Golinski Vasiliy

Golinski, Vasyl Vasyl Golinski, a farmer, lived in the village of Berezow Nizny, Kolomyja County, Stanislawow District. Towards the end of the 1930s, Vasyl married and started building his own house. In the process, he got to know the Jewish Raizel family that resided in the same village. The Raizels dealt in building materials and Vasyl appreciated the quality of their goods. In 1939, when the Soviets took over the Western Ukraine and started expropriating private businesses, Vasyl hid some of the Raizels' goods in his home, upon their request, thus saving them from confiscation. At the beginning of July 1941, the region was occupied by the Germans and soon the Jews of Berezow Nizny were forced to leave their homes and move to the ghetto in the nearby town of Delatyn. For nine months, Vasyl did not know what had happened to his former neighbors. One early morning in March 1942, Vasyl found Shmerl and Mendel, two of the Raizel sons, in his courtyard. They had run away from the labor camp not far from Delatyn as soon as the opportunity arose. Their parents, wives, sister and brother with families had perished during the big Aktion in Delatyn, carried out on October 10, 1941. Vasyl hid the Raizel brothers in the cowshed's attic. He warned them not to reveal themselves to other members of his family but only to his mother, who would be cooking for them. Shmerl and Mendel spent six weeks in the cowshed's attic. When it became warmer, Vasyl accompanied them to the forest, provided them with tools for building a bunker. During the following months he would visit the Raizels in the forest, bring them some food and the latest news. One day he found the bunker empty and understood that the Raizels had left - apparently some locals had discovered it. Then, after a while, Vasyl heard a story about a hunter who had found two Jews in the forest. He had wounded one of them and brought him to the Gestapo; the second one had run away. Vasyl concluded that these were theRaizel brothers, he just could not figure out which of them had perished and which survived. Another year and a half passed and in the summer of 1944 Soviet troops drove the Germans out of Eastern Galicia. Vasyl was haunted by the thought that one of the Raizels was still in the forest, not knowing that there was no need to hide any more. He started searching the forest on a daily basis until he found a hardly noticeable trace near the stream that led him to Shmerl who had survived. His hair and beard had not been cut for two years and his clothes had become rags; after many months spent without human company he had difficulties talking. Vasyl took Shmerl home where he cut his hair, provided him with pants and shirt. He still had to keep Shmerl's presence secret, because the extremist Bandera bands were active in the area, hunting for the last Jews and their rescuers. Soon Vasyl drove Shmerl to Kolomyja where the Jewish survivors of the area were gathering and left him in their care. Until his death in 1992, Vasyl never met Shmerl again and did not know what had become of him. Shmerl Raizel had stayed in Kolomyja, where he married and bore a son. In 1948, his family moved to Poland and from there on to Israel. In 2006, Shmerl found his rescuer's son Nikolay. On March 11, 2007, Yad Vashem recognized Vasyl Golinski as Righteous Among the Nations.