Hudkova Nina and Fomina Anastasia

Nina Hudkova chose her future profession in childhood. After school, she entered Kyiv Medical College of the Okhmatdyt Clinic, obstetrics department. She worked as a medical assistant at the healthcare institutions. The persistent and purposeful girl felt that medicine was her vocation. In 1935, she entered the 1st Kyiv Medical Institute and graduated with excellence in 1940. She received the qualification of a pediatrician doctor and worked at the Children’s Clinic No. 7 in the Pechersk district of Kyiv. After the beginning of the Nazi occupation, one of the clinic’s buildings was turned into Orphanage No. 2. Nina Hudkova was offered to head the institution. The sick children from the hospital remained there, the new children were brought, but more often just abandoned. The orphanage soon became full of children who lost parental care. In total, nearly 70 children were in the orphanage. There were Jewish children, who miraculously survived the mass shooting in Babyn Yar. Nina Hudkova recorded them under the false family names, and then the false metric books were prepared for them. Within two years, 12 Jews lived in the orphanage, six of whom were boys. It was necessary to hide them in the cellars of basements during the periodic visits of the Nazi commandant’s office representatives.

One of the saved children was Caesar Kats. The boy was born in a Jewish family in Kyiv in 1937. His mother died in childbirth. Caesar and his elder brother Pavlo were brought up by his father Petro and grandmother Rosa Sielberstein. The houseworker Anastasia Fomina helped the family. After the outbreak of war, Petro was recruited to the front and got into encirclement near Kyiv. He was detained in the Darnytsia concentration camp. During the transfer to the Kerosynna Street camp in Kyiv, he managed to escape and returned home. However, because of the denunciation, he was shot dead in Babyn Yar. Rosa with her elder grandson managed to evacuate, but the junior Caesar with the nurse Anastasia missed the train and came back to their apartment at Kostiolna Street. The chief of the house immediately ordered the woman to take the Jewish child to Babyn Yar. Not far from Lukianivka district, in the huge crowd of people, Anastasia felt the danger and, waving her passport, began to shout that she was Ukrainian. The German soldier checked her documents and released her with the child from the huge crowd of doomed Jews. For a few weeks, the escapees had been hiding in the basements, sleeping in the ruins of the former Central Universal Store, receiving food from Anastasia’s friends. One of them recommended to bring the boy to the orphanage, which was opened in Pechersk, at Predslavynska Street. The nurse gave the 4-year-old Caesar the note with the name “Vasia Fomin” and left him near the doors of the orphanage.

Under this name, the boy had been living, cared for by Nina Hudkova, until 1944. The doctor was afraid that some of the employees could tell about this, as one careless word could lead to the execution of the entire staff. Fortunately, everything was good and they managed to save all Jewish children.

In 1942, Nina Hudkova gave birth to son Yurii. However, she never left the orphans and stayed in the orphanage with a baby all the time.

In 1943, the Germans transferred the orphanage to the town of Vorzel. After the liberation of Kyiv, it returned to Predslavynska Street.

Caesar was adopted by the family of doctors, Vasyl and Berta Mykhailovsky. Therefore, the boy received the name Vasyl Mykhailovskyi. His native grandmother came back and started to search for the grandson, but he adapted in the new family. The Mykhailovsky family agreed with the boy’s relatives that they would tell him the story of his real family when he grew up.

Vasyl Mykhailovskyi graduated Kyiv Engineer and Construction Institute, worked as a director of the Design Bureau of the Kyiv Research Institute for Construction Industries. Later he was deputy head of the All-Ukrainian Association of the Jews – Former Ghetto and Nazi Concentration Camp Prisoners.

This story continued in the late 1980s. Berta Mykhailovska told Vasyl the story of his rescue and that he survived thanks to two women – Anastasia Fomina and Nina Hudkova. Since then Vasyl Mykhailovskyi often visited the Hudkov family and recorded in detail the testimonies of Nina Hudkova on the orphanage and the life in occupied Kyiv. He initiated the recognition of his saviors the title of the Righteous of Babyn Yar (1993) and the Righteous Among the Nations (1995). Nina Hudkova died in 1993. Her son Yurii Zaichenko received his mother’s award.

“Mom never talked about her feat, she was not even able to watch the films about the war. She was a very modest person and never refused anyone medical assistance. She loved children a lot, that is why, probably, chose the profession of the pediatrician. A doctor from God! Mom thought that if there was a chance to save a human, it was necessary to do it. This was her life credo. She never thought about herself and selflessly devoted her life to medicine and people. Doctor is a savior, and mom was not only by education, but vocation the real savior…“. From the memories of Yurii Zaichenko.