Storozhuk Vasyl and Kseniia

Vasyl and Kseniia Storozhuk lived in the village of Bilykivtsi in the Vinnytsia region. During the Holocaust, the couple saved a Jewish woman, Liudmyla Plaksyva, from extermination.

The Plaksyva family lived in the village of Bilyi Rukav, and with the beginning of the German-Soviet war, they moved to their relatives in the neighboring village of Pykiv, near the present-day town of Kalynivka in the same region. In May 1942, the Kalynivka ghetto, where the Plaksyvas were, was liquidated and most of the Jews were exterminated. The parents and sisters of 11-year-old Liudmyla also died in that hell, although she herself miraculously escaped. Having reached the village of Bilyi Rukav, the girl began to seek shelter with her former neighbors. Once she was seen on the street by Kseniia Storozhuk, who occasionally visited her parents there, living, since she got married, in the village of Bilykivtsi. Feeling sorry for Liudmyla, the woman suggested that she move to her place, where it was safer. Despite the child's Jewish appearance, Kseniia told everyone that she was her orphaned niece, whom she had to take care of.

Liudmyla continued to live with the Storozhuks even after the Nazis were expelled from the region in March 1944. Already in adulthood, she recalled that Vasyl Storozhuk, Kseniia's husband, saved not only her but also other Jews. He secretly transported the persecuted from the territory occupied by the Germans to the village of Tartak, where his sister lived, from where they were transported to the village of Mala Zhmerynka, and then resettled in the Romanian ghettos in Transnistria. In 1944, Vasyl was conscripted into the Red Army, and a few months later, news of his death arrived.

After the war, Liudmyla was found by her brother Yosyp, who had returned from the front with an amputated limb and was extremely ill. For a while, he also lived in Kseniia. Later, the sister and brother moved to Vinnytsia. In 1994, they emigrated to Israel.

In 2011, Yad Vashem recognized Vasyl and Kseniia Storozhuk as Righteous Among the Nations.

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