Karpik Oleksii, Iryna, Yosyp and Stepan

Oleksii Karpik, his wife Iryna, and their sons, teenager Stepan and four years younger Yosyp, lived in the village of Rakiv Lis, in the Volyn region. The family belonged to the Seventh-day Adventist Church. In October 1942, the couple sheltered refugees from the Kamin-Kashirskyi ghetto in their house: Yankel and Sarah Holstein with their young sons Shamai and Meir, and another boy Menashe Perchik. Before that, the Jews were hiding with their friends in the village of Osivtsi. But when they felt threatened, they went to the village of Rakiv Lis at night and knocked on the first house they came across, and that is how they ended up with the Ukrainian Karpik family.

Menashe spent only a short time with Oleksii and Iryna because he went into the woods hoping to find his relatives' hiding place, while the Holsteins spent 16 months hiding in the Karpiks' outbuildings - in a cellar, attic, or haystack. If a raid was expected, the Jews moved to the woods or to the family's relatives for a while. Then Stepan and Yosyp gathered information in the village and became liaisons between their parents and Jews. Even when the rumors that fugitives were living at the Karpiks reached the village elder, the boys persuaded their father not to expel the Jews. They became friends with Shamai and Meir and sincerely worried about their fate.

In February 1944, the Holstein family returned home to the town of Kamin-Kashyrskyi, and later emigrated to Israel.

The survivors remained friends with their rescuers after all that they had been through.

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In 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Oleksii and Iryna Karpik and their sons Stepan and Yosyp as Righteous Among the Nations.