Leshchuk Maria

Leshchuk, Mariya On the eve of the German-Soviet war, Mariya Leshchuk, a 26-year-old widowed farmer, lived with her six-year-old son Ivan in the village of Klubowce (today Klubivtsi), 15 km east of Stanisławów (Ivano-Frankivs’k). In 1940, the Soviet authorities had arrested her husband and he was taken to a prison in Stanisławów and never seen again. One morning in November 1942, Leshchuk entered her granary and was shocked to find a boy sleeping on a haystack there. Leshchuk woke him up and invited him into her home. He told her that his name was Menachem Dresher, he was from Stanisławów, and he had been wandering around the area, since September 1942, living on handouts. Dresher had left his mother Genya and siblings, Helena and Kalman, in the Stanisławów ghetto. Despite the danger involved, Leshchuk decided to allow the Jewish boy to stay with her and he remained there until the liberation of the village in late July 1944. During this time he lived openly in her house and was introduced to villagers by a Ukrainian name. At one point, Leshchuk was concerned that her ward would be exposed because house searches were being conducted. However, her compassion overcame her fears and she kept the boy under her roof. After the liberation, Dresher returned to his hometown and discovered that none of his family had survived. In 1946, he left the Soviet Ukraine and two years later he immigrated to Israel. Leshchuk died in 1970. In 1991, Dresher visited Ukraine and renewed contact with Ivan Leshchuk, who was still living in Klubivtsi. On November 5, 1991, Yad Vashem recognized Mariya Leshchuk as Righteous Among the Nations.