Grivnak Bogdan

Grivnak, Bohdan Bohdan Grivnak was born in the village of Cześniki, district of Stanisławów (today Chesnyky, Ivano-Frankivs’k District). Grivnak went to school in the county capital (Rohatyn) and then went to a teacher-training course in Stanisławów. There, Grivnak studied alongside Boris Arsen, also from Cześniki, and the two became close friends. When the Germans conquered the area, the Arsen family was interned in the Rohatyn ghetto. Grivnak then gave Arsen his identity papers, including his baptism certificate, and with them Arsen managed to flee the ghetto and find work and shelter in Tarnopol (Ternopil’). Grivnak’s father often went to visit Arsen, particularly on festivals, as if he was his son. He brought Arsen gifts and always brought news from his family in the ghetto. Sometimes, Arsen even traveled to visit his family in the Rohatyn ghetto and, when he did so, he would stay with the Grivnak family. This arrangement lasted for two years, until mid-September 1943, when the police conducted a search of the Grivnaks’ home. It emerged that Arsen had been arrested in Tarnopol on suspicion of being involved with the partisans and fearing that the authorities would notice that there were two people using Grivnak’s identity papers, Grivnak managed to escape. On December 6 of that year, Grivnak was killed by German gunfire. The authorities actually did not discover Arsen’s true identity, even when he was interrogated at a prison in Lwów (L’viv). Arsen was sent to Auschwitz and then Buchenwald as a political prisoner, and he survived to witness the liberation. After the war, he returned to using his real name and continued to live in Ukraine. On February 3, 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Bohdan Grivnak as Righteous Among the Nations.