Mulenko Simeon and Daria

According to the 1939 population census, there were 44,269 Jews in the Mykolaiv region, with 25,280 residing in the city of Mykolaiv, constituting over 15% of its population. It's evident that due to the rapid pace of German occupation, many of them couldn't evacuate.

In the town of Nova Odesa, Jews had settled by the late 19th century. In 1897, there were 1,010 inhabitants (18.3% of the population), and by 1910, the number had risen to 4,205 (42%). In 1868, one synagogue functioned there, and two in 1910. Although, by the end of the 1930s, most had left the settlement, leaving only 228 Jews in 1939, comprising just 3.8% of the population.

Simeon and Daryna Mulenko, along with their daughter Nadiya, lived in the village of Zhenevka in the Nova Odesa district of the Mykolaiv region. Among their acquaintances were Yakiv and Betia Lenerman, with their children Manya, Meir, and Izya (16, 12, and 9 years old, respectively), who lived in the district center.

In August 1941, the Mykolaiv region was occupied. German and Romanian units took control of Nova Odesa on August 12, 1941. Fortunately, most local Jews managed to leave before their arrival.

In September of the same year, a ghetto was established in the district center in a large courtyard between buildings on the main street, where the Lenerman family ended up. Jews from Nova Odesa and the surrounding area, as well as refugees from Bessarabia, were gathered there. They were then taken in groups for execution on the territory of the brick factory. The Nova Odesa ghetto existed for a short time. At the end of September and the beginning of October 1941, 125 of its inmates were executed near the settlement.

With the help of partisans, the Lenermans escaped from the ghetto. From late 1941 to mid-1942, their family of five hid in the district center and the villages of the district. They usually hid not all together but in pairs or individually, spending daylight hours in attics or sheds. At night, they received food from sympathetic people and occasionally (mostly in winter) stayed in their homes. Yakiv Lenerman (the head of the family) had a friend, Petro Levin, a Jew who obtained documents claiming he was a Karaim. Karaims did not face the same persecution as Jews in the region. After their escape, the Lenermans stayed with Levin for a while, connected to the local underground. He was a shoemaker and, when he saw that a client was not anti-Semitic and was a decent person, he would ask if they could help with supplies or provide temporary shelter for one or two Jews. Once he got consent, he would inform the Lenermans. Yakiv also was a shoemaker and tried to repay his benefactors with his work.

Among them was Simeon Mulenko.

The Lenermans moved to Simeon and Daryna Mulenko, with whom they hid until mid-1943. Their shelters usually included a shed, attic, and a pit in the garden. In the summer of 1942, raids in the area became more frequent. At that time, Simeon Mulenko, through a relative working in the police, obtained two identity cards and filled them out in the names of Olga and Mykyta Mulenko. Petro Levin pasted photographs of Yakiv and Betia Lenerman into these documents. The children did not have documents; each chose a Christian name instead of a Jewish one. Manya became Masha, Meir became Myron, and Izya became Yuri, all under the Ukrainian surname Mulenko.

The Lenermans enjoyed the hospitality of Simeon and Daryna until their first savior, Petro Levin, was suddenly arrested and later executed as a partisan.

Out of fear that they would also be reported, the Lenermans left the Mulenkos in the early summer of 1943, splitting into two groups: Yakiv and Meir headed to a neighboring district with a guide Levin had found for them, to the village of Olgopil in the Yelanets district of the Mykolaiv region. There they initially lived with Mykola Staroshchuk and later with Yelyzaveta Zaluzhenko, who, based on her denunciation, was arrested and executed in the summer of 1943.

Betia with Manya and Izya, posing as Ukrainians, settled in the village of Vesele in the Nova Odesa district of the Mykolaiv region. They worked in the collective farm like everyone else. The hostess, from whom they rented a corner, introduced them as her relatives, unaware that they were Jews.

After a roundup of youth, Manya was forcibly taken to work in Germany with local boys and girls. She returned to Ukraine in 1946, already married, found her mother and younger brother, and they lived in Vesele until 1949. Then they moved to Mykolaiv. The mother returned to her maiden name, Lenerman. Yuri (Izya) remained Mulenko, making it easier to live. In the regional center, they later met their saviors Simeon and Daryna Mulenko and their daughter Nadiya Mulenko (married name Bezverkhnia).

On July 17, 2005, Yad Vashem honored Semen and Daryna Mulenko with the title of Righteous Among the Nations.