Ilnicki Peotr ; Son: Mikhail ; Son: Karol ; Son: Vasili ; Son: Stepan ; Daughter: Sheremeta Katerina (Ilnickaya)

Ilnitskiy, Petro Ilnitskiy, Vasiliy Ilnitskiy, Stepan Ilnitskiy, Karol Ilnitskiy, Mikhail Sheremeta (Ilnitskaya), Katerina Petro Ilnitskiy, a widowed farmer, lived with his five children in the village of Roztoczki, district of Stasnisławów (today Roztochky, Ivano-Frankivs’k District). He was friendly with the Kessler family, which also lived in the village. In 1941, the village Jews were deported to the ghetto that was established in nearby Bolechów (Bolekhiv), and in summer 1942, the Kesslers returned to the village with their two grown-up children, Malka amd Yakov, their niece, Sara (née Orenstein), and her husband, Yidel Rosen. They hoped that the local farmers would afford them shelter, but after they were assaulted and robbed twice, they decided to build a bunker in the forest and to pay a farmer to bring them food. The farmer they approached was Ilnitskiy, and he agreed to help them. In spring 1943, when the Kesslers’ money ran out, Ilnitskiy could not afford to keep providing for them because of his dire financial situation. Thus, the Jews asked Ilnitskiy to go to Bolechów and find some Jews there who would finance them, and, in return, the Kesslers would allow them to hide in the bunker. Ilnitskiy went to Bolechów and found the Löw couple and their 19-year-old daughter Dyzia (later Rybak), who agreed to the Kesslers arrangement. In July 1943, a day before the Löws’ planned escape, Bernard Löw was murdered and so only his wife, Eda, and daughter arrived in the forest penniless. A few days later, Ilnitskiy made contact with Moses Grünschlag, a former wood merchant. One night, Ilnitskiy took Grünschlag and his sons, 17-year-old Jacob and 13-year-old Abraham, in his cart to the village of Roztoczki, where he hid them for two weeks in his family home before moving them to the forest. During the winter of 1943, five more Jews, among them Mira Ginsberg (later Gelernter) joined the three Jewish families hiding in the forest. They had been hiding untilthen in a bunker nearby with 30 other people. Local farmers had discovered them and murdered most of the hidden Jews, but these five had survived and found their way to the Jews being helped by Ilnitskiy. For the duration of their stay in the forest, Ilnitskiy’s children – Vasiliy, Stepan, Karol, Mikhail, and Katerina – helped their father deliver food to the Jews. Of the 16 Jews hidden in the forest, eight died from the cold and lack of medical treatment and only eight survived to witness the liberation of the area, on August 10, 1944. After the war, most of the survivors left the area, some moved to Israel and others to Australia. Eda and Dyzia Löw remained in the USSR. In 1946 The Ilnitskiys were deported by the Soviet authorities to Kazakhstan and could return to Ukraine only in the 1970s. On December 14, 1994, Yad Vashem recognized Petro Ilnitskiy and his children, Vasiliy, Stepan, Karol and Mikhail Ilnitskiy, and Katerina Sheremeta, as Righteous Among the Nations.