Fisiuk Omelian & Ustimia

FISIUK, Omelian FISIUK, Ustinia Lipa (b. 1897) and Chaya Mendelson lived with their three sons in Wlodzimierz Wolynski, in the Wolyn district of Ukraine, where Lipa traded in fabrics. In 1939 their city was annexed first by the Soviet Union, and then by the Germans on June 24, 1941. Immediately upon German occupation, Jews were subject to pogroms and kidnappings. In October of that year, the first Aktion (mass execution) took place, targeting the Jewish intelligentsia. Jews were rounded up to perform menial labor; the older Mendelson children, Avigdor and Mordechai, were forced to work at peat extraction. Their home was within the ghetto created in their town, and shortly became crammed with relatives and acquaintances from outside the ghetto. From 1 September 1942, the Germans laid siege to the ghetto, rounding up Jews and murdering them in large pits outside town. During this period the Mendelsons hid with several others jews in an attic. At one point, to escape the hunger, thirst and stifling heat Chaya left the attic to fetch water; she was immediately captured and shot. In late November 1943, weeks before the ghetto was liquidated, Lipa and his sons escaped from the town. They wandered the countryside looking for shelter, and chanced upon the farm of Omelian and Ustinia Fisiuk, whom they remembered as customers before the war. The Fisiuks let the Mendelsons hide in their granary. For the next seven months until Soviet liberation, the Fisiuks fed and cared for the Mendelsons. In return, the Mendelsons contributed as best they could, grinding flour with a hand-operated grinder. After the war the family split up: Avigdor emigrated to the United States, Mordechai to Israel, and the youngest son Yitzhak to England. Lipa served as a cantor in the Polish town of Szczecin and in 1953 joined Mordechai in Israel. He stayed in contact with the Fisiuks until his death, periodically sending them packages. Today Mordechai is in contact with the Fisiuks’grandchildren. On 8 November, 2011, Omelian and Ustinia Fisiuk were recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations.