Ilnytskyi Petro, Vasyl, Stepan, Karol and Mykhailo, Sheremeta Kateryna

A large Ilnytskyi family lived in the village of Roztochky in Stanislaviv (now Ivano-Frankivsk) region. Before the Second World War, the village belonged to Poland. Ukrainians, Jews and Poles lived in it. The Ilnytskyis had good relations with everyone. 33-year-old Maria and 35-year-old Petro worked on the land and had five children: 15-year-old Vasyl, 10-year-old Stepan, 9-year-old Karol, 5-year-old Mykhailo and 4-year-old Kateryna. In 1938, Maria died, and Petro was left alone with children.

The Ilnytskyis were friends with a Jewish family of Kesslers, who lived next door. In the autumn of 1941, according to the order of the Nazi authorities, all the Jews of Roztochky left their homes and were moved to the ghetto in Bolekhiv.

In the summer of 1942, the Kesslers and their children, Malka and Yakov, niece Sarah and her husband, Yudel Rosen, had a luck to escape from the ghetto. They returned to the village. Nearby, in the forest, the escapees built a dugout and hoped for the support of fellow villagers. The Kesslers asked Petro Ilnytskyi for help. Once every few days he collected a basket of provisions and went to the forest, where he left it at the appointed place or hand it over to one of the Jews. At the risk of being exposed, his children went to the forest instead of the father, allegedly seeking mushrooms or wood.

It lasted until the spring of 1943. But Petro could not keep the hiding Jews alone, because his own family was starving. The Kesslers offered Ilnytskyi to look for the Jews in the Bolekhiv ghetto who would support them with money in exchange for living in a hiding place. Bernard and Ed Lev and their 19-year-old daughter Dyzia agreed for that. But the day before the planned escape, Bernard died. Only his wife and daughter escaped from the ghetto. But they had no money.

"In the summer of 1942, the Germans organized labor camps in Bolekhiv. By this time, almost all the Jews unable to work had been exterminated. My mother and I were sent to a leather processing camp, and my father went to another. It was very hard work. My father knew Petro Ilnytskyi from the village of Roztochky. They were friends and respected each other. And when this horror began, Ilnytskyi met with my father and promised him that he would help him to escape. They agreed to meet on July 15, 1943. Ilnytskyi had to take us to the forest, to the Carpathians. There was a dugout where nine Jews were hiding. But two days before the meeting, the Germans destroyed the camp where my father was. My mother and I were able to escape. On the appointed day, Petro Ilnytskyi came to pick us up and drove us into the woods, as promised. He did not leave us, fed us and was very supportive. In the forest where we were hiding, 600 meters away from us, there was another dugout, where about 30 Jews lived. But they were found and executed. Four of them escaped and accidentally came to us. Ilnytskyi allowed them to stay as well ...” From the memoirs of Dyzia Rybak (Lev)

In August 1943, Petro helped to save Moisei Grunschlag's family. At night, Ilnytskyi hid him with his two sons, 17-year-old Jacob and 13-year-old Abram, at the bottom of the cart and took them out of the Bolekhiv ghetto. The Grunschlags hid in the Ilnytskyis' house for about two weeks, until it was possible to transport them to the forest. Meanwhile, four Jews more joined the Kesslers in the dugout.

During 1943, 16 Jews found shelter in a hiding place.

It was not easy to provide so many people with food. Petro Ilnytskyi could not buy food, medicine and other necessities in one place. In order not to attract the attention of fellow villagers, his children went to nearby villages and then transported supplies to the forest. But despite all the efforts of the Ukrainian family that shared their meager food with the fugitives, eight Jews had died of disease by the end of the occupation.

The Ilnytskyi family supported the Ukrainian liberation movement. Vasyl Ilnytskyi joined the Ukrainian Insurgent Army in 1943. He died in a fight with the Soviet secret services in 1946. The rest of the family was deported.

Petro and his younger children, Mykhailo and Kateryna, managed to escape from a transit point in the village of Goshiv. Stepan and Karol were deported to the city of Karaganda, in Kazakhstan in 1947. The following year, the brothers fled and returned to the village. In 1948, Petro, Stepan and Karol were arrested and sentenced to one and a half years in prison. During interrogation, Petro stated that Mykhailo and Kateryna had died. After serving his sentence, Petro and his sons were deported to Karaganda.

Mykhailo and Kateryna lived in the village illegally, until 1952, when collective farms were organized there. The same year, they were sent to a special settlement in Kazakhstan.

The family returned to Ukraine in 1974. In the 1980s, the families of the rescued Jews re-established contact with their rescuers.

In 1994, Petro and Vasyl Ilnytskyi posthumously, as well as Stepan, Karol, Mykhailo Ilnytskyi and Kateryna Sheremeta (Ilnytska) were awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations".