Israel awarded the family from Kyiv the title of Righteous Among the Nations posthumously

In Kyiv, on International Holocaust Remembrance Day, the Stolyarchuk family was awarded the Righteous Among the Nations award for the assistance provided to the Jewish people during World War II.

Volodymyr and Pavlyna Stolyarchuk were posthumously awarded honorary degrees by the State of Israel as a sign of deep gratitude. The award was received by the great-granddaughter – Alina Zinchenko, the Ministry of Culture and Information Policy reports.

“There are dates that we always remember. January 27 – one of them. 79 years ago, the Auschwitz concentration camp was liberated by the Red Army. But recently two more dates were added to this list. On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a full-scale aggression against Ukraine.

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And on October 7 last year, an unprecedented terrorist attack against Israel took place. More than 1,200 innocent Israelis were killed, hundreds were taken hostage. It was the deadliest attack on Jews since the Holocaust“, said the Ambassador of Israel to Ukraine, Michael Brodskyi.

The award was received by the great-granddaughter – Alina Zinchenko

He emphasized that the tragedy is currently repeating itself in Ukraine, when “Russian fascism demonstrates rage and hatred towards Ukrainians only on the basis of national identity.”

The event also featured a screening of the film “Zone of Interest”, which deals with the Holocaust.

The world premiere of the film took place at the Cannes Film Festival in 2023, where the film won the Grand Prix and a number of other awards.

The film should be released in Ukrainian cinemas soon.

PHOTO: Ministry of Culture and Information Policy

The history of the family of Volodymyr and Pavlyna Stolyarchuk

Maria Milman and her husband Ilya came as young specialists to work in the village of Komsomolske, in Vinnytsia. Maria was a teacher, and Ilya was a technician in the tractor department. In 1938, they had a son Mykhailo.

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In 1941, Ilya was mobilized, and Maria and her son fell into the occupation. On September 9 of the same year, almost all the Jews of the city were killed by the Nazis.

When Maria and her son were being driven in a convoy to the firing pits, one of the guards heard that the boy was speaking to his mother in Ukrainian. He took them out of the column and let them go home.

Maria asked her friend Pavlyna Stolyarchuk for help, and she and her husband Volodymyr hid the mother and son in their home for two months, until they made them new forged documents in the name of Kovalenko.

Mykhailo lived with this new surname all his life. His documents were never changed after the war.

Until the end of the war, Maria and Mykhailo lived in the village of Pirogivka, then returned to Komsomolsk, where after the war the family was reunited with their father.

After that, the family continued to maintain contact with the Stolyarchuks. The saviors became almost relatives for them.

Note that every year on January 27, the international community honors the memory of the victims of the Holocaust. On that day in 1945, the troops of the 1st Ukrainian Front liberated one of the largest Nazi death camps – Auschwitz-Birkenau.

This day, according to the decision of the UN General Assembly, became the date when the world remembers the victims of Nazi terror.

We will remind you that Ukraine is in fourth place in terms of the number of Righteous Among the Nations.

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