Melnyk Amos, Fedir ta Mykhailo, Bondar (Kurylenko) Polina, Neiman Emelina

Amos Melnyk lived in the village of Kanuny in Zhytomyr region. His eldest son, Fedir, got medical education in the city of Zhytomyr and was conscripted to the front at the beginning of the war. In late July, the Germans occupied the village, and almost immediately, they began persecuting the Jews.

The Shubert family, who were Jewish were the Melnyks' family closest friends and neighbors. Three older children of Yosyp and Rozaliia were evacuated to the east, while 17-year-old Sofia and 14-year-old Ida remained with their parents. On September 13, during the roundup, all local Jews were forced into the ghetto in Novohrad-Volynskyi (current Zviahel). Yosup and his daughters were saved because they were working in the fields. The villagers warned them of the danger and advised them to hide in the forest. Within a few weeks, they found out that Rozaliia had been shot. Amos Melnyk hid Yosyp and his daughters in his house. It was very dangerous, because all local residents knew about the friendship between the two families. Policeman Hlyshchuk periodically watched over the Melnyks'  house, so the rescuers had to find temporary shelters for the Jews in the forest and neighboring villages. For some time, the sisters sought refuge in the village of Hulsk, in the house of Polina Kurylenko, Sofiia Shubert's school friend, and her neighbor Emelina Neiman. Emelina, of German descent, had some privileges in the German government and skillfully used them to help those in need. Risking her own life and the lives of the two young girls, she provided shelter for Sofiia and Ida in her house.

In January 1943, the girls found out that their father, Yosyp Shubert, had been captured. Hlyshchuk publicly shot the Jew in the schoolyard and forbade the body to be buried.

At night, Amos and his son Mykhailo buried their friend, and for this act, they were also sentenced to be shot. However, thanks to the efforts of the German woman Emelina, whose brother worked in the police, the death sentence was commuted to life imprisonment. Amos and Mykhailo were released in 1944, after the expulsion of the Nazis from Novohrad-Volynskyi.

Fedir, who managed to escape from German captivity, joined a partisan unit and later took Ida and Sofiia to safety with him.

After the war, he married Sofiia, and they had been living in a happy marriage for 46 years. Ida, after the war, moved to Belarus.

In 2001, Yad Vashem recognized Amos, Fedir, and Mykhailo Melnyk, Polina Bondar (Kurylenko), and Emelina Neiman as Righteous Among the Nations.