Shkrobatiuk Petro and Yefrosyniia

Petro and Yefrosyniia Shkrobatiuk lived in the village of Pavlivka in Vinnytsia region. During the Nazi occupation of the region, Peter, as a village headman, together with his wife secretly helped the persecuted Jews. Once, an old acquaintance – a tailor Yankel Shtelman from the neighboring city of Illintsi, turned to their family.

With the beginning of the German occupation, local Jews were herded into a ghetto near the Sob River, which covered the central part of the city. Yankel, his wife Frida and children Bella and Boris were also there. Later, during the so-called actions, people began to be taken outside the settlement and shot. During 1941–1942, the Nazis organized several of them. In April 1942, Yankel's wife and children became victims of the Holocaust.

In order not to lose his mind, the man began to take care of his sisters Polina and Fira – peers of his children. Their mother Tsylia Shapiro, constantly going to forced labor, hardly saw her daughters. Wanting to free and save his wards, Yankel turned to Petro Shkrobatiuk. He, as the head of the village, having connections with the occupation authorities, agreed with the guards and took both girls and their mother from the ghetto under his responsibility. At first, he hid them in his house, and when Yankel joined them, getting out of the ghetto on his own, he set up a hiding place in a field on the outskirts of the village. Petro's wife Yefrosyniia sometimes visited the Jews, brought food and clothes. On the eve of the expulsion of the German occupiers from the village in March 1944, Yankel and Tsylia had a joint daughter, Hanna, and in 1946, a son, Dmytro.

Ukrainian and Jewish families maintained friendly relations for many years. In 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Petro and Yefrosyniia Shkrobatiuk as Righteous Among the Nations.

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