403)
Help was given even though the probability of detection was substantial and the penalties were
severe:
Sonderkommando 4b reported that it had shot the mayor of Kremenchug, Senitsa
Vershovsky, because he had "tried to protect the Jews." (Raul Hilberg, The
Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 308)
Consulting the original Einsatzgruppe report reveals that a Catholic priest, Protyorey Romansky,
was involved in the above plot to save Jews, though Romansky's punishment is not specified:
The fact that Senitsa, the mayor of Kremenchug, was arrested for sabotaging
orders, demonstrates that responsible officials are not always selected with
the necessary care and attention. Only after the Einsatzkommandos had
interrogated the official could it be established that he had purposely
sabotaged the handling of the Jewish problem. He used false data and
authorized the chief priest Protyorey Romansky to baptize the Jews whom he
himself had selected, giving them Christian or Russian first names. His
immediate arrest prevented a larger number of Jews from evading German
control. Senitsa was executed. (Einsatzgruppe C, Kiev, Operational Situation
Report USSR No. 177, March 6, 1942, in Yitzhak Arad, Shmuel Krakowski, and
Shmuel Spector, editors, The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections From the
Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign Against the Jews July
1941-January 1943, 1989, p. 304)
Similarly illustrative of help being given despite severe penalties is the following:
A German police company in the village of Samary, Volhynia, shot an entire
Ukrainian family, including a man, two women, and three children, for harboring
a Jewish woman. (Raul Hilberg, Perpetrators, Victims, Bystanders, 1992, p.
201)
This is not to say that all or most Jews found refuge with Ukrainians, nor that all or most
Ukrainians offered refuge to Jews. Far from it. Many stories can be found of Jews being
refused refuge or even being betrayed - but what else could anyone expect? To expect more from
Ukrainians would be to expect them to be saints and martyrs, which would be setting a very high
standard:
Whoever attempted to help Jews acted alone and exposed himself as well as his
family to the possibility of a death sentence from a German Kommando. (Raul
Hilberg, The Destruction of the European Jews, 1985, p. 308)
But despite the severity of the punishment, Ukrainians did help. Andrew Gregorovich (Forum, No.
92, Spring 1995, p. 24) reproduces a public announcement issued by the "SS and Head of Police
for the District of Galicia" in Sambir, Ukraine, March 1, 1944. The announcement lists ten
Ukrainians who have been sentenced to death by the Germans. Number 7 is Stefan Zubovych,
Ukrainian, married - for the crime of helping Jews. One wonders what Stefan Zubovych might have
thought had he been told just prior to his execution that in decades to come, some among the
people that he was giving his life for would attempt to obliterate his memory and the memory of
other Ukrainians like him, and would attempt instead to depict Ukrainians as irredeemable
anti-Semites. One wonders what the surviving family of Stefan Zubovych, if any did survive,
think today of the thanks that they receive from Morley Safer for the sacrifice that they have
borne.
Given the severity and the imminence of the punishment, it is a wonder that Ukrainians offered
any help at all. Jews who had been saved by Ukrainians have subsequently admitted that in view
of the extreme danger, had their roles been reversed they would not have extended the same help
to the Ukrainians.