Kacherovski Ivan & Kacherovskaya Tatiana

Kacherovskiy, Ivan Kacherovskaya, Tatyana Ivan and Tatyana Kacherovskiy were wealthy farmers from the village of Kosteniow, Tarnopol District (today Kosteniv, L’viv District). Kacherovskiy had a Jewish friend, Mechel Katz, who lived in the neighboring village of Brzuchowice (Bryukhovychi). Katz was Kacherovskiy’s customer for farm produce and what began as a business relationship developed into a friendship. In 1942, when the Jews of Brzuchowicze were ordered to leave their homes and property and move to the ghetto in Przemyślany (today Peremyshlyany), Kacherovskiy offered to shelter one of Katz’s four children in his home. At night, Kacherovskiy prepared a hole under his pigsty and covered the entrance to it with straw; Kalman Katz was moved into this hiding place. Kalman stayed with the Kacherovskiys for two-and-a-half years and all of Kacherovskiy’s family, including his wife and their four children, helped look after him. During the day, Kalman, in his early 20s, hid in his hideaway and at night he came out into the yard and sometimes entered the Kacherovskiys’ home. After some time, Kacherovskiy prepared his ward a more comfortable hiding place inside a haystack in the loft of one of his barns. In autumn 1943, the village head told Kacherovskiy that he expected the Ukrainian police to come to the village the following day to conduct house searches and he suspected that then Kacherovskiys’ home would be inspected. Kacherovskiy was concerned as to the fate of his ward and he decided to send his family to the forest to avoid them being hurt should Kalman be discovered. The following day, two Gestapo agents and some Ukrainian policemen searched the village. Kalman was not found but 11 other Jews hidden in the village were found and murdered in the forest. In early 1944, Kalman’s parents appeared at the Kacherovskiys’ home. His father had escaped the ghetto and his wife, Gitla, arrived from the forest after remaining the only one left of a group of 74 Jewshidden in two bunkers. The three members of the Katz family stayed with the Kacherovskiys until the liberation of the area, on July 20, 1944. They later immigrated to Australia, from where they maintained contact with the Kacherovskiys for many years. On March 7, 1983, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan and Tatyana Kacherovskiy as Righteous Among the Nations.