Romanishin Fedor

Romanishen, Fyodor Fyodor Romanishen, a prosperous farmer and the father of four adult children, lived in the village of Stupki, approximately 5 km from Tarnopol (today Stupky, Ternopil’ District). In September 1942, at the peak of the harvest season, Janka, a young girl, appeared at his home and asked to work in return for food and lodging. Romanishen felt that she would be a diligent worker and decided to put the cows under her care. However, before he sent her out to the fields, Romanishen noticed that Janka’s legs were injured and he ordered her to remain at home. When he inquired how she arrived in his village, Janka told him that she was a Ukrainian orphan. When the time came to register her with the village authorities, he began to suspect that perhaps she was Jewish. Nine-year-old Janka Zborower from Tarnopol was the daughter of a tailor and they had lived in a Ukrainian neighborhood before the war and thus she had picked up the language. In summer 1942, after her parents were murdered and the Tarnopol ghetto was liquidated, Janka fled to the countryside and wandered among the villages until she reached Romanishen’s home. Romanishen didn’t learn these details until after the war and during the occupation he refrained from asking Janka any questions about her past, and ensured that his family didn’t either. Romanishen sent Janka out to graze the cattle in distant places so that the local shepherds would not harass her, and registered her with the local authorities without presenting her, which was against the law. Romanishen, who was in his 60s, grew very fond of Janka and spent much of his free time with her. Janka stayed with Romanishen for a year beyond the liberation, until spring 1945, when she asked Romanishen to take her to her native city. In Tarnopol, she met some Jewish survivors and moved with them to Poland. In 1947, she immigrated to Eretz Israel and she only renewed contact with Romanishen in 1961. In the early 1990s Janka (by then Gidion)hosted one of his grandchildren in her home. On March 18, 1993, Yad Vashem recognized Fyodor Romanishen as Righteous Among the Nations.