Yalynskyi Vasyl and his mother Hanna 

During the Nazi occupation Vasyl Yalynskyi and his mother Hanna lived in the village near Zvenyhorodka town in Central Ukraine. In December 1942 the unfamiliar woman knocked on their door. She asked to get warm and the family did not refused her. Later they learned that this woman was Jew. Her name was Tsypa Veksler. She lived in Zvenyhorodka with three daughters. Before the Nazi occupation she managed to evacuate her children with the rest of family and stayed in the town. After the massive executions of the Jews started, she tried to survive in the countryside. That was how she came to the Yalynskyi’s house.

 

Hanna Yalynska and her son Vasyl sheltered the woman until the Nazis withdrew from the region. When the danger passed, Tsypa Veksler returned to Zvenyhorodka in early 1944.

 

In the autumn that year one of her saviors Vasyl Yalynskyi was recruited to the Red Army. He was a signalman in the Air Defense of the Pacific Fleet and took part in the Soviet-Japanese war. After the end of the World War II Vasyl Yalynskyi continued to serve in the Soviet Navy. In 1961 he was transferred to the reserve. Then the man worked as a master at the Dnipropetrovsk (current city of Dnipro) Machinery Plant.

In 2013 the Yad Vashem Holocaust Memorial Complex recognized Vasyl and his mother Hanna as the Righteous Among the Nations. The awarding ceremony took place in 2019 in the city of Dnipro. The certificate and medal were handled to the daughter of Vasyl Yalynskyi, Valentyna Zaiets. The family donated the medal to the National Museum of the History of Ukraine in the Second World War.