Halych Kateryna and Andrii   

Before the war, Andrii and Kateryna Halych lived in the village of Chervoni Polohy, Poltava region. Andrii worked as an agronomist on a collective farm, and his wife took care of their two children and worked as a seamstress.

At the beginning of the German-Soviet war, Andrii was drafted into the Red Army and sent to military camps near the town of Yahotyn. During the battles for Kyiv, Halych was captured. But soon, along with other Ukrainian prisoners, he was released by the Germans.

Once in September 1941, on his way to Romodan, Andrii noticed two women with four small children.

“My father rode a cart to Romodan, 5 kilometers from our village. There were six of them - two women and four children. When they saw him, they started to cry and beg to take them with him. My father agreed, although he already knew that those who were hiding Jews could be executed.” From the memoirs of Vasyl Halych

On the way, they told their story. Before the war, Vira Dobrovenska, her four-year-old son Borys and one-year-old daughter Olena and Raisa Markus, her five-year-old son Sasha and nine-year-old daughter Klavdiia lived in Chernihiv. Their husbands were drafted into the Red Army. In the chaos of retreat, they arrived in the village of Romodan by train, but it was already occupied by the Germans. They decided not to return home because they found out that the Nazis were persecuting Jews.

At night, mothers and children got to the house of the Halyches in the village of Chervoni Polohy. Nobody noticed them. In the warm season, Jewish families hid in the attic of the barn. Later, the owners settled Vira and Raisa in their house, and their children slept in a room with the children of the Halyches.

Jewish refugees did not dare to go outside the house. However, rumors about the strange agronomist’s guests spread through the village, and soon a local village head visited the Ukrainian family.

"The village head did not disclose anyone. My mother sewed very well, she supplied the whole village. So he imposed a "tax" on us - my mother had to sew on his demand, and we had to work for him. That's how we paid by the work. " From the memoirs of Vasyl Halych

In the summer of 1942, Kateryna Halych invited a priest from the village of Romodan to her home. She asked him to baptize six Jews and provide them with baptismal certificates. With these documents, Vira and Raisa felt much confident. They began to leave the house and help their rescuers to work in the garden and yard. Later they even began to work in the field. They moved to an abandoned house located next to the house of the Halyches. Eventually, the difference between them and the rural women disappeared: they began to dress in peasant clothes, covered their heads with large headscarves, and even their speech changed. Kateryna taught them to behave according to local customs, how to pray as Christians, though she was not a devout believer herself. Once all of them were taken to the local police station for questioning, apparently one of the neighbors reported about them. Andrii managed to pay a bribe, and the denunciation was forgotten.

In January 1943, a son, Hryhorii, was born in the family of Halyches. Less than a year later, the Red Army liberated Lubny from German troops.

Andrii Halych was drafted into the Red Army for the second time. He took part in the battles in Europe, ending the war in Dresden. He returned home in late 1945.

The Stalinist regime "thanked" the savior for the victory in its own way. In 1947, the agronomist Halych was arrested and sentenced to 15 years in GULAG camps for a handful of grain taken from a collective farm field to save children from starvation. The man returned home only seven and a half years later. During this difficult time, Vira and Raisa helped Kateryna and her children. They continued to maintain close relations with their rescuers.

In the 1980s, Borys and Olena Dobrovenski moved to Israel. On January 21, 2000, Yad Vashem awarded Andrii and Kateryna Halych the honorary title of Righteous Among the Nations.