Galich Andrei & Yekaterina

Galich, Andrey Galich, Yekaterina Andrey and Yekaterina Galich lived in the village of Chervonye Pologi (now Chervoni Polohy, Poltava District). He was an agronomist in the local collective farm (kolkhoz) and his wife looked after their three young children and also worked as a seamstress. After the occupation of their area by the Germans in September 1941, Andrey noticed two women and four small children while traveling to the town of Romodan, a distance of seven km from his village. The mothers were asking passers by for assistance and they also asked Andrey for a temporary place to live. Their wretched condition aroused Andrey's compassion and he invited them to his home. On the way, they told him their story: Betya Dobrovenskaya, together with her four-year-old son Boris and her one-year-old daughter Yelena, and Larisa Markusova, together with her five-year-old son Sasha and her nine-year-old daughter Klava, had fled from the Germans to the east. However, when the train in which they were traveling arrived at the station in Romodan, the village was already under German control. They decided not to return to their home since, in the meantime, they had learnt that the Nazis were harming the Jews. They also learnt that people were in no hurry to help Jews. The two mothers and their children reached the Galich home in Chervonye Pologi at night so that no one in the village would see them. Betya and Larisa received a separate bedroom while their children slept together with the Galich children in the room with the house stove. The Jewish fugitives did not dare leave the house. Despite all their precautions, however, the village head noticed something unusual and one evening paid them a surprise visit. From the guests' appearance it was clear to him that they were Jews. He did not give them up but in exchange for his silence he demanded that the Galiches pay him a "tithe" in agricultural produce or in services. In the summer of 1942, Yekaterina Galich invited apriest from Romodan to her home in order to convert the six Jews to Christianity and to give each one a baptism certificate. The certificates gave Larisa and Betya a feeling of security. They went out to help with work in the garden and the yard and later helped also with fieldwork in the kolkhoz. They also went to live in an abandoned house near the Galich family. Time blurred the differences between them and the village women. They changed into peasant clothes, and covered their hair with large kerchiefs; even their accent changed. Yekaterina taught them to behave according to local custom, helped them to learn Christian prayers even though she was not a devout Christian. Once, apparently following a denunciation by one of the neighbors, they were all summoned to the district police station. Andrey went and settled everything by bribing the policemen. After the liberation of the area, in late 1943, the survivors returned to their own homes, and maintained close ties with the rescuers. When Andrey was accused of stealing from the kolkhoz and deported to Siberia, Larisa and Betya assisted Yekaterina. In time, the siblings Boris and Yelena Dobrovensky immigrated to Israel. On January 21, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Andrey and Yekaterina Galich as Righteous Among the Nations.