Medvedskaia Pelaheia and Nadiia, Baranchuk Kyrylo

Pelaheia Medvedskaia lived with her daughter Nadiia in Nemyriv, in Vinnytsia region. During the Holocaust, they hid three-year-old Aleks Milner in their house. In the autumn of 1941, a friend told Pelaheia about the situation of the boy's family and asked to shelter him for a certain time. The woman agreed, and the same night a Jewish child was brought to her.

Before the war, the members of Milner family were residents of Chernivtsi. Crimes and repressions against Jews began there in July 1941. During July 5-9, more than 2,300 people of Jewish nationality were killed and tortured in the city and its surroundings. The next step in the anti-Semitic measures of the Romanian authorities was the decision to use Chernivtsi Jews for forced labor. On August 20, 1941, order No. 2459 appeared in the form of posters and publications in the columns of the newspaper "Bucovina". According to it, the entire Jewish population of the city of Chernivtsi and the region between the ages of 18 and 50 was obliged to appear with documents certifying their identity and to register. The "commission for accounting and control of Jews" was engaged in the census for the further use of forced laborers.

The Milner family was sent to one of the labor camps. In October 1941, they were deported to Transnistria. In total, over 11 days, 33,891 Jews were taken from the Chernivtsi ghetto to Transnistria from October 14 to 24. Later, the family ended up in the Nemyriv ghetto. In September 1942, on the eve of the mass shooting, Aleks's father managed to take his son outside the ghetto and hand him over to an unknown woman who promised to find safe shelter for the child. This woman was a friend of Pelaheia, in whose house the baby lived for six months. The boy quickly got used to the new family, especially to Nadiia, who spent all the time with him.

Meanwhile, Aleks's parents were transferred to a labor camp in the village of Buhakiv, near the town of Nemyriv. Rakhel Milner was a pharmacist, she was appointed as a doctor. Getting to know local residents, the woman tried to find someone who would agree to transport her son and ferry them to Transnistria. Kyrylo Baranchuk volunteered to help. He took Aleks to the Medvedskaia family and hid him in his house for several weeks. Later, his parents joined the child. In March 1943, Kyrylo moved the Milner family to the village of Perepelychchia, on the banks of the Pivdennyi Buh River, and from there the fugitives reached the town of Mohyliv-Podilskyi. Jews remained in the local ghetto until the Red Army arrived in the region.

In the post-war years, the Jewish family emigrated to Israel.

In 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Pelaheia and Nadiia Medvedskaia and Kyrylo Baranchuk as Righteous Among the Nations.