Maria Zubkova lived with her husband Vasili in Dnepropetrovsk (Dnipro). German troops occupied the city in August 1941. Most of the Jews there were murdered in mass shootings.
In October a neighbor asked the Zubkovs whether they would take in an allegedly orphaned child. She did not tell them that Nelli Gordon was a Jewish girl who had survived a mass shooting. The Zubkovs suspected as much but took the girl in nonetheless.
Nelli Gordon was betrayed one day and imprisoned for two months. Despite being beaten in interrogations, she continued to maintain she was a non-Jewish orphan. She and the Zubkovs were at risk of execution if her true identity was discovered. Maria and Vasili Zubkov obtained forged documents and adopted the girl. However, Maria Zubkova often beat her.
After Dnepropetrovsk’s liberation, Maria Zubkova learned that Nelli Gordon’s parents had survived. Initially, she did not want to let her adopted daughter go. However, the girl did return to her family. In 1998 the Israeli Holocaust memorial center Yad Vashem honored Maria Zubkova as Righteous Among the Nations.
Nelli Gordon (center) with her father Lev Mendeleyevich Gordon (in uniform) and her rescuers Maria Fyodorovna Subkova and Vasili Yefimovich Subkov, Dnepropetrovsk, 1945. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, Righteous Among the Nations
Nelli Gordon with her mother Sinaida Gordon (front, left to right) and the helpers Maria and Vasili Subkov (back), Dnepropetrovsk, 1948. Source: Yad Vashem Archives, Jerusalem, Righteous Among the Nations
