Pustovit Yevdokiia

Yevdokiia Pustovit lived in the village of Pariivka near the town of Illintsi in the Vinnytsia region. One day in August 1942, about a year after the start of the German occupation, her neighbor Ivan Bodniuk asked her to take in a Jewish boy. Ivan knew the child’s father, Davyd Mudryk, whom he had met in a partisan detachment. Yevdokiia lived alone, so she immediately agreed to help. A few days later, nine-month-old Lonia Mudryk appeared in her house, brought by his mother Zinaida, a native of Illintsi. Having given birth to her son in the Illintsi ghetto, she and her husband fled to the forest on the eve of the mass shooting. There, the couple joined the partisans. Zinaida feared that the weak baby would not survive the winter in such conditions, so she seized any chance to save him.

Yevdokiia promised to take care of the baby. She told curious neighbors that the boy was born to her unmarried niece and, in order to avoid gossip among her fellow villagers, she gave the son to her aunt to raise. The woman took care of Lonia until March 1944, when the Red Army drove the Wehrmacht out of the region.

After the war, Davyd and Zinaida Mudryk took the little boy to the town of Illintsi, where they rebuilt their home. Later, they had a daughter and another son. Yevdokiia became a frequent guest in the Jewish family, helping Zinaida care for and raise the children.

In 2007, based on the testimony of the Mudryk family, Yad Vashem honored Yevdokiia Pustovit with the title of Righteous Among the Nations.