Gentile who saved chief rabbi identified

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By Stan Goodenough
June 27, 2008

Tel Aviv Chief Rabbi Meir Lau was reportedly deeply moved Friday as he told how the identity had recently been discovered of a man who helped save his life during the Holocaust 63 years ago.

Lau, formerly chief rabbi of Israel, told Israel Radio that while he had known the first name of his, at the time 18-year-old, rescuer, Fyodor, he had not known his family name of Michajlitschenko, a name that was only uncovered during a search of hitherto inaccessible Nazi records.

The rabbi said he had been a small boy in the Buchenwald concentration camp when Michajlitschenko - imprisoned by the Gestapo - looked after him, knowing he was a Jew. The young man had helped protect Lau against the biting cold and had stolen extra potatoes with which to feed him.

Jews call the relative handful of Europeans who risked their lives to save Jews from the Nazis "righteous gentiles."

Lau said that if Michajlitschenko should choose to visit Israel, he would personally welcome him to Ben Gurion International Airport and "make efforts to ensure he is bestowed the Righteous Among the Nations title."

"I always admired him," Lau said emotionally, according to The Jerusalem Post. "He knew I was Jewish boy [and he] protected me with his body."

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