Tracz Ivan & Rozalia

Trach, Ivan Trach, Rozaliya Ivan and Rozaliya Trach were farmers living in the village of Kaczanówka, in the Tarnopol District (today Kachanivka, Ternopil’ District). From July 1943 until March 1944, they hid the Gilsohn brothers – Yakov (b. 1912) Zygmunt, (b. 1914) and Benjamin (b. 1927) – and Rachel Hirschklau (later Flaschner) and her younger sister Malka (later Bachir) in a bunker under the floor of their cowshed. Yakov Gilsohn had become friendly with the Traches while working as a teacher in the village between 1939 and 1941. In July 1943, when the forced-labor camp for Jews in the town was liquidated, the three Gilsohn brothers escaped and reached the Traches’ home. Ivan Trach helped them dig the concealed bunker and in return for a small payment he and his wife hid the Jewish brothers there, provided them with food, and took care of all their needs. In August of that year, the Traches brought the Hirschklau sisters to the hideout. Trach had met them while they were wandering in the nearby forest. The sisters, who were from Podwoloczyska (Pidvolochys’k), had lost all their family and they had been moved with the remnants of the town’s Jews to Skalat. Trach met them in the forest after they had escaped from there, and they were desperate and penniless. The Trach couple treated them devotedly and for no remuneration they were afforded the same level of hospitality as the Gilsohn brothers. After the liberation, in March 1944, the Gilsohn brothers enlisted in the Polish army and fought against the Germans until 1945. At the end of the 1940s, all the survivors moved to Israel and they renewed contact with their wartime saviors in the 1990s. On July 19, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan Trach and his wife, Rozaliya, as Righteous Among the Nations.