Petro Trach
Petro Trach was born on August 18, 1934 to the family of peasants. His parents, Ivan and Rozaliya Trach, lived with their 4 children in the village of Kachanivka, Pidvolochysk district, Ternopil region. The family had a small home and a plot of land.
Ivan became friends with Yakov Gilson, local school teacher who came to the village in 1939 and taught Petro Trach.
When Nazi came, Jews were sent to the local forced-labor camp, where they spent 2 years until the liquidation of this camp in July 1943. Some Jews managed to escape. Yakiv Gilson and his brothers Zygmunt, and Benyamin were among fugitives. They came to Ivan and Rozaliya with a hope to be help. The Traches let them in.
To save the brothers, they dug a cellar-like hole in the cowshed. The Gilson brothers gave some money to the couple and remained in hiding. The Traches provided the Gilsons with food and everything they needed. Their son Petro was responsible for food delivery and spent time with his teacher and Yakiv’s brothers to support them morally.
In a month (August 1943) Ivan and Rozaliya came across two young women who were wandering in the nearby forest, having no hope to survive. The exhausted people appeared to be sisters Rachel and Malka Hirshklau from Pidvolochysk. They were Jews. They had lost all their relatives. Only two of them were lucky to escape. The Traches took them home and hid in the same bunker, where Gilson brothers stayed.
Since that time and until the expulsion of the Nazis from the area in March 1944, the Trach family cared about 5 wretched people, making sure they felt as comfortable as possible under such circumstances and sharing with them everything they had, asking nothing in return.
Gilson brothers joined the Polish army and fought against the Nazis until 1945.
At the end of the 1940s, all the survivors moved to Israel. They restore contacts with their rescuers only in the 1990s.
On July 19, 1995, Yad Vashem recognized Ivan and Rozaliya Trach as Righteous Among the Nations.
On October 28, 2000 Jewish Council of Ukraine recognized Petro Trach as Righteous of Ukraine.