Sniezko Sava & Olga

Sniezhko, Sava Sniezhko, Olga Kravchuk, Grigoriy Kravchuk, Stefaniya Guzovaty, Prokop Guzovata, Ligera Sava Sniezhko and his wife, Olga, lived in the village of Sopaczów, Wołyń (today Sopachiv, Rivne District). Sava’s sister Stefaniya and her husband, Grigoriy Kravchuk, lived with them. Like many local Ukrainians, the family members were Baptists. In the early days of the German occupation, a gang of criminals rampaged through the area, murdering Jews, ransacking Jewish homes, and stealing their belongings. Among the five Jewish families in Sopaczów was the family of Abraham Weisblat, whose 16-year-old son Leib managed to escape during the pogrom. Olga Sniezhko saw Leib Weisblat by the river, trying to wash blood from his clothes and body, and she invited him into her home. Olga tended to Weisblat’s wounds and that night she took him to an isolated khutor that belonged to her family. The family kept cows and horses there and Weisblat stayed on the khutor with the animals; his parents and siblings were informed of his whereabouts. In February 1942, all the village Jews were ordered to move to the Rafałówka ghetto, 20 km from Sopaczów, and, at his parents’ request, Weisblat went with them. The living conditions in the ghetto were difficult. One day, when the Sniezhkos came to the ghetto on their cart with straw for the Jews, Weisblat smuggled himself back to his former hiding place in the false bottom of the cart that the Sniezhkos built especially for him. However, after the Aktion in the Rafałówka ghetto in August 1942, in which part of Leib’s family was wiped out, the Sniezhkos and Kravchuks feared that the authorities would search their land, and they asked Weisblat to leave. As Weisblat was departing, he met Ligera Guzovata, his former neighbor, who offered him shelter and work as a shepherd. Leib remained in the home of Guzovata and her husband Prokop until February 1943, when a gang of Ukrainian nationalists entered the village. He fled and joined aunit of Soviet partisans led by Fyodorov. Leib (later Arye) Weisblat stayed with the partisans until the liberation; he later immigrated to Israel. On April 10, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Sava and Olga Sniezhko, Stefaniya and Grigoriy Kravchuk, and Prokop and Ligera Guzovaty, as Righteous Among the Nations.