Isaak Khomut, a grain merchant, lived with his wife Polina and their daughters Hanele and Laura in Tuczyn (today Tuchyn). When the German occupation started in July 1941, Ukrainian nationalists carried out pogroms against the Jews. Isaak Khomut’s wife and seven-year-old Laura were seriously injured.
In September 1942 Isaak Khomut and his family had to move into the ghetto. Only his older daughter remained outside, living with a non-Jewish family. Polina and Laura Khomut were soon able to flee with the help of their Ukrainian friend Pawel Gerasimchik. Isaak Khomut also escaped and found his family on the Gerasimchik farm in Szubków (today Shubkiv). For the next eighteen months, Isaak Khomut and his family lived in an underground hiding place in the barn. The Gerasimchik family supplied them with food.
After the region was liberated in February 1944, Isaak Khomut and his family returned to Tuczyn, where he learned that his older daughter Hanele and almost all the city’s Jews had been murdered. The family emigrated to the United States in 1949 and changed their name to Emmet.