Haiduk Stepan and Yuzefa

The wealthy peasant family of Stepan and Yuzefa Haiduk with four children lived in the village of Radovychi (current – Volodymyr district) of the Volyn region. The couple cultivated their own plot of land, had a large apiary. Stepan was familiar with the Jewish Miller family from the neighboring town of Porytsk (current –  Pavlivka village, Volodymyr district). The Miller family traded livestock and sometimes visited the village Radovychi on business.

After the beginning of the German occupation, a ghetto was created in Porytsk, in which 3 thousand local and transported Jews became prisoners. The Miller family was among them. The ghetto was not fenced, although the police guarded it. Every day, able-bodied slaves were taken to various jobs, mostly outside the city. One day, the brothers Khaim and David Miller met with Stepan Hajduk and agreed that they would come to hide with him if necessary.

A year of Nazi occupation has passed. During the liquidation of the ghetto, which began on September 1, 1942 and lasted four days, David Miller did not manage to escape. Khaim reached the Haiduk house, bringing with him another fugitive – Semen Tessler. Stepan and Yuzefa sheltered them. Neither the neighbors nor the owners' children knew about the two Jews who were hiding in the hayloft. Almost a month passed until the search for the fugitives (there were dozens of them) subsided. Then Khaim and Semen left their saviors and headed for the forest, looking for partisans. They parted ways: Semen Tessler was accepted into the Soviet partisan unit under the command of Ivan Shitov. Calling himself Armenian, he never revealed his true origin to his comrades until the end of the war.

Khaim Miller hid in the forest for some time, but was captured by German soldiers and sent to a labor camp. For many months, he loaded sacks of local grain into wagons. One day he was lucky enough to escape again and finally contact the Soviet partisans. After the expulsion of the Nazis from the district in January 1944, Khaim Miller was drafted into the ranks of the Red Army and served in the infantry until the end of the German-Soviet war. Returning to the city of Porytsk, he learned that he was the only one who survived from a large family. After the war, Khaim Miller married a local Jewish woman and emigrated to the West. From 1949, he lived in Canada. As for Semen Tessler, in the post-war period he lived in the city of Lutsk. In 1990, he left for Israel.

For many more years, Stepan communicated with his rescued friends, they often exchanged letters. In 2007, Khaim's son, Teodore Miller, came to Ukraine and found the descendants of his father's saviors, who still live in the same village. In 2010, Stepan and Yuzefa Haiduk were awarded the title of Righteous Among the Nations.

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