Kapusta Vasili & Sofia

Kapusta, Vasily Kapusta, Sofia Vasily and Sofia Kapusta lived with their five children in the town of Strusów (today Strusiv, Ternopil’District). Vasily worked as a miller in the local windmill, where Shmuel Selzer was the accountant. After Strusów’s capture by the Germans at the beginning of July 1941, Selzer’s parents, wife and son were murdered in one of the first killing operations, and he himself was deported to the ghetto in Trembowla, the main town of the county. In the ghetto he met Rosa Tunis (née Weinrauch) – like him, she was from Strusów and her husband and parents had also been murdered – and they married. In June 1943, when the Trembowla ghetto was being liquidated, the couple escaped to Strusów and turned to Vasily Kapusta for shelter. He hid them in the loft of the windmilland provided them with food. Vasily and Sofia took care of the fugitives and tried to keep their presence a secret from their young children, for fear they would tell others. When winter set in and it was no longer possible to remain in the loft of the windmill, Kapusta persuaded one of his relatives to hide the Selzers for a time. The relative took them in for a few weeks and then they returned to the Kapustas. When the area was liberated by the Soviets in March 1944, ultra-nationalists of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA) burst into the mill with the intention of killing the Jews, who had not yet managed to leave. Kapusta prevented this and thanks to him they were saved from the Ukrainian Fascists as well. In the summer of 1944, Kapusta was called up for service in the Red Army and the survivors helped Sofia until his discharge. The Selzers immigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1946. On March 12, 2000, Yad Vashem recognized Vasily Kapusta and his wife Sofia as Righteous Among the Nations.