Pankovich Nikolai & Yevdokia ; Son: Andrei

Pankovich, Nikolay Pankovich, Yevdokia Pankovich, Andrey Nikolay Pankovich lived with his wife, Yevdokia and their three children on the outskirts of the city of Kalush (Stanislawów, later Ivano-Frankivs’k District). In the course of his work as a miner he was seriously injured and put on pension. In the war period his family lived from fruit trees that grew on a farm that they owned. Kalush was occupied by the Germans in July 1941. About a year and a half later, in late 1942, Yoseph Dichek, a young Jew escaped from a transport train taking Jews to the Belzec extermination camp. After being asked to leave the house where he had been hiding because of a search carried out in the area, Yoseph arrived at Nikolay Pankovich's farm by chance and met 16-year old Andrey, his eldest son. Andrey took the Jewish fugitive to his father, who agreed to hide him. Joseph's fiancée, Regina Likwornik, also came and the Pankovichs prepared a hiding place for the two in the loft of the barn where they kept hay for their horses and cows in the winter. The place was relatively warm since they kept the farm animals there. Yoseph and Regina remained in this hiding-place for many months, until the liberation of the area by the Soviets in August 1944. The Pankovichs were all involved in the act of the hiding the two, since they brought them food, took out pails of waste, stood guard when the Jews were in the yard or in the house. Sometimes, when the local police carried out searches in the area, Andrey accompanied their wards to a cornfield or to the nearby forest, where they remained until the danger passed. The rescuers had not known the Jewish pair previously and they helped them for humanitarian motives. After the liberation, Yoseph Dichek was recruited into the Red Army and at the end of his military service in 1945, he married Regina and the young couple left the Ukraine and eventually moved to Canada. The Soviet authorities persecuted the Pankovich family because they werelandowners (kulaks). They returned to their home only in the 1950s and from then onwards corresponded with the Jews whom they had saved. On April 2, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Nikolay and Yevdokia Pankovich and their son Andrey as Righteous Among the Nations.