Hanna Kolomiets, Halyna Burchyk (Kolomiets)

A 40-year-old widow Hanna Kolomiets lived in the village of Stovpiahy in the Kyiv region. She worked as a teacher at a local school and had three daughters: Vira, Anastasiia, and Halyna.

A year after the Nazi troops occupied the region, two older girls were taken to Germany for forced labor. Hanna stayed with 12-year-old Halyna. In the spring of 1943, 14-year-old Halia, the daughter of Hanna's former colleagues Vasyl Polishchuk and Bronislava Kelrikh, came to Hanna’s home. The girl was exhausted and asked for help. Her mother was arrested in Pereiaslav during a raid, and she and her younger brother and sisters escaped. Former neighbors helped the children and took them to the forest. Halia knew that her father was also hiding in the forest with the partisans, but she had no idea how to find him.

Hanna agreed to help the Jewish children. When it got dark outside, she sent her daughter, who oriented herself in the forest, to help Halia to pick up the rest of the children. The woman could hardly hold back her tears while she fed and bathed five-year-old Liuda, three-year-old Larysa, and nine-year-old Lenia, and combed lice out of their hair. Step by step, the children recovered from the stress, behaved well and realized that it was dangerous to go outside. With her meager means, Hanna supported them until the end of the war. After the Nazis were expelled from the village in the fall of 1943, the girls and boy were found by their father, however, they stayed for a while with the Kolomiets family.

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In 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Hanna Kolomiets and her daughter Halyna Burczyk (Kolomiets) as Righteous Among the Nations.