Chorna Mariia, Bulyha Lidiia

Mariia Chorna and Lidiia Bulyha from the village of Piatyhory (now Bila Tserkva district) in the Kyiv region provided shelter to the Jewish Shvartsman family during the Nazi occupation.

At the beginning of the war, Khana Shvartsman and her daughters Roza and Sofiia were relocated to a labor camp for Jews in the village of Antonivka, also in the Kyiv region (now the settlement of Buky, Uman district, Cherkasy region). Roza, the eldest of the girls, soon died from the hard labor. In 1943, some prisoners managed to escape from the camp. Among them was Khana with 11-year-old Sofiia. Mother and daughter returned to the village of Piatyhory in the hope of hiding with one of their former neighbors. Mariia Chorna saved them by sheltering them in a vegetable pit in her yard. The Jewish women wintered in her house. The landlady lived very poorly, but shared everything she had. Mariia's neighbor, having learned that she was hiding the Shvartsman family, offered her help. So Khana and her daughter sometimes lived with Lidiia, both helping her with the housework.

After the war, they remained in the village of Piatyhory. Later, Sofiia married the grandson of Mariia Chorna and emigrated with him to Israel.

In 1999, Yad Vashem recognized Mariia Chorna and Lidiia Bulyha as Righteous Among the Nations.

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