Petryk Maria and Oleksiy, Shpak Kateryna 

The peasants Oleksiy Petryk (born in 1903) and his wife Maria (born in 1912) lived with their children in the village of Krasnosiltsi not far from Zbarazh town, Ternopil area, West Ukraine. Once a week Maria went to the town to clean the houses of the wealthy families, in particular, the Jewish family of Kanchukers.

After the Germans captured Zbarazh (July 6, 1941) and the first execution of the Jews occured, Maria, as usual, went to work. The Kanchuker family still lived in their house. Fortunately, nothing bad happened to them. Maria visited them and offered to help if necessary. Soon the ghetto was established in the town. Their family, as well as other Jews, was settled there. The Kanchukers had been living in the ghetto for one-and-a-half year .

Before the extermination of the ghetto on April 7, 1943 Leon Kanchuker contacted Maria Petryk. She came to the town with her sister Kateryna Shpak and took the 11-year-old Niusia, the daughter of Leon and Miriam Kanchuker, out of ghetto.

The next day they took their 7-year-old son Mykhailo. Suddenly, they heard shots nearby. The sisters got panic and ran away, so they lost the boy. Nevertheless, Mykhailo found the way back to his parents.

Only few days later the boy and his mother managed to escape from the ghetto. They came to Krasnosiltsi village. Finally, Leon Kanchuker and his niece Niusia Vainshtein from the town of Pidvolochysk left Zbarazh. All they hid in the attic of the Petryk’s house.

The Jews gave their saviours money for hosting them, but it was not enough even for the most urgent products. They had been hiding for almost a year until the arrival of the Red Army on March 6, 1944. Nevertheless, the cautious Petryk family had been waiting for two weeks, because they were afraid of the possible return of the German army. Then they secretly escorted the Jews to Zbarazh. In 1946 the rescued family migrated to Poland, then to the USA.

Since the late 1950s they exchanged letters with their saviors. Only after their death Niusia (Nancy) Eger and Mykhailo (Michael) Kanchuker requested to commemorate those who saved them risking own lives.

On July 18, 2005 Oleksiy and Maria Petryk as well as Kateryna Shpak were recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations.