Yaniuk Stepan and Tetiana

Stepan and Tetiana Yaniuk lived in the Mashiv village in Volyn, North-West Ukraine. During the Nazi occupation this family saved lives of two Jewish girls from the Vainshtein family.

 

Maria and Valentyna Vainshtein lived in Luboml town before the war. After the Nazis occupied the region, their family was sent to ghetto. Their father got permission to work outside ghetto. His wife with three children had to stay there.

In late September 1942 mother told the elder daughters Maria and Valentyna to escape to the village where father worked. The woman with the youngest son stayed in the ghetto. On September 1-2 the Nazis shot all the Jewish residents of ghetto. Almost 3 thousand persons died.

 

“The girls met their father and for some time they hid in the forest together. Unfortunately, during the manhunt for the Jews the occupiers killed father. Sisters managed to escape. Maria and Valentyna had been roaming around the woods. Sometimes they came to villages and asked the locals for some food”. From the memories of the daughter of Stepan and Tetiana Yaniuk…

Once Tetiana Yaniuk noticed the girls. The woman was deeply religious and had three own children. Another two - the twin daughters - died in childbirth. She thought that God gave her these girls instead of the dead ones and persuaded her husband to shelter them.

For some time the Vainshtein sisters lived in the house and did not walk outside. Later Stepan and Tetiana told the neighbors that girls were their relatives. Someone informed the occupiers against the family. The police searched their house and even threatened to burn it if the Yaniuks would not give the Jewish girls. Fortunately, Stepan secretly took the girls to the forest where they hid until the danger passed. Then sisters returned to the Yainiuk’s house.

 

After the war Stepan and Tetiana officially adopted the girls and raised them together with their native children.

On April 5, 2016 Stepan and Tetiana Yaniuk were recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations. Their daughter Yevdokia Shainiuk received award at the Memorial complex in October 2017.