Malankevych Ivan and Mariia

Ivan and Mariia Malankevych and their son Slavyk lived in the city of Sambir in the Lviv region. Before the war, Ivan worked as a miner. Having received a professional injury, he remained disabled. On the eve of the war, the family adopted the children of their fallen Polish comrade: Józef, Janek and Česká Wojcik.

During the Holocaust in the Lviv region, the Malankevych family helped the persecuted Jews. German troops entered the town of Sambir on June 29, 1941, and already on July 1, a Jewish pogrom took place, from which more than 100 people killed.

In the fall of 1942, Józef asked his adoptive parents if they could hide his teacher of literature Artur Sandauer, who had escaped from the Sambir ghetto. The day before, the teacher managed to avoid being taken to Belzhets camp and shot. The Malankevych family welcomed the Jew into their home. Later, his mother Berta and sister Irena joined him. Ivan Malankevych arranged a shelter for them in the pigsty. It was so small that three people could only sit or lie motionless there. It was possible to come out of hiding to stretch out only at night. Various diseases were the result of terrible unsanitary conditions. Maria took care of the fugitives, treated them with herbs, tried to feed them with warm food, but she was very afraid of searches. It was especially dangerous to hide Jews in the house where they were taken in the winter. However, fortunately, everything went well and the police never appeared in the yard of the Malankevych family.

After the war, the Sandauer family moved to Poland. Artur became a famous writer, a professor at the University of Warsaw. His mother and sister emigrated to Israel. With the arrival of Soviet government in the west of Ukraine, the Malankevych family was deported to Siberia, and communication between the rescuers and the rescued has been lost.

In 1990, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan and Mariia Malankevych as Righteous Among the Nations.

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