Locomotive of an old Kolkhoz (Photo by flickr, user vostok71)

Grigori and Pran Tashchiyan are a couple of Armenians emigrated to Simferopol after the genocide in which they lost many relatives. At the outbreak of World War II the family of their neighbours, Evgenia Kucherenko and David Goldberg, is in danger. David is a Jew.

David is enrolled in the Red Army, the children as descendents of a Jew face death risk. During the Nazi occupation nearly all Jews of the Ukrainan town including David's parents are murdered.

Pran offers to hide the Goldlberg kids in her house sheltered by a high wall. From February 1942 to April 1944 Anatoly and Rita Goldberg play with Tigran and Asmik Tashchiyan, who warn them every time the Germans come near and hide them in the cellar, in the attic and even in the dog's kennel.

After the liberation Soviet authorities deport the Tashchiyans to a kolkhoz in the area of Kemerovo. After two years they manage to flee to Armenia, but also here there is Stalinism and they are deported again. They are rehabilitated only in 1956, but they are not allowed to get back home in Crimea. During this period the Armenian and the Jewish family keep in touch.

Yad Vashem awarded the members of the Tashchiyan family with the title of Righteous among nations in 2002.