Polishchuk Hnat, Tarasova (Polishchuk) Nadiia

Hnat Polishchuk lived with his mother in the village of Stadnyky, near the town of Ostroh in the Rivne region. The region was occupied by Nazi troops in early July 1941. Before that, there were more than 10 thousand Jews in the town and surrounding villages. With the beginning of the occupation, they received a legal status different from the rest of the population. They were deprived of even the meager rights that other residents enjoyed.

Already in the first decade of July, the Nazis executed prisoners of war and Jews at the Jewish cemetery. According to eyewitness accounts, the occupiers led a column of about 4 thousand local Jews and Jews expelled from surrounding villages to the Krasnostav tract, where most were shot, and the rest were returned to the ghetto. Later, after allegedly offering the hungry Jews to unload the arriving wagons at the station Kryvyn, the men were put in trucks, taken to the forest on the outskirts of the present-day city of Netishyn, and shot there. By the winter of 1942, the Jewish ghetto was completely liquidated. Only those who managed to escape or hide in the homes of Ukrainians who risked their lives helping the doomed survived.

In the summer of 1942, Hnat Polishchuk brought home 11-year-old Lisa Rondel, whose parents had been shot. Hnat had known the Jewish family from Ostroh since pre-war times. The Rondel family bought vegetables and dairy products from him. Having learned about the fate of his acquaintances, the man decided to save their child. Lisa lived in the Polishchuk house, during the roundups she was hidden in the cellar, and sometimes Hnat had to take the girl to the forest. During one of such trips to the forest, he met Yoel Rubinshtein. Moved by the grief of a Jew who had lost his wife and two children, he took him home and gave Lisa to the care of his sister, who lived next door.

After the Nazis were expelled, Yoel joined the Red Army, and after the war he left for Israel. Lisa remained to live with the Polishchuk family until 1949, then went to study in Zdolbuniv. Throughout her life, she maintained warm relations with her saviors. In 1991, she also emigrated to Israel.

In 1997, Yad Vashem recognized Hnat Polishchuk and Nadiia Tarasova (Polishchuk) as Righteous Among the Nations.