Melnyk Fedir

Fedir Melnyk lived with his Jewish wife Betia and daughter Liudmyla in the city of Bar, Vinnytsia region. In the early days of the German-Soviet war, he was drafted into the Red Army. Soon he was captured. In December 1941, Fedir managed to escape and get home. His wife and daughter evacuated to the east of the USSR before the Nazis completely occupied the region. Fedir Melnyk joined an underground movement. To avoid suspicion among the occupation authorities, he got a job in a medical herb collection cooperative.

The persecution of the Jewish population began almost immediately after the region was occupied. According to Order No. 21 of the Bar District Administration, on December 20, 1941, three ghettos were established in the city of Bar and one in the neighboring village of Yaltushkiv, the prisoners of which were local Jews and those from Bessarabia and Bukovyna. The family of Borys Kremen, Fedir's old friend, ended up in one of the ghettos. The man was looking for opportunities to help his friend. But during one of the mass executions of Jews that were carried out in two stages (on August 18-19 and October 14-15, 1942), Borys, along with his wife Rosa and younger son Myshko, was killed. Fedir found out that the Kremen's 13-year-old daughter Sofiia had survived. He managed to bribe the guards who allowed her to leave the ghetto. Fedir hid the girl for several days in the attic of his house and then transferred her across the Southern Bug River to Transnistria, a Romanian-controlled area where it was relatively safe for Jews. In Sharhorod, distant relatives took care of her.

Before the arrival of Soviet troops, Fedir Melnyk kept helping Jews, particularly saving the Krasniansky family. In March 1944, he was conscripted again. In the last days of the war, he fell in action during the battles near Berlin.

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In 2004, Yad Vashem recognized Fedir Melnyk as a Righteous Among the Nations.