Kuzmenko Ivan, Anastasiia, Volodymyr and Mariia

Ivan and Anastasiia Kuzmenko lived in Ichnia, Chernihiv region. They raised four children. At the beginning of the war, the eldest, Mariia, was 13, Volodymyr was 10, Anatolii was 6, and Mykola was 3. Anastasia’s school friend – Ahnesa Umantseva, rented half of their house. The Jewish woman moved to Ichnia in 1938 with her children: five-year-old Anatolii and newborn Bronia. Her Polish husband Viacheslav Karpovych worked at the Donetsk Railway. In 1937, he was arrested and convicted as an “enemy of the people”. Ahnesa could not get a job anywhere, so she decided to move to Ichnia, where she spent her childhood years. In order not to endanger her relatives, she stayed with her children at a friend's house. Later, she got a job in a kindergarten.

When the German-Soviet war began, her relatives evacuated to Kazakhstan. Ahnesa was going too, but she didn't have time. In order to save the children, she tried to place them with strangers who would not suspect that they were Jews. A woman from the village of Monastyryshche, near the town of Ichnia, agreed to take Tolik under her care. And the woman herself and her daughter were hiding in the woods. Soon Bronia fell ill and died.

Anatolii lived with the peasants, but someone reported on him. One day a policeman came and took the boy away. Therefore, he ended up again in the city of Ichnia together with other captured Jews who were to be sent to the Nizhyn ghetto. By chance, the eldest son of the Kuzmenko family, Volodymyr, saw him on the sidewalk and brought him home. Ivan and Nastia accepted the little one into their family. The boy was forbidden to go outside, because all the neighbors knew about his origin. The older children Mariia and Volodia took care of Tolik the most and made sure that he did not leave the hiding place. Once Anastasiia was summoned to the German commandant's office. The German asked where the boy came from, and the woman stubbornly repeated that he was the child of deceased relatives.

In 1943, Ivan Kuzmenko was conscripted to the front. He died soon after. His mother, who escaped German persecution in the forests of Chernihiv by joining the partisans, found Tolik.

After the war, Ahnesa, Anastasiia, and their children maintained friendly relations.

In 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan, Anastasiia, Mariia and Volodymyr Kuzmenko as Righteous Among the Nations.