Stanislav Ishchenko

Yosyp Ishchenko had a small farmstead near the village of Veresy in the Zhytomyr Region, where he lived with his second wife and seven children.

One night his son Stanislav met the family of their pre-war Jewish friends fro Zhytomyr: Faina Shunda with her parents and three small children, all of whom had fled from the Germans. The youngest daughter, Maria, was only three-month-old. Stanislav took them home. The family hid them despite the threat of execution.

Time passed, and Mark Friedman with his parents turned to Yosyp Ishchenko for help. It was another Jewish family of strangers. They lived in a barn in the yard for several weeks before Yosyp found a shelter in a remote village in the woods, where they stayed until the end of the occupation.

There were 10-12 Jews in the Ishchenko family’s yard, and the number of refugees was constantly growing. Yosyp had to arrange two additional shelters in the farmsteads of his relatives, where 7-8 people also hid.

Refugees were provided with food and medicine, then some were relocated to the reliable people in neighboring villages, and some people under other names were employed on collective farms. When there were too many refugees, 14-year-old Stanislav helped them get to the local partisans, or to the Chernyakhiv highway, which led them to the Belarusian forests.

The occupying authorities suspected something. Yosyp was interrogated and Stanislav was brutally beaten by police. In order not to endanger his entire large family and those in hiding, Yosyp joined local partisans and was killed in action in 1942.

In total, the Ishchenko family and their relatives rescued 312 people. This is the absolute record of Ukraine.

On February 6, 2022 Yad Vashem recognized Yosyp Ishchenko and his son Stanislav as Righteous Among the Nations.