PRAGUE (JTA) — A Czech couple was posthumously recognized as Righteous Among the Nations for saving a Jewish girl in Ukraine during the Holocaust.
A daughter of the honored couple, Anna and Vincenc Bohata, received the honor from the Israeli envoy to the Czech Republic, Gary Koren, at the Israeli Embassy in Prague on Wednesday.
The Bohatas, ethnic Czechs who were born in Ukraine, hid Mindla Svarc from Nazi troops and Ukrainian nationalists during World War II. After the war they moved to what was then Czechoslovakia along with the girl, who went on to marry and have three children.
One of Svarc’s daughters, Ruzena Stehlikova, also attended the brief ceremony.
“It’s a wonderful feeling,” she told Czech Radio. “We always knew the family accepted us as their own, and they loved my mother very much.”
The Yad Vashem Holocaust museum in Jerusalem has recognized 115 Czechs as Righteous Among the Nations, a title given to non-Jews who rescued Jews during the Shoah.
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