Dragan Stepan & Nahlak Olga (Szewczuk)

Dragan, Stepan Nahlak (Dragan), Olga Stepan Dragan and his wife, Olga, lived in Zbaraż, in the district of Tarnopol ((today Zbarazh, Ternopil’). They were friendly with Yakov Lachman, also a resident of Zbaraż. The Germans conquered the town on July 2, 1941 and, after several rounds of murderous attacks on the Jews in the area, they established a ghetto there in September 1942. When the situation of the Jews interned in the ghetto worsened, Stepan Dragan stole into the ghetto and told the Lachman family that he was prepared to hide them in his home. In order to accomplish this, Dragan and his wife moved to a home on the outskirts of the town, where they constructed a shelter under the kitchen floor. In late 1942, Dragan brought Mina and Zenya Pollak, Lachman’s sisters-in-law to his home. He later brought Lachman, his wife, Sabina, and her brother, Izchak, to join them. In the spring of 1943, Lea Chajkin, Lachman’s sister, and her daughter, Tsipora, and husband, Shmuel, joined the Dragans’ other wards. At Lachman’s request, Dragan also went to the ghetto a few days before its liquidation on June 8, 1943, to find Malka Tennenbaum, whose parents had already been moved out of the ghetto, and she too joined the other eight Jews hidden in the Dragans’ home. The nine Jews hid there until the liberation, on March 6, 1944, and the Dragans took care of all their needs. In order to lighten the burden on the Dragans, the Jews helped out with domestic chores. After the liberation of Zbaraż, Dragan enlisted in the Red Army and was killed in combat. The survivors immigrated to Israel after the war, from where they maintained a warm relationship with Olga, who subsequently remarried. On March 3, 1989, Yad Vashem recognized Stepan Dragan and his wife, Olga (Nahlak from second marriage), as Righteous Among the Nations.