Rivne oblast – When Liudmyla Bondar from the village of Velyky Zholudsk delivered a boy, the doctors’ verdict was grim: the boy was condemned to infirmity as he suffered from a serious pathology of his inner organs. His parents didn’t want to believe it and started searching for a solution. They were told that it was possible to have a surgery in Germany, which would cost 25,000 euros. Where could an average rural family find this enormous sum of money to save their child? Yet the Bondars were determined.
Delivery was difficult for Liudmyla. The child was born with certain abnormalities and was immediately sent to Rivne for a check-up. Later the parents took the boy to the children’s hospital Okhmatdyt in Kyiv. There doctors recommended a first operation for the child, at the age of seven months.
A teacher and translator from Berezne Vasyl Zhylynsky helped the Bondars the most. He told the famous German philanthropist Marianna Richter about their troubles. This woman is the honorary resident of the town of Berezne and she has been taking care of the Polissia region for many years. Marianna Richter agreed to help the family. The photos of Nazar were sent to Germany. The reply was immediate: the boy needed to be urgently operated on before it was too late. First they warned that the operation would cost 25,000 euros, but later found that 15,000 will be enough.
“This was an enormous sum of money. Where could we get it?” continues Liudmyla, wiping her tears. “We started raising money. We’re very much obliged to the people from our village. Our son’s godmother visited all the villagers and everybody helped. We raised almost 10,000 hryvnias in our village and in the neighboring village of Maly Zholudsk. The local businessman Petro Maksymchuk helped us lot. When our elder daughter Yana brought the money raised by her classmates and other students, I burst into tears,” sobbed the woman. “Our people are so sincere and merciful!”
“Once I walked all day long,” recalls the man, “I was extremely tired, nobody gave me a single penny that day. I came into one more office and sat down on the bench. The guard came to me and asked why I was sitting there. I told him about our troubles. He listened to me silently and asked to wait for him for a couple of minutes. Then he came back, brought me the Gospel and 50 hryvnias. A simple guard. From my experience I learned that poor people are much kinder and more sincere.”
“Once Ivan came back from Rivne and told me that there was no place to go anymore,” continues Liudmyla, “then we sold the cow. There was nothing left. We borrowed some more money and mortgaged the horse and even the piglets as we had to have something to subsist on after the operation. We managed to raise only 5,000 euros. The Germans agreed to conduct a surgery for this money. They wondered why our government couldn’t help us. They couldn’t understand it.”
The German philanthropist Marianna Richter helped them get a visa and all the documents and even sent tickets for the flight to Munich.
“The Germans are very sincere,” recalls the woman. “All the time unfamiliar but very attentive people came to the hospital. They brought presents and gave us money, 10 or 20 euros. The medical staff were very responsive, they said: ‘Ukraine, Nazar.’ They didn’t put anybody into our room. The famous professor Ditz performed the surgery in the Munich children’s hospital and assured us that at the age of ten our son will be completely healthy.”
A local newspaper published the story about the little Ukrainian boy Nazar Bondar and the money needed for a second operation was raised by German children, who went round caroling during the Christmas time.
Frau Richer visited the Bondars in the village of Velyky Zholudsk as a guest. She had a present for them: “I found out that before the trip to Germany you even had to sell your cow. I know very well that in Ukrainian villages it is a means of subsistence, and it’s very hard to manage without it. That’s why I want to give you a cow.”
“This woman did so much for us,” says Liudmyla, “Frau Richter lives with her husband in a small house 220 kilometers from Munich. They are not wealthy people.”
During our conversation the lively boy played on the floor with his sister Yana. He laughed loudly and light-heartedly. He came running to his mom and dad and asked them to take him in their hands. Nazar has no idea about what his parents had to go through so that he could run.
