Wasylinka Katarzyna & Dymitry

Wasylinka, Katarzyna Wasylinka, Dymitr File 6522 In 1941, immediately after Germany occupied the Polish areas that the Soviet Union had annexed in 1939, sixteen-year-old Daniel Schapiro was sent from his hometown, Podkamień (Lwów district), to labor camps in the vicinity. Schapiro escaped twice and, in October 1943, as the Julag (labor camp for Jews) in Łazy was being liquidated, he was shot and wounded. When he regained consciousness, bleeding, he fled to the nearby forests where, several days later, deep in the woods, he encountered Katarzyna Wasylinka. After consulting with her husband, Dymitr, Wasylinka took Schapiro to her home in Palikrowy. Wasylinka and her husband, poor peasants, had three children—ten-year-old Maria and two grown sons. They gave the Jewish boy their protection and, although this endangered them and their children, they helped and provided for him without remuneration until the UPA and SS troops massacred Polish population in the area on March 12, 1944. Wasylinka's together with Schapiro survived the massacre and few days later, Schapiro joined the Red Army. Maria was especially noteworthy in caring for the injured Jewish refugee; she kept him comfortable, cleaned the hideout that had been prepared for him, and safeguarded the secret of his concealment from strangers. On March 28, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Dymitr Wasylinka and his wife Katarzyna, as Righteous Among the Nations.