Shevchuk Karolina ; Husband: Stanislav

Vorona, Olena Vorona, Demyan Shevchuk, Stanislav Shevchuk, Karolina Olena Vorona and her husband, Demyan, were residents of the village of Chorostków, close to the town of Kopyczyńce, Tarnopol District (today Khorostkiv, Ternopil’ District). In the 1920s, Vorona worked as a nanny for the Jewish Fink family, taking care of their daughter Fanya, born in 1922. After the Germans conquered the area in early July 1941, the Jews, including the Finks, were gathered in the ghetto of the town of Kopyczyńce (Kopychyntsi), established in December 1942. In June 1943, Vorona heard that the ghetto was about to be liquidated and out of concern for Fanya’s life, she walked 16 km to visit her and was overjoyed to find her still alive. That night, Fanya escaped from the ghetto, accompanied by Vorona, and Vorona took her to her home, where Fanya was hidden, with Demyan Vorona’s approval and support, in the attic. The income that the Voronas earned in their various jobs barely sufficed to support them. Despite this, when the Krenkel sisters Eva (later Halpern) and Mathilda, who were born in the village, appeared at their doorstep in November 1943, the Voronas could not turn them away and hid them, too. However, in January 1944, when Fanya Goldhirsch, also a village native, and a friend of the Voronas’ daughter, arrived and asked for refuge, the Krenkel sisters moved in with their former neighbors, Stanislav and Karolina Shevchuk. In their concealed hideaway on the Shevchuks’ property, the Krenkels, to their surprise, met two Jewish young men from their village – Baruch (Bernard) Stein and Hone Tennenbaum, who had been hiding there since November 1943. Despite the Shevchuks’ difficult financial situation in providing for their own six children and these two Jewish men, they took on the additional burden of looking after the two Jewish girls. The four Jews hid with the Shevchuks until the liberation on March 23, 1944. Upon the arrival of the Red Army, Stanislav Stevchuk wasconscripted and returned home in 1945 after being seriously wounded. Three of the four Jews hidden by the Shevchuks later immigrated to the United States; Tennenbaum died of illness soon after the liberation. Fanya Fink and Fanya Goldhirsch stayed with the Voronas until the liberation. Thereafter, they both left Ukraine; Fanya Fink (later Kuperman) moved to Israel. On November 30, 1978, Yad Vashem recognized Olena Vorona as Righteous Among the Nations. On April 12, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Demyan Vorona, and Stanislav and Karolina Shevchuk, as Righteous Among the Nations.