Hinkul Demian, Hanna and Viacheslav, Pavniak Oleksandra, Balanutsa Klavdiia

The Nazis occupied the city of Mykolaiv on August 16, 1941. The first executions of Jews took place there from August 18 to 31. The report of the German commandant's office dated August 31, 1941 states that these were the first 227 people who did not show up for registration and called on the rest of the Jewish population not to submit to the German authorities. The Nazis gathered them on the outskirts of the regional center, drove them into the basement of the former naval hospital, and exterminated them there.

Mania Kushnir (Druker) and her seven-year-old son Tolia were staying her husband’s parents, Petro and Sekleta Kushnir, in Mykolaiv. She did not dare to evacuate because she was about to give birth to her second child. When panic broke out in the city, Petro Kushnir made an agreement with his neighbors Demian and Hanna Hinkul that his Jewish daughter-in-law would live with them. The Hinkuls equipped a hiding place in the basement of their house for the pregnant woman and her son. At the end of August, she gave birth to another boy. For four months, the woman and her two children hid with a Ukrainian family. The Hinkuls’ 16-year-old son, Viacheslav, spent a lot of time in the basement of their house, helping Mania with the boys. The newborn child needed his mother’s attention first and foremost, so Slavko took more care of his brother Tolia.

At the end of 1941, in order to ease the situation of the Hinkuls, Petro Kushnir decided to transport his eldest grandson to the other bank of the Southern Buh River to the village of Stara Bohdanivka, where his distant relative Oleksandra Pavniak lived. The woman took care of the Jewish child until the end of the occupation. Meanwhile, Mania and her younger child returned to live with her parents. One day, she carelessly went out into the city and was caught in a raid. Petro managed to hide his little grandson, so the occupiers found nothing during the search. For two years, Mykhailyk grew up under the care of Klavdiia Balanutsa. The woman lived with her 10-year-old son and agreed to Petro Kushnir's request to save the child. Petro negotiated with a local policeman for money to have the child registered as Klavdiia's younger son.

In March 1944, Petro and Sekleta Kushnir learned that their daughter-in-law Mania had been killed. In 1945, their son returned from the front. Both of his rescued children were living with their grandparents at the time.

In the 1990s, Anatolii and Mykhailo Kushnir emigrated to Israel. Based on their testimony, in 2002, Yad Vashem recognized Demian, Hanna, Viacheslav Hinkul, Oleksandra Pavniak and Klavdiia Balanutsa as Righteous Among the Nations.

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