Kulik Grigori & Anna

Kulik, Grigory Kulik, Anna Grigory and Anna Kulik, a devoted Christian couple with no children, lived in the village of Budishche (now Cherkasy District). Before the Bolshevik revolution they had been rather wealthy, but they later lost their property in the turmoil of the collectivization process. Their house was nationalized and then given to a Communist party activist. In 1941, with the German invasion to the Soviet Union, the party activist fled east, the village authorities changed, and the elderly Kuliks were able to return to their house. In the fall of 1943, the Kuliks were approached by Haya Basovskaya and her 16-year-old son, Grisha. They had escaped from the working camp in the nearby village of Nemorozh on the day that it was liquidated – August 23, 1943. From that point on, mother and son hid in the forest, occasionally coming out to one of the settlements in the area, to beg or steal food. The Kuliks fed the Jewish fugitives, allowed them to wash themselves off and to launder their clothes, and did not object to them coming back for future visits. The Basovskis indeed came to the Kuliks several times, until, on one fateful day in October, Haya was caught by a local woman, brought to the police station, and was there murdered. Left all alone and suffering from the cold and hunger, Grisha came to the Kuliks. The Kuliks in turn offered him to stay with them in their home as a long-term hideout. They treated the boy as if he were their own kin and he “paid” them back by helping with the chores around the house, of course remaining indoors so that he would not be seen by any of the neighbors. After the liberation on February 18, 1944, Grisha appealed to the Soviet authorities to allow the Kuliks to stay in their home, telling them about their goodness towards him. Fortunately his appeal was granted and the grateful Kuliks were allowed to live out their remaining years in the house they built until their deaths in the 1950s. On December 5, 2002, YadVashem recognized Grigory and Anna Kulik as Righteous Among the Nations.