with abandoned clothing. Then the shooting began.
The next day, Mukhina Yama presented a horrific sight. The bodies had been covered with earth, but in places the ground had already begun to sink, and blood seeped through the soil. Risking her life once again, Floria erected a small fence around the mass grave. Years later, when Roman Levin read about the tragedy of Babyn Yar, he immediately thought of Mukhina Yama. Neither he nor Marian would ever forget what they had witnessed there.
Meanwhile, Floria continued to play the role of the cheerful, impeccably loyal housekeeper devoted to the Germans. Outwardly, her life seemed comfortable–even happy. In reality, the psychological burden she carried was greater than that of a soldier on the front lines. A soldier risked death every day, but he did not have to hide who he was, and his own people regarded him as a hero. Floria, by contrast, was seen by most of her fellow townspeople as a German collaborator and the occupiers’ mistress. Every smile she gave, every bouquet Edward sent her that the neighbors happened to notice, added another stone to the weight of public hatred. She knew exactly how they saw her. Yet she could explain nothing. She could not say, “I am not the person you think I am.” One careless word could have meant death–not only for herself, but also for Sonya, for Roman, and for Marian.
Only God knows what it cost Floria to keep up this charade. Roman Levin remembered her as a woman of remarkable strength and self-control. Yet beneath that outward confidence there must have been sleepless nights, constant fear for the lives of others, and relentless emotional exhaustion. Every knock at the door could have meant discovery–the beginning of the end. She lived on the edge of a volcano, fully aware of the danger, and still managed to smile in the face of death.
By June 1944, Floria’s situation had become critical. The chief of police, Gudyma, had long suspected her of collaborating with the partisans and had been painstakingly gathering evidence against her. The greatest obstacle in his way was Edward, who was always ready to protect Floria–even after Gudyma informed him that she was hiding Sonya Fefer in her home. Furious, Gudyma eventually filed a formal denunciation against both Edward and Floria and sent it to the Gestapo. As punishment, Edward was transferred to the front. But in the final hours before his departure, he warned Floria that she was in grave danger. He urged her to flee immediately and join the partisans in the forest. By then, Edward had long suspected where her true loyalties lay. Before leaving, the former commander of the gendarmerie even intended to leave the partisans a crate of hand grenades–a parting “gift,” as he put it, for Gudyma.
Tragically, Floria did not follow Edward’s advice. Perhaps she believed until the very end in the power of her charm and in her ability to convince anyone of her innocence. Instead of fleeing to the forest, she traveled to Brest to see the head of the SS Security Service. After securing an audience, she insisted that Gudyma’s accusations were entirely false and that she had never done anything to undermine the German occupation authorities. The senior Gestapo officer listened, nodded, and smiled, giving every impression that Floria’s performance had once again succeeded: “We believe you, Mrs. Budishevskaya. You may return home without concern.”
The following morning, on a bright, sunny day, a car pulled up outside Floria’s house. Gudyma stepped out, accompanied by an SD officer with the skull insignia on his collar. Floria was washing the floors. “Get dressed,” they ordered. “Whatever brings the gentlemen here so early?” she asked with her usual easy smile. The SD officer answered curtly in Russian: “We are not obliged to explain ourselves to everyone.”
Floria slowly removed her apron. At that moment, she was not thinking about herself. She knew that Sonya was hiding in the next room. Yet neither the SD officer nor Gudyma searched the house. They quickly escorted Floria outside and put her into the waiting car.
Floria’s sister, Lelya, desperately tried to save her. She searched for someone willing to arrange an escape in exchange for a bribe, but every attempt failed. To the Gestapo, Floria was simply too valuable a prisoner, and no one was willing to take the risk. She was attacked by dogs, burned with fire, and brutally beaten during interrogation. Yet she betrayed no one. In July 1944, only days before Zhabinka was liberated, Floria Budishevskaya was executed alongside other partisans and underground resistance members imprisoned in the Brest prison.
After Floria’s arrest, Roman and Marian tried to save Sonya. They wrapped a large peasant’s headscarf around her head, led her out of the house, and hid her in a field beyond the vegetable gardens. Then they ran to Lelya’s home to tell her what had happened.
Tragically, Sonya did not wait for the boys to return. Perhaps she feared putting them in even greater danger, or perhaps her nerves simply gave way after so many months in hiding. She had not left the house for a very long time. Making her way out of town, she started walking along the highway. Soon she spotted a policeman riding a bicycle. Panic-stricken, she bolted into a field of rye. A shout. A gunshot.
When the policeman reached the lifeless body and lifted the scarf that covered her face, a grin spread across his face. At last, they had found her. For two years, the authorities had been searching for the only survivor of the Zhabinka ghetto.
Roman and Marian were more fortunate. They headed east and eventually reached the advancing Soviet forces. Not long afterward, Roman found his father–a military counterintelligence officer–in Kazan. After the war, he became a poet and told the world the extraordinary story of his survival, in which Floria Budishevskaya had played the decisive role. He dedicated to her the book You Have a Kind Heart, Madame…, published in 2004. Marian graduated from the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics at the Wrocław Polytechnic Institute and became an engineer. In 1959, he and Roman met again and embraced warmly, remembering the woman who had given them both a second chance at life.
In 2004, Floria Budishevskaya was posthumously recognized by the Israeli memorial institution Yad Vashem as one of the Righteous Among the Nations. The medal awarded to those who receive this honor bears the inscription: “Whoever saves one life saves the entire world.” Floria saved far more than one life–she saved dozens. She did not fight the enemy with a rifle, blow up ammunition depots, or carry out armed reconnaissance missions. Her weapon was her smile. Her strength was her faith. Her heroism was her kindness.
30.06.2026
Author: Mikhail Krivitsky
Translated by Lena Lores
Bibliography and Sources
1. Levin, R. A. The Boy from the Ghetto. Moscow, 1996.
2. Smirnov, S. S. The Brest Fortress. Moscow, 1957.
3. Altman, I. Roman Levin: A Boy from Brest. Available at: https://lgz.ru/article/roman-levin-malchik-iz-bresta/?ysclid=mpz5ksqrlu384135670
4. Altman, I. A. The Holocaust and Jewish Resistance in the Occupied Territories of the USSR. Edited by Prof. A. G. Asmolov. Moscow, 2002.
5. Floria Budishevskaya. Available at: https://zhabinkalib.by/history/countrymans/budishevskaya-floriya
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Compiled by V. I. Adamushko, I. P. Gerasimova, and V. D. Selemenev. Minsk, 2010.
11. Smilovitsky, L. The Catastrophe of the Jews of Belarus, 1941–1944. Tel Aviv, 2000.
12. Treister, M. Glimmers of Memory: Memoirs, Reflections, and Publications. Schimmer vom Gedächtnis… Erinnerungen, Überlegungen und Publikationen. Executive editor K. I. Kozak. Minsk, 2007.
13. The Holocaust in Belarus, 1941–1944. Documents and Materials. Minsk, 2002.
14. Chernoglazova, R. A., and Heer, H. The Tragedy of the Jews of Belarus, 1941–1944: A Collection of Documents and Materials. Minsk, 1997.
Floria Budishevskaya
1906 (?)–1944
