Yosyp Petrash and Paraskovia Dutchak

Despite all hardships and disasters of the Second World War, the best representatives of Ukrainian folk gave their helping hand to the Jews at the time of the Holocaust.

Among these benefactors was Yosyp Petrash. He was a priest from the village of Horokholyn, not far from the city Stanislav (currently – Ivano-Frankivsk). Yosyp and his relatives were acquaintances of the Jewish family of Ducks, who lived in the same village. German troops conquered these territories on July 2, 1941, and in November of the same year, the Jews from the local villages were forced to live their places and go to the ghetto of Stanislav.  A few months after Judel Ducks, his wife, and daughter Klara escaped from the ghetto with a help of a local policeman. They returned to Horokholyn and asked Yosyp Petrash to shelter them in his house. Despite the danger for himself and his family, the priest decided to help the escapees.

At the beginning of 1943, after German soldiers settled in Petrash’s house, Ducks have had to go. Judel with his wife escaped to the forest and their daughter, as Yosyp advised, went to the nearby village of Fitkiv. There young Klara found shelter in the house of Paraskovia Dutchak, the relative of Yosyp Petrash. A 17-year-old girl was taking care of Klara, providing her with clothes and teaching her Christian praying and traditions. Klara stayed with Paraskovia until the end of the Nazi occupation on July 27, 1944. Soon, she met her father and found out that her mother was caught and murdered by Nazis.

Klara Ducks (later – Akselrod) remained in Ukraine and was maintaining warm, almost family relations with the family of Petrash.

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On June 6, 1993, Yad Vashem named Yosyp Petrash and Paraskovia Dutchak the Righteous Among the Nations.