In Kamianets-Podilskyi, a monument will be unveiled to Ukrainians who saved Jews during the Holocaust

On May 14, Ukraine commemorates the Day of Remembrance of Ukrainians who saved Jews during World War II. In 2026, this date gained special significance again: in Kamianets-Podilskyi, in Khmelnytskyi region, preparations are underway to unveil a monument to the Righteous Among the Nations — people who risked themselves and their families to save Jews during the Nazi terror.

In Khmelnytskyi region, 89 residents have been recognized as such. They are no longer alive, but their names are preserved in the Book of Memory, in museum archives, in family stories, and on the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations in Jerusalem.

For the Israeli audience, this topic is not a distant history from a Ukrainian region. It is part of the collective memory of the Holocaust, of human choice under conditions of absolute fear, and of those invisible threads that connect Ukraine, Israel, and the Jewish people.

Kamianets-Podilskyi prepares for the unveiling of the monument to the Righteous

In Kamianets-Podilskyi, there are plans to unveil a monument to the Righteous Among the Nations — Ukrainians, thanks to whom Jewish families were able to survive during World War II. According to Olga Nikitina from the Hesed Besht Foundation, the unveiling of the monument is tentatively expected in August 2026.

This is not just a new memorial object on the map of Khmelnytskyi region. For the city, where the history of the Jewish community was almost destroyed by the Nazis, such a monument becomes a sign of the return of memory to the public space.

During World War II, saving Jews was a deadly dangerous decision. If the Nazis found out that a person was hiding a Jew, punishment threatened not only the rescuer but also their family. That is why the title of Righteous Among the Nations is not a formal honor but a recognition of an act committed on the border of life and death.

89 names of Khmelnytskyi region

In Khmelnytskyi region, today, 89 people are known to have saved Jews. Among them are mentioned, in particular, the Shershunov, Larionov, and Pukasov families. Their names are connected not only with local history but also with the memory preserved in Israel — on the Avenue of the Righteous Among the Nations in Jerusalem.

There, in Yad Vashem, memory is expressed not only in documents. In the memorial space, trees are planted in honor of people who, during the Holocaust, chose not indifference but risk and mercy.

According to Yad Vashem data as of January 1, 2024, Ukraine ranks fourth among the countries of the world in the number of recognized Righteous Among the Nations. The Ukrainian list includes 2713 people. This is not dry statistics, but thousands of individual decisions: to hide, to feed, to warn, to lead out, not to betray, to remain human when the system demanded betrayal.

The Holocaust in Khmelnytskyi region: destroyed communities and memory of the ghettos

The history of the monument in Kamianets-Podilskyi sounds especially poignant due to the scale of the tragedy experienced by the Jewish community of the region. According to data presented on Ukrainian Radio Khmelnytskyi, during the Holocaust, about 150,000 Jews were destroyed in the territory of Khmelnytskyi region. In Kamianets-Podilskyi alone, there were 23,000 victims, among them about 1,500 children.

In Proskuriv, now Khmelnytskyi, the Nazis created two ghettos. One was called “professional” — it held doctors and other specialists. The other was a general ghetto for the Jewish population of the city.

In these places, people died not only from shootings. They died from hunger, cold, diseases, lack of water, and sanitary conditions. Therefore, the memory of the Holocaust in Khmelnytskyi region is not one date and not one memorial, but a whole map of destroyed families, interrupted traditions, and cities where Jewish life was forcibly cut short.

White tablecloth from the Proskuriv ghetto

In the Memory Museum at the public Jewish center “THIYA” in Khmelnytskyi, there is an item that speaks of tragedy more strongly than many official formulations. It is a white tablecloth crocheted by a girl named Ida behind the walls of the Proskuriv ghetto.

Ida was a teenager. She died in the ghetto. She had a friend, Marusya — a Ukrainian who visited her and was in love with Ida’s brother, Semen. At that time, Semen was fighting at the front. When he returned, he and Marusya got married.

For them, Ida crocheted a white tablecloth for Shabbat. In Jewish tradition, on Friday evening, when Shabbat begins, the table is covered with a white tablecloth. Even in the ghetto, in conditions of humiliation, fear, and hopelessness, Ida tried to preserve tradition because tradition is also a form of resistance to annihilation.

Later, the descendants of Semen and Marusya donated this tablecloth to the Holocaust Museum. Today it is kept in a glass cube — as an item that outlived its creator and became a testament to life, love, memory, and tragedy.

Why this memory is important today — for Ukraine and Israel

Olga Nikitina noted that it is especially important to talk about the feat of Ukrainians who saved Jews today, when Ukraine has been living in conditions of war for many years. War shows what a person is capable of: some choose fear, some indifference, and some help others, even when it is dangerous.

This thought today does not sound like a museum phrase. Repatriates from Ukraine, the Ukrainian community in Israel, families connected with both countries, well understand that the memory of the rescuers of Jews is not only a conversation about the past. It is a conversation about how a person behaves when there is someone else’s pain, someone else’s risk, and someone else’s death nearby.

NANews — Israel News | Nikk.Agency considers such stories precisely in this context: the connection between Ukraine and Israel is held not only on diplomacy, politics, or today’s news but also on human actions that survive generations. Ukrainians who saved Jews during the Holocaust left behind not a slogan but an example of personal responsibility.

Monument as a sign for the living

The future monument in Kamianets-Podilskyi is important not only for the descendants of the saved families. It is needed for those who live today near these places, walk the same streets, pronounce the names of cities and villages where entire Jewish communities once disappeared.

Memorials do not bring back the dead. But they prevent society from pretending that nothing happened.

In this sense, the monument to the Righteous Among the Nations in Khmelnytskyi region will speak of two things at once: the terrible price of the Holocaust and the people who at that moment refused to become part of the machine of destruction.

For Israel, such memory has special value. In Jerusalem, the names of the Righteous are already inscribed in the space of the national memory of the Jewish people. Now another sign of memory should appear in Kamianets-Podilskyi — on the land where the tragedy occurred and where there were people who dared to stop it, even for one family, one child, one neighbor.

That is why May 14 is not just a date in the Ukrainian calendar. It is a day when Ukraine reminds: alongside the history of destruction, there was also a history of salvation.