Romanishina Olga

Romanishin, Olga Olga Romanishin, a widow in her forties, lived in the village of Rybniki (today Rybnyky, Ternopil’ District), on the isolated farm (khutor) of her brother, Vladimir. Olga had two sons in the Red Army and she lived with her ten-year-old daughter, Yevdokia. The area was under German occupation from the beginning of July 1941. In the fall of 1943, a teenager with a Ukrainian name who was not from the area appeared at the Romanishin farm asking for work. He was taken in since he was an industrious lad, ready to do any type of work. At night he preferred to sleep in the hayloft or the barn together with the horses, and not in the house. After a time, he revealed to Olga that he was a Jew named Arie Lindenbaum. He told her that his family had fled from the Brzezany ghetto on the eve of its liquidation and were all subsequently murdered by ultra-nationalists of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). Arie had then wandered among the villages in the region seeking shelter. Olga did not tell her brother about Arie’s identity. It was only after Vladimir expressed his intention to dismiss the hired hand that she decided to tell him the truth. Vladimir let the youth remain on the farm if his sister would be responsible for him. Olga taught Arie the family’s religious customs and tried to give the Jewish orphan a feeling of home and security. Not long before the retreat of the German forces, a German transport unit was stationed on the Romanishin farm, and Olga, who knew a little German, picked up bits of information from the soldiers’ conversations and shared with Arie the news from the front. After the liberation in July 1944, Arie could not make up his mind whether to stay where he was or return to his native town. He believed he was the last surviving Jew. Olga asked acquaintances of hers who were going to Brzezany to find out whether any Jews had survived in the city. She thus learned about the presence of more survivors there and Arie joined them. He leftthe Ukraine in 1945 and two years later settled in Mandatory Palestine. He and Olga exchanged letters until relations between the Communist Bloc and the State of Israel were severed. It was not until the 1990s that Arie managed to locate Yevdokia, Olga’s daughter. On June 28, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Olga Romanishin as Righteous Among the Nations.