Svitiaschuk Ivan & Maria

Svityashchuk, Ivan Svityashchuk, Mariya Ivan Svityashchuk and his wife, Mariya, were farmers living on on a khutor close to the village of Wiszniow, Wołyń (today Vyshniv, Volyn’ District). The Svityashchuks had many children and they were practicing Baptists. The Germans conquered the area on June 25, 1941, and in late October 1942, four Jews, prewar acquaintances of Svityashchuk, arrived at the khutor. The Jews, Yosef Karpus, his wife, Rivka, her sister, Chana Shliva, and their mother, Liba Shliva, had escaped from the Luboml ghetto just before it was liquidated. They had headed for the Svityashchuks because they knew that the family believed in the God of Israel and that they respected the Jews. The Svityashchuks indeed welcomed them into their home and hid them in their granary. Every day, for a whole month, the Svityashchuks provided their wards with food and attended to their needs. When the Jews decided to join the partisans in the forest, Svityashchuk took them over 50 km in his cart. On the way, he was stopped in Maciejow (today Lukiv) and asked to produce his papers, while the Jews were hidden under his produce. Svityashchuk acted calmly, passed through the checkpoint and managed to take his wards to the forest near Kamień Koszyrski (Kamin’-Kashyrs’kyy), where they made contact with the partisans and joined the Molotov unit. After the war, the survivors moved to Poland, and later to Israel. They corresponded with the Svityashchuks for many years and sent presents and medicine to them regularly. In 1992, the survivors hosted two of the Svityashchuks’ children in Israel. On March 16, 1992, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan and Mariya Svityashchuk as Righteous Among the Nations.