Tserkevych Anton and Viktoriia, Karlinska (Tserkevych) Nataliia

Anton and Viktoriia Tserkevych lived in Vinnytsia. Their daughter Nataliia and her husband Yakov Karlinskyi and granddaughter Faina lived with them. In 1940, due to financial difficulties, the family sold part of the house to the Jews Shvartsmans. Hryhorii and Liubov Shvartsman, together with their teenage children Betia, Kara and Mykhailo moved to Vinnytsia from Bershad and later became good neighbors for the Tserkevychs.

On July 19, 1941, the regional center was occupied by Nazi troops, after which the living conditions of Vinnytsia residents changed dramatically, and raids on Jews began. Anton and Viktoriia began helping their neighbors. After the mass shooting of Jews that took place on September 19 in the Piatnychanskyi Forest (about 10 thousand people were killed then), Anton and Hryhorii built a basement shelter. The Shvartsmans would go down there during the day and return to the house at night until the situation regarding the “Jewish question” in the city relatively stabilized. One winter, 13-year-old Mykhailo suffered serious injuries after falling from a sled. Due to his Jewish origin, the boy was refused treatment at the local hospital. The Tserkevychs’ daughter Nataliia, who worked in a pharmacy, managed to get out of it on her own thanks to her knowledge of medicine.

In the spring of 1942, the occupation authorities called on Vinnytsia Jews to gather at the city stadium. Foreseeing disaster, Hryhorii decided to go alone. He asked his old friend, Radalovskyi, to hide his wife and children. At the end of April, this man helped them get to Transnistria, where they were able to survive under the Romanian occupation. Later, Liubov Shvartsman learned that Hryhorii had died in a camp for Jews. After the war, she returned to Vinnytsia with her children and lived in a house near the Tserkevychs. In the 1990s, their family emigrated to Israel.

In 2003, Yad Vashem recognized Anton and Viktoriia Tserkevych and their daughter Nataliia Karlinska (Tserkevych) as Righteous Among the Nations.