World War II Database

Contributor: C. Peter Chen

ww2dbasePan Jun Shun was born in China in 1889. In 1916, he moved to Moscow, Russia and worked as a laborer. He was unable to return to China due to the Russian revolution of 1917, thus he settled in Moscow, marrying a Russian woman and had two sons. In 1936, he moved to Kharkov, Ukraine. In the late 1930s, his wife passed away. In 1940, his two sons were drafted into the Russian Army; both of them never returned, presumably killed in action. He remained in Kharkov during the German occupation, living with a small group of Chinese expatriates in the home vacated by an Ukrainian Jewish family. In Jan 1942, Ludmilla Dvorkina, daughter of the family who vacated the house, escaped from the detention area where her family was rounded up (her mother bribed a guard for her escape) and returned to the house. Pan, possibly out of grief for the recent loss of his wife and being parted from his sons, cared for her as if she was his own child. His efforts were aided by Alexandra Babaev, Mitrofan Babaev, and Nadezhda Popelniuk in the effort to hide the child until Russian troops entered Kharkov on 23 Aug 1943. He continued to care for Dvorkina, providing her with education and guidance. Pan passed away in Kharkov in 1974. He was awarded with the title Righteous Among the Nations, the first Chinese to receive such an award, by Yad Vashem, Israel's official Holocaust Martyrs' and Heroes' Remembrance Authority.

Pan Jun Shun Timeline