Bank of Portraits / Ananenko Feodosia and Hanna

Ananenko Feodosia and Hanna 

During the Nazi occupation, Feodosiia Ananenko with her mother Hanna and younger brother Anatolii lived in the village of Rybynsk, Chernihiv region. Her father, Ivan, was drafted into the Red Army in June 1941. Since September 1941 (according to another version – from December 1943) he was considered as missing in action. Anatolii was executed in his native village during the Nazi retribution operation for the Soviet Resistance activity in the region. 

On one frosty night, in December 1941, the woman with a daughter knocked on the door of Ananenko’s house. She asked for food. Hanna saw that the woman was exhausted, so she opened a door, then feed and warm her guests. The woman said that she was a Jew, and her name was Sofiia Yakubovych.

Together with her daughter, Sofiia had to leave her house in Koriukivka after the Nazis shot both her sons Borys and Leonid. Roaming through the local forests for a few days, she accidentally found the village and knocked on the first door.

Feodosiia and her mother let them stay. The Jews were hiding in the attic or stable. Feodosiia and Hanna didn’t want their neighbors to know about Jewish mother and child. Hence, they asked their relatives Motrona and Mykhailo Yurchenko to shelter Sofiia and Vira for a while.

In the winter of 1942 mother with daughter came to the partisan group which was based in the forest near the village of Zhuravleva Buda. Till the end of the Nazi occupation, Sofiia was a cook in that unit. After the Nazi forces were defeated, Sofiia and Vira returned to Koriukivka. During the whole postwar period family of Yakubovych and Ananenko kept in touch with each other.

On October 24, 2000, Hanna and Feodosiia Ananenko were awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

Hanna Rafalska

Kyiv

National museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War

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