Roiko Maria ; Daughter: Kapitskaya Nadezhda (Roiko)

Roiko, Mariya Kapitskaya-Roiko, Nadezhda Mariya Roiko and her three daughters lived in the village of Galchin (today Hal’chyn, Zhytomyr District) and were members of an Evangelic sect. The girls – Nadezhda, Valentina, and Tamara – attended school in Andrushevka, the county seat, along with the children of the Blaivais family, who were Jews, and the parents met through the children. On July 16, 1941, Andrushevka (now Andrushivka) was captured by the Germans. In the following month the town’s Jewish population was decimated in a large-scale murder operation, and the remaining Jews were herded into a ghetto, which existed until the end of April 1942. Then the Germans and local policemen surrounded the ghetto and took the Jews to the killing pits. Mariya Blaivais and her 13-year-old daughter, Raisa, eluded the murderers and fled. They reached Galchin that evening and asked the Roiko family for shelter. After talking it over with her eldest daughter, Nadezhda, Mariya Roiko agreed to hide Mariya Blaivais, who was in a state of shock after losing her husband and two children. Raisa, however, did not want to go into hiding. Taking advantage of her Slavic appearance and her fluency in Ukrainian, she wandered from village to village, passing herself off as a Ukrainian orphan and doing household chores for farmers and looking after their children in return for food and lodging. From time to time she visited her mother, who stayed with the Roiko family. On one occasion, Mariya Blaivais tried to kill herself but the Roiko family stopped her. Thanks to the care and encouragement she received from her rescuers, Mariya Blaivais survived, and after the area’s liberation, at the end of 1943, was reunited with her daughter. She stayed in touch with Mariya Roiko and her children for the rest of her life. On August 2, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Mariya Roiko and her daughter, Nadezhda Roiko-Kapistkaya as Righteous Among the Nations.