1. SAVIORS OF PEOPLE DURING GENOCIDES. RIGHTEOUS PEOPLE OF THE WORLD

The study of genocides also involves the study of saving people. Those who saved Ukrainians during the Holodomor of 1932–1933 are called Dobrochintsy. Those who saved Jews during the Holocaust are called Righteous Among the Nations, as well as saviors. Saving people during the Holocaust is perhaps the only "optimistic" aspect of this tragedy, because it is precisely this that is an example of true heroism, resistance, and long-standing friendship.

The collection of stories of assistance to Jews during World War II is the responsibility of Yad Vashem, the Israeli Holocaust Memorial and Heroism Center. “One of the main tasks of Yad Vashem is to express gratitude, on behalf of the State of Israel and the entire Jewish people, to those non-Jews who, risking their lives, saved Jews during the Holocaust. This is stated in the Law Establishing Yad Vashem, adopted by the Knesset in 1953. The criteria for conferring the title “Righteous Among the Nations” on those few who helped Jews in their most difficult times were determined in 1963. At the same time, a public Commission, headed by a judge of the Supreme Court of Israel, began to operate, which considers each specific case, makes a decision and bears full responsibility for conferring this title. Those recognized receive a medal and a Certificate of Honor, and their names are immortalized in Yad Vashem on the Mount of Remembrance in Jerusalem.

The criteria for granting the title "Righteous Among the Nations" are clearly defined:

• “Active participation in saving one or more Jews from the danger of immediate extermination or deportation to death camps.
• There was a real danger to the rescuer and his loved ones.
• The savior was aware of and had in mind the salvation of the Jew.
• The rescuer's actions were not motivated by receiving monetary reward or other compensation, such as converting the person being rescued to another faith, or adopting a child, etc.
• All of the above is confirmed by the testimonies of those who survived, those who were provided with assistance, or by the availability of relevant documents confirming the fact of rescue and its circumstances»².

The Public Commission has awarded the high title of "Righteous Among the Nations" to 28,217 representatives of 51 countries (as of January 1, 2022, the latest data). To date, Ukraine has given the world 2,691 such heroes and ranks fourth in the world after Poland, the Netherlands, and France.

It is important to realize that the conditions for rescuing Jews in Ukraine were radically different from those in Western Europe. In Denmark, writes researcher Nehama Tek, “the Nazis showed tolerance towards the Danes even after the operations to rescue Jews began. Repressions were expressed in the form of arrests and were usually directed only against the organizers of the mass exodus of Jews.” In Holland and France, Israel Gutman and Naama Galil point out, a rescuer of Jews “was threatened with deportation to a concentration camp, while in Poland and the occupied territories of the USSR such a person was caught together with the Jews he was hiding and was certainly shot.” Many works by historians suggest that in Western European countries “neighbors, having learned that someone was hiding Jews, as a rule did not denounce him. The situation was different in Eastern Europe.” In view of this, the figures for the number of Righteous Among the Nations in Poland and Ukraine appear to be particularly significant. Especially since serious research into the phenomenon of Ukrainians rescuing Jews during the Holocaust began only after 1991, when there were significantly fewer living witnesses and those rescued than in the post-war years.

2. CATEGORIES OF JEWISH RESCUERS DURING THE HOLOCAUST

In addition to the honorary status of Righteous Among the Nations, Ukraine also has other awards for saviors of Jews. Since 1989, at the public initiative of the All-Ukrainian Jewish Council, the Foundation "Memory of Victims of Fascism in Ukraine", the title "Righteous Among Ukraine" was introduced. It was awarded to those people about whom there was information about rescuing Jews from the Nazi genocide in Ukraine, but it was not enough for the Yad Vashem Commission. According to the aforementioned All-Ukrainian Jewish Council, more than 3,000 citizens of Ukraine received the title "Righteous Among the Nations", of which 1,625 were recognized as "Righteous Among the Nations". A card index and photo library of executed and rescued Jews, as well as their rescuers, have been created. The documents of the "Righteous of Ukraine" are sent to the Yad Vashem Institute (Jerusalem) for conferring upon them the title "Righteous Among the Nations"⁴. The main inspirer of the introduction of the title "Righteous of Ukraine" was the public figure, president of the Jewish Council of Ukraine, head of the "Memory of Babyn Yar" and "Memory of Victims of Fascism in Ukraine" foundations, Ilya Mykhailovych Levitas (1931–2014). He also initiated the introduction of the title "Righteous of Babyn Yar", approved in April 1989. On the other hand, researcher of the Babyn Yar tragedy, executive secretary of the Public Committee for Commemorating the Memory of the Victims of Babyn Yar Vitaliy Nakhmanovych notes that "since the criteria for granting the title "Righteous of Babyn Yar" were not defined, and it was granted, in fact, by the sole decision of Ilya Levitas, many scientists and public figures even in Ukraine do not recognize this title and object to the legality of the official perpetuation of their names." ⁵. The same can be said about the title "Righteous of Ukraine".

In addition, there is a category of people for whom evidence of the rescue of Jews was either not accepted for a number of reasons by the Yad Vashem Commission, or the materials about the rescue were not transferred to Yad Vashem at all, remaining unknown to researchers. Even on the official Yad Vashem website it is stated: "The number of Righteous in a particular country does not necessarily indicate the actual number of rescue stories, but only reflects those cases that Yad Vashem is aware of."⁶.

Therefore, it is important to introduce a broader concept of "Ukrainian savior of Jews during the Holocaust". "This definition includes both the Righteous Among the Nations and those people for whom there is solid evidence of saving Jews that can be recognized by historical science."⁷.

It is extremely important that society and the state recognize the feat of the rescuers. In this regard, we would like to note that on February 2, 2021, the Resolution of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine established the celebration of May 14 as the Day of Remembrance of Ukrainians Who Rescued Jews During World War II⁸.

3. UNKNOWN UKRAINIAN RESCUERS

The evidence of the rescue of Jews can be confirmed by testimonies of the rescued and their relatives, as well as documentary materials. However, very few archival documents have been found that directly mention the rescue of Jews, and most of them record unsuccessful rescue attempts.

The State Archives of the Lviv Region have unique opportunities for studying this issue, as they store materials of the Special Court under the German Court in Lviv of the Galician District, which are particularly important for our topic. While on the territory of the Reich Commissariat "Ukraine" Ukrainian rescuers of Jews were often shot on the spot, in the Galician District the aforementioned Nazi court considered rescue cases. Among the documents for 1941–1944, we counted about 40 cases accusing residents of the region of "hiding Jews"⁹, or "providing shelter"¹⁰, "facilitating the escape of Jews from the Lviv ghetto"¹¹. Such a large amount of material on people who saved Jews (or tried to save them), but who were not awarded the title of "Righteous Among the Nations" and were not even considered by the Yad Vashem Commission, is another argument for the need to study the phenomenon of saviors of Jews - a concept broader than "Righteous Among the Nations".

Ukrainians Barabach Ignat and Lutiy Mykola hid their acquaintance Helfer Solomon in Zolochiv.¹²

Michalina Merska, a Polish woman, "hid 2 Jewish women and 3 Jewish men in her apartment in Lviv at 12 Paderewskoho Street from 2.6.1943 to 3.2.1944."¹³.

Surma Rozaliya (from the village of Verkhola, near Grabova, Kamianka Strumilova County) confessed "to keeping four Jews in her household until October 23, 1943"¹⁴.

The motives for rescuing Jews by these and other people, financial and other circumstances were different. Archival materials contain information about cases of selfless rescuing Jews. On June 16, 1944, the Jew Safro Alter testified: “As a Jew, in May 1943, he escaped from the Jewish ghetto and until that moment was hiding with Catholics.”¹⁵. “I… went to my friend Dombrovsky Roman, in Lviv at 19 Lychakivska Street. I had known him since my days in Lovech, from the period of working together at the oil mill, and I supported him during the famine, because he was wealthier and he was poor. I gave him food and money. I asked Dombrovsky to hide me, and he graciously agreed when I no longer had any means of living, giving me food and shelter.”¹⁶. Safro Alter’s daughter, Hodzhin Manya, who also found shelter with R. Dombrovsky, confirmed: “When we left the bunker, we had no belongings or money. My husband and I did not pay Dombrovsky money for our hiding, because he, by hiding my father, was hiding us too.”¹⁷.

It is important to emphasize that under any conditions, rescuing Jews threatened death not only for the rescuers themselves, but also for their family members. Only in one "Order on Combating Attempts on the German Reconstruction Work in the General Government of 2.10.1943. (Bulletin of Orders for the General Governorship, Part 82, P. 589)... the court of the Security Police and the SD of the Galician Region sentenced ten people to death "for hiding Jews": "...Krushkowska Maria nee Bobekova from Lemberg, Piastun Michal from Lemberg, Skompski Kazimierz from Lemberg, Kowalczyk Zdislav from Lemberg, Sush Nastya nee Dyachenko from Rudanec, Izhek Julia from Lemberg, Sliadovska Halyna nee Klymenievska from Lemberg, Malyavska Victoria nee Wilczynska from Lemberg, Jozefek Bronislav from Lemberg, Jozefek Maria nee Slovich from Lemberg..." ¹⁸.

In the German Police Announcement of March 9, 1944 in the city of Drohobych, among Ukrainians sentenced to death for various crimes "against the German cause" (in particular, "membership in a banned Ukrainian organization and aiding bandits", "for... sabotage", etc.), we find lines about the Ukrainian Kovalchuk Mykhailo from the city of Stryi, killed by the Nazis for helping Jews¹⁹.

Some stories, even in the presentation of German court documents, look particularly tragic. This applies, in particular, to Korbecki Wladimir, who from November 1942 to May 1943 hid "in his house two Jewish women named Rosa and Kraus and the three-year-old child of the Jewish woman Kraus"²⁰. The court decision contains a cruel decision: "The accused, who had no previous convictions, in accordance with §4 b of the said resolution should be punished with the only punishment provided for - execution"²¹. The sentence was carried out: "The convicted Vladimir Korbecki was shot on March 7, 1944..."²².

This execution of the Ukrainian savior took place just four months before the expulsion of the German occupiers from Lviv...

4. WHO SAVED THE JEWS AND WHY: ON THE QUESTION OF MOTIVATION

Examples of rescuing Jews in the occupied territory of Ukraine require an investigation into the motives of people who risked not only their own lives, but also the lives of their relatives and children, providing assistance to persecuted Jews.

There were many cases when people tried to save Jews - members of their families or loved ones.

For example, the Ukrainian wife of the Jew Isaac Shlymovych (the woman's name is missing from the document), who in October 1941 met the German occupation in the village of Mykhailivka in the Zaporizhzhia region, "did not give the child to be killed... to the police," and, in the end, saved the child from a mixed marriage.²³. A Polish woman, Antonia Chomсzinska from Lviv, "hid four Jews for several months" in the apartment where she lived.²⁴ When the police detained three Jews in June 1943, "one of these Jews managed to escape from the apartment with the help of Chomchynska. Chomchynska must have had a relationship with one of these Jews. This comes from one letter from Khomchynska, which was found earlier. ²⁵ By the way, the investigation failed to "prove the guilt of the Polish woman Antonia Khomchynska in hiding Jews" ²⁶.

There are many examples of participation in the rescue of not only individual Ukrainians, but also groups of people, sometimes quite large. I. Altman writes about how in several Ukrainian villages local residents managed to hide all the Jews: in the village of Yaruga in Podillia, it was possible to hide not only local Jewish residents, but also refugees; in the village of Rakovets, Lviv region, peasants hid 33 Jewish families; in the village of Blagodatne, Dnipropetrovsk region, 30 Jews were saved. I. Altman emphasizes that their rescue was possible only thanks to the collective support of the rest of the villagers²⁷.

It should be noted that such examples are not isolated. Aron Weiss tells in his memoirs that a resident of the western Ukrainian city of Boryslav, Ukrainian Yulia Matchyshyn, enlisted the support of another neighbor, a Polish woman, Mrs. Potenzhna, to organize the rescue of the Weiss family.²⁸.

In occupied Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian Evdokia Kupa hid a girl named Maria Chapata, whose mother had been shot by the Nazis. To protect the child from the threat of arrest and extermination, neighbors petitioned the German authorities to issue Maria a passport as Ukrainians; four people acted as official witnesses (two of them were interrogated), understanding the dangers of being deceived by the Nazis. In general, almost all residents of the street – several dozen people – knew about the Jewish girl hiding from the Nazis; none of them betrayed Maria, and many helped²⁹.

In general, the question of the "social composition" of the rescuers of Jews, the majority of whom were people who did not belong to the top of Ukrainian society, its intellectual elite, requires further clarification.

There are known cases when city government employees, as well as German officers, Hungarian soldiers, and even German soldiers and local policemen who participated in the executions of Jews, came to the aid of Jews in critical conditions.³⁰ But, of course, such cases were atypical. It is obvious that the implementation of any orders of the authorities, certain actions are carried out by specific people with their own personal past and personal sympathies, whether they are government employees, soldiers, Ukrainian policemen, etc. Of course, there were cases when the rescue of Jews was dictated by a spiritual, human impulse, a desire to provide assistance to the victims of the inhuman cruelty of the Nazis. Having succumbed to the "first impulse", people were often forced to continue the deadly dangerous work.

Instead, cases of Ukrainians rescuing Jews because of religious beliefs, Christian attitudes towards the persecuted and persecuted, were quite common. K. Berkhoff claims that among Ukrainians, Baptists and evangelical Christians helped Jews the most. "In Volhynia alone," the historian writes, "they apparently saved hundreds of people. These Protestants thought that their Christian faith did not allow them to do otherwise." In addition, using mutual ties between Protestant communities, they "could quickly transfer Jews from one area to the next."³¹.

A significant number of the savior priests are representatives of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. Here we should also mention the “ordinary” priests of the UGCC, including St. Omelyan Kovch, who paid with his life for saving the Jews; and, of course, the majestic figure of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. The latter personally saved many Jews, among them - Lviv rabbi David Kagan, the sons of the deceased rabbi Levin Kurt (Isaac) and Nathan. The Metropolitan involved some Ukrainian priests in saving the Jews, among whom were his brother Klymenty, archimandrite of the monks of the Studite Order, as well as the abbess of the monastery of the Studite sisters Yosef (Olena Viter), Rev. Marko Stek and others. Andrey Sheptytsky saved everyone he could help, primarily children. They were given false baptismal certificates and Ukrainian names, and then distributed to nunneries and monasteries and orphanages. Some children were helped by the Studite monks to cross the Romanian and Hungarian borders. In total, about 200 Jews were saved with the help of Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytskyi.³².

It should be noted that A. Sheptytsky has not yet been awarded the high title of Righteous Among the Nations – due to his greeting of the Hitler army in the first days after Germany's attack on the USSR, contacts with high-ranking Nazi officials, etc. (a lot of historical literature is devoted to this³³). In our opinion, the greatness of the feat of such people as Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky does not require confirmation or approval even by the highest and most respected institution. The very fact of organizing an entire system of assistance to victims of the Nazi genocide by the forces of the church institution, the pastoral instruction to church hierarchs regarding the salvation of hundreds of Jews doomed to death turned Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky into the personification of humanism in opposition to the cannibalistic policy of the Nazis. Shevah Weiss, who was saved with his family during the Shoah by Ukrainians and Poles, former Speaker of the Knesset (parliament) of Israel and Ambassador of Israel to Poland, figuratively called A. Sheptytsky "the Ukrainian Schindler"³⁴.

For us, the need to spread knowledge about the spiritual feat of Andrey Sheptytsky is obvious. This is served, in particular, by the permanent museum exhibition in the museum "Memory of the Jewish People and the Holocaust in Ukraine" (city of Dnipro), dedicated to the great Ukrainian. The fact that such an exhibition was created for the first time in Ukraine in the Jewish museum is evidence of the high level of spirituality and righteousness that Andrey Sheptytsky achieved during his life, and the impact on human, social consciousness after the completion of his earthly journey.

Therefore, among those who provided assistance to the Jews were representatives of different segments of the population and different communities, who were guided by different motives³⁵.

1. There were many cases when members of mixed-ethnicity married couples and their relatives saved Jews as their relatives. To this should be added Ukrainians, Poles, and others who felt romantic feelings and love for their chosen ones - representatives of the Jewish people.

Although there were also such terrible cases when mothers gave up their "half-blood" children to death, or betrayed their Jewish husbands and wives. So here we must talk about the spiritual qualities of the people-saviors.

2. Former colleagues of Jews in study and work, neighbors who were connected with Jews by life in pre-war times, helped through friendly feelings, comradeship. There were cases when Ukrainians saved those Jews who had once helped them in difficult times.

3. Ukrainian underground fighters and partisans sometimes saw helping Jews as a form of resistance to the Nazi regime.

4. Individual people, who can be called non-conformists, and who could not adapt to society under the Nazi regime, tried to resist violence and thus psychologically assert themselves by helping the victims of this regime.

5. Christians who saved Jews because of their religious beliefs.

6. "Accidental rescuers" - people who tried to save Jews because of a sudden impulse to come to the aid of the persecuted.

7. There were also selfish motives for providing assistance to Jews – an attempt to make money, to gain material benefit from those they saved.

In general, it should be emphasized that no Ukrainian political force or military organization came to the defense of Jews during the Holocaust in the occupied territory of Ukraine. Also, the Soviet government, which had information about the extermination of Jews by the Nazis, did not bring it to the attention of the Jewish population.³⁶ There were no declarations, statements, or appeals to the Ukrainian population to provide assistance to Jews, either from the Ukrainian or Polish underground, or from the Soviet government and the Soviet partisan units subordinate to it and the Soviet underground. This played its tragic role in the huge number of Ukrainian Jews who died, numbering one and a half million out of six million of all Jews who were victims of the Holocaust.

At the same time, the history of World War II contains not only horrific pages of mass murder, but also examples of resistance to genocide and rescue. None of the Jews whose lives were saved during the Holocaust could have hoped for salvation without the help that, risking their own lives and the lives of their relatives, Ukrainians and representatives of other peoples of our country, who also suffered from Hitler's occupation, provided them.

The work on studying the phenomenon of rescuing Ukrainian Jews during the Holocaust is an important scientific and moral task, as it provides positive examples of human behavior under inhumane conditions of war. This is especially relevant for Ukraine today, when our country has become the object of Russian information aggression from Russia, which includes the use of false historical myths and stereotypes in anti-Ukrainian propaganda, and full-scale armed aggression by the Russian Federation.

Igor Shchupak, Ph.D.,
Director of the Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies "Tkuma",
Vice-Rector for Scientific Work of the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology "Beit Khana",
Member of the Board of Directors of UJE (Canada),
member of the International Auschwitz Council (Poland),
Honored Worker of Education of Ukraine

¹ See: About the Righteous People of the World. Yad Vashem URL: https://www.yadvashem.org/ru/righteous/about-the-righteous.html.

² About the righteous people of the world...

³ Shchupak I. Ukrainian saviors of Jews during the Holocaust. Righteous Among the Nations of the World: Handbook / ed. I. Ya. Shchupak; introductory articles – M. F. Marynovych, I. Ya. Shchupak; edited by E. A. Vradiy, D. V. Shatalov. Dnipro: Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies “Tkuma”, 2016. pp. 9–11.

⁴ A file of people shot in various parts of Ukraine during the years of fascist occupation has been created and continues to be created. All-Ukrainian Jewish Council. URL: http://jadvis.org.ua/component/k2/item/405.

⁵ Nakhmanovych V. Babyn Yar: a place of memory in search of the future. Babyn Yar: History and memory / ed. V. Hrynevych, P.-R. Magochii. Kyiv: Spirit and Letter, 2016. P. 327.

⁶ The righteous people of the world. Statistics. Yad Vashem URL: https://www.yadvashem.org/ru/righteous/statistics.html.

⁷ Shchupak I. Memory and documents about the rescue of Jews of Ukraine during the Holocaust: between myths and facts. Problems of the history of the Holocaust: the Ukrainian dimension. Scientific journal. Dnipro: Ukrainian Institute of Holocaust Studies "Tkuma"; PP "Lira LTD", 2019. Issue 11. P. 164.

⁸ See: Resolution "On Honoring the Memory of Ukrainians Who Saved Jews During World War II" Adopted. Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine. URL: https://www.rada.gov.ua/news/Novyny/202593.html.

⁹ State Archives of Lviv Region (hereinafter – DALO). F. R-77, op. 1, files 309, 366, 504, 592, 654, 661, 735, 758, 759, 791, 800, etc.

¹⁰ DALO. F. R-77, op. 1, file 1111.

¹¹ DALO. F. R-77, op. 1, file 1358.

¹² DALO. F. R-77, op. 1, file 791, sheet 20 of the volume.

¹³ DALO. F. R-77, op. 1, file 851, sheet 26 of the book.

¹⁴ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 735, sheet 6.

¹⁵ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 847, sheet 14.

¹⁶ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 847, sheet 14.

¹⁷ DALO. F. R-77, op. 1, file 847, sheet 21 of the volume.

¹⁸ Kovba Zh. M. Humanity in the Abyss of Hell. Behavior of the Local Population of Eastern Galicia during the Years of the “Final Solution to the Jewish Question”. Kyiv: Spirit and Letter, 2009. pp. 200–201.

¹⁹ See: Advertisement "SS and Police Leader in the Galician District", Drohobych, March 9, 1944 (personal archive of I. Shchupak).

²⁰ DALO. F. R-77, op. 1, file 504, sheet 16 of the volume.

²¹ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 504, sheet 40.

²² GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 504, sheet 20.

²³ State Archives of Zaporizhzhia Oblast (hereinafter referred to as DAZO). F. R. 1849, op. 1, file 1.

²⁴ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 661, sheet 3.

²⁵ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 661, sheet 3.

²⁶ GIVEN. F. R-77, op. 1, reference 661, sheet 37.

²⁷ Altman I. AND. The Holocaust and Jewish resistance in the occupied territory of the USSR. Moscow: "Holocaust" Foundation, 2002. 320 p.

²⁸ Personal archive of I. Shchupak.

²⁹ Shchupak I. I. The attitude of the Ukrainian population of Zaporozhye to Jews during the war of 1941–1945. Zaporizhzhya Jewish readings. issue 1. Zaporozhye, 1997. P. 120–121.

³⁰ Shchupak I. I. The attitude of the Ukrainian population of Zaporozhye to Jews during the war of 1941–1945. Zaporizhzhya Jewish readings. issue 1. Zaporozhye, 1997. P. 15.

³¹ Berkhoff K. Harvest of Despair. Life and Death in Ukraine under Nazi Rule. Kyiv: Kritika, 2011. P. 95.

³² Shchupak I. The Tragedy of the Jews of Ukraine. The National Question in Ukraine in the 20th and Early 21st Centuries: Historical Essays / Editorial Board: V. M. Lytvyn (chairman), G. V. Boryak, V. M. Danylenko, and others; Deputy Editor V. A. Smolii. Kyiv: Nika-Center, 2012. P. 419.

³³ Bociurkiw BR Sheptyts'kyi and the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church Under the Soviet Occupation of 1939–1941. Morality and Reality. The Life and Times of Andrei Sheptyts'kyi / eds. P.-R. Magocsi, A. Krawchuk. Edmonton : Canadian Institute of Ukrainian Studies, University of Alberta, 1989. P. 101–123; Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts'kyi. Documents and Materials 1941–1944 / edited by Zh. Kovba; scientific editor A. Krawchuk. Kyiv : Spirit and Literature, 2003. 313 p.; Redlikh Sh. Metropolitan Andrei Sheptyts'kyi and Jews during the Holocaust and the Second World War. URL: http://www.cerkva.od.ua/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=594&Itemid=87; Redlykh Sh. Moral principles in everyday life: Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and Jews during the Holocaust and World War II. Problems of Holocaust history: scientific journal. Dnipropetrovsk: Porogi, 2006. Issue 3. pp. 85–104; Marinovich M. The figure of Metropolitan Sheptytsky in the nonlinear space of historical time. Problems of Holocaust history: scientific journal. Dnipropetrovsk: Tkuma Center, PP "Lira LTD", 2007. Issue 4. pp. 81–87; Shchupak I. Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky: personality and symbol in history. Problems of Holocaust history: scientific journal. Dnipropetrovsk: Center "Tkuma", PP "Lira LTD", 2007. Issue 4. pp. 88–99; Chayka T. Collaboration in the "space of death": towards understanding the moral collision of Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. Problems of Holocaust history: scientific journal. Dnipropetrovsk: Center "Tkuma", PP "Lira LTD", 2007. Issue 4. pp. 100–113; Kovba Zh. The influence of Metropolitan Sheptytsky on the faithful during the Holocaust. Problems of Holocaust history: scientific journal. Dnipropetrovsk: Center "Tkuma", PP "Lira LTD", 2007. Issue 4. pp. 127–151; Diary of the Lviv Ghetto. Memoirs of Rabbi David Kahane / edited by J. Kovba (Series "Library of the Institute of Judaica"). Kyiv: Spirit and Letter, 2003. 268 p.; Kovba J. M. The Last Rabbi of Lviv. Ezekiel Levin. Lviv; Kyiv: Spirit and Letter, 2009. 184 p., etc.

³⁴ Shimon Redlich. Sheptytskyi denied racist thinking (interview of professor Shimon Redlich in Tygodnik Powszechny magazine). URL: http://www.newswe.com/index.php?go=Pages&in=view&id=3690.

³⁵ See: Shchupak I. Saving Jews during the Holocaust on the territory of Ukraine (1941–1944): monograph. Dnipro: Ukrainian Institute for Holocaust Studies "Tkuma", 2020.

³⁶ Obviously, this was due to the "internationalist" component of communist ideology, according to which separate national groups that had a special fate under certain historical conditions were not distinguished in Soviet society. At the same time, the same "internationalist" approach did not prevent the Soviet authorities from organizing mass deportations of Crimean Tatars or Volga Germans, when this was based on the decisions of the Stalinist leadership of the USSR.