Maria Tykva

Maria Tykva was born in the village of Sholokhove in the Dnipropetrovsk region. In the mid-1930s, due to her difficult financial situation, the girl had to go to work in Kyiv. There she settled in the Jewish family of the Dinkevichs as the nanny of little Lionya.

At the beginning of the war, Yosyp Dinkevich was drafted into the Red Army. On the eve of the occupation of the capital of Ukraine, his wife asked Maria to take the child to her village in the Dnipropetrovsk region. The Germans fired at the steamer on the Dnipro from planes. Since then, Lionya and his parents knew nothing about each other.

Shortly after the arrival of Maria and her baby to the village of Sholokhove German troops entered there. The nanny and her pupil lived in the house of her parents, Hryhoriy Tykva and Olyana  Sholudko. But even in a far village, Lionya's life was in danger. Later he  described in his memoirs episodes related to the German occupation:

    "The first German in our yard shot all the chickens with a machine gun. The Germans often asked me, “Judas? The Bolsheviks? ” Shortly after the arrival of the Germans, Maria and I were summoned to the gendarmerie. She and I were interrogated (I was 5.5 years old), interrogated by a German through an interpreter (separately, without the presence of a nanny). They asked where I was from, who my parents were. I was very scared… During the interrogation I bit the German's hand, for which I was slapped. After the first interrogation, another local policeman was called. " From the memoirs of Leonid Dinkevich

Fortunately, Lionya and Maria were released: the police came to the conclusion that Dinkevich's surname was not Jewish, but Polish.

Sometimes German soldiers stopped at the Tykva’s house and mostly did not care about the origin of the six-year-old boy. Lionya remembered one of them: he stroked his head and wiped away tears, perhaps remembering his family and longing for his own children.

Leonid Dinkevich mentioned his life in the village:

    "Everyone in  Tykva family treated me like a relative. There was another child in the house - Tolya, Maria's nephew. He was younger, we were friends. Neighbors treated me well as a local. I spoke Ukrainian all the years I lived in the village. " From the memoirs of Leonid Dinkevich

In 1943, the Germans evicted Tykva family from their home: it was turned into a food warehouse and later into a sausage smokehouse.

In the winter of 1944, shortly after the expulsion of the Nazis by the Red Army, Maria received a letter from Lionya's aunt. She was worried about her nephew's fate and reported that his mother was alive: she had managed to evacuate to the east.  Aunt also gave the address of her brother's field mail, Yosyp Dinkevych. One of the Soviet soldiers who were in the village ofSholokhove at that time wrote a letter to the father of Lionya, in which he told the story of his son's rescue.

After the war, the boy's mother returned from evacuation and took him to Kyiv. Maria Tykva later joined them. She lived in the Dinkevich family until Lionya came of age. She worked as a nanny and later raised children in other families. Leonid Dinkevich maintained close ties with her throughout the postwar years and cared for his lifeguard in old age. Maria Tykva died on December 23, 2004.

On June 22, 2008, Yad Vashem awarded Maria Tykva the honorary title of "Righteous Among the Nations".

The feat of the rescuer is also remembered by fellow villagers: since 2018, one of the streets in the village of Sholokhove is named after Maria Tykva.