In Chernivtsi, a memorial plaque was unveiled for the Bukovinian Righteous Among the Nations

An event occurred in Chernivtsi that is important not only for the Jewish community of Bukovina but also for all of Ukraine. In the ‘Israel’ synagogue on Ukrainian Street, 2, for the first time in the city, a memorial plaque was unveiled for Bukovinians recognized as Righteous Among the Nations — people who saved Jews from extermination during World War II.

Names of Bukovinian Righteous Among the Nations

The memorial plaque in Chernivtsi bears the names of 12 Bukovinians who saved Jews in the Chernivtsi region during the Holocaust. Their actions have become part of the living memory of Bukovina and an important sign of gratitude from the Jewish community.

• Boiko Vasyl (Boiko Vasyl)
• Boiko Yevdokiia (Boiko Yevdokiia)
• Vasylkovska Vaselena (Vasylkovska Vaselena)
• Vasylkovskyi Yozef (Vasylkovskyi Yozef)
• Zelisko Mariia (Zelisko Mariia)
• Kovtsun Vasil (Kovtsun Vasil)
• Kovtsun Kateryna (Kovtsun Kateryna)
• Kurish Hrygorii (Kurish Hrygorii)
• Kurish Mykola (Kurish Mykola)
• Kurish Oleksandra (Kurish Oleksandra)
• Popovych Trajan (Popovych Trajan)
• Shcherbanovych Ivan (Shcherbanovych Ivan)

These names are important not only as a historical record. Behind each one stands a human choice made during the years of terror when helping Jews could cost the rescuer and their family their lives. Therefore, the memorial plaque in Chernivtsi has become not just a sign of memory but a testament that Bukovina remembers the people who preserved conscience and dignity in the darkest times.

This was reported by Mykhailo Krasovskyi in “Czernowitzer Zeitung” – Jewish newspaper of Chernivtsi / Ukraine” on May 16, 2026.

The plaque bears the names of 12 residents of Bukovina. During the Holocaust, they risked their own lives and the lives of their families, hiding, feeding, warning, helping to escape and survive those whom the Nazi machine condemned to death.

This is not just a commemorative sign.

This is the return of names from silence.

The solemn event was attended by leaders and activists of Jewish organizations and national-cultural societies, representatives of various religious denominations, public figures, local historians, university professors, students, and journalists.

Why the opening in Chernivtsi became historic

In Ukraine, on this day, people who saved Jews during World War II were honored at the state level. In total, more than 2,600 Ukrainian citizens hold the title of ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ — one of the highest moral recognitions awarded by the Israeli Holocaust memorial Yad Vashem.

For Chernivtsi, this date has acquired special significance. The city, where Ukrainians, Jews, Romanians, Germans, Poles, Armenians, and representatives of other nations lived side by side for centuries, received a separate memorial sign in honor of the Bukovinian Righteous for the first time.

The ceremony was attended by representatives of Jewish organizations, national-cultural societies, religious denominations, public figures, local historians, professors, students, and journalists.

And this is important.

The memory of the Righteous Among the Nations does not belong to just one community. It unites people where history could divide. It contains pain, gratitude, human dignity, and a question that resonates especially sharply during any war: what does a person do when evil becomes a system?

Who are the Righteous Among the Nations

The title ‘Righteous Among the Nations’ is awarded to non-Jews who saved Jews during the Holocaust, expecting no reward and risking everything.

In occupied Europe, such a choice often meant mortal danger. Hiding Jews could lead to the execution of not only the rescuer but also their entire family. For a piece of bread, a night’s shelter, silence, or help in escaping, a person could pay with their own life.

And yet such people existed.

They did not ask if it was profitable to help. They did not calculate political consequences. They did not wait for someone else to take the first step. They simply understood that before them was a person who needed to be saved.

That is why the names of the Bukovinian Righteous on the memorial plaque in Chernivtsi are not just a historical reference. They are a moral standard.

Bukovina, the Holocaust, and the memory that cannot be left in archives

Chernivtsi has always been a city of complex memory. Here, different cultures did not just coexist — they formed the urban fabric, the language of the streets, family stories, music, schools, synagogues, temples, markets, and the university environment.

But the 20th century brought Bukovina not only cultural flourishing but also catastrophe.

During the Holocaust, the Jewish population of the region experienced deportations, killings, ghettos, camps, fear, and the destruction of entire family worlds. Many stories remained untold. Some survived only in the memory of children who witnessed the death of their parents and then could not speak about it without pain for decades.

Therefore, the memorial plaque in the ‘Israel’ synagogue is not a formality or a ‘city event’.

It is a sign that memory must have a place, an address, and names. Not only in books, not only in archival documents, not only in family stories that gradually disappear along with generations of witnesses.

Now these names are in the urban space.

Why this is important for Israel

For the Israeli audience, the unveiling of such a plaque in Chernivtsi has special significance.

Israel is built around the understanding that the memory of the Holocaust is not the past but a part of national consciousness, security, and moral responsibility. But alongside the memory of the victims, there is always the memory of those who saved.

The Righteous Among the Nations remind us: even in the darkest times, a person is not completely deprived of choice.

One can remain silent. One can close the door. One can tell oneself that it is ‘not my family’ and ‘not my risk’. Or one can hide a child, bring bread, warn of a raid, open a basement, forge a document, lead across the border, or simply not betray.

In the midst of this topic for NANews — News of Israel | Nikk.Agency, it is especially important to emphasize the Ukrainian-Israeli meaning of the event. Today, when Ukraine is once again experiencing war, and Israel lives with its own trauma and constant security threat, the stories of the Righteous become a bridge between nations. They speak not the language of diplomacy but the language of human conscience.

The commemorative sign as a response to indifference

The author of the material, Mykhailo Krasovskyi from the Chernivtsi Jewish newspaper ‘Czernowitzer Zeitung’, writes that the idea of the memorial plaque grew out of a specific request. Viktor Fishman, a representative of the Jewish community of Munich, wanted to find the house of the Kovtsun family, who saved Jews in Chernivtsi, to install a commemorative sign there.

The house could not be found.

But the idea itself did not disappear. It was expanded: instead of remembering two rescuers, it was decided to talk about all the Bukovinian Righteous Among the Nations. Thus, a private initiative turned into a city act of memory.

This is a very precise logic for such a topic. Memory often begins not with big decisions but with one name, one house, one family, one question: why is so little known about these people?

This is how memorials that are truly needed are born.

Not from the top down, not for the sake of a report, but from an internal need to say: these people existed, they saved, they risked, and the city is obliged to remember their names.

Memory during a new war

Today, this plaque in Chernivtsi resonates especially strongly because Ukraine is once again living in conditions of war. Once again, peaceful people are dying. Once again, homes are destroyed. Once again, society faces questions of solidarity, help, fear, choice, and the price of human dignity.

The stories of the Righteous Among the Nations do not offer convenient consolation.

They do not say that good always wins quickly. They say something else: even when evil seems total, a person can remain human.

This is an important lesson for Ukraine, for Israel, and for any society that faces war, hatred, propaganda, and attempts to devalue another’s life.

In Chernivtsi, there is now a place where the names of the Bukovinian Righteous are engraved in stone. But the true meaning of this sign is not only in the stone.

It is in ensuring that these names continue to be heard.

In schools, in communities, in families, in universities, in conversations between Ukrainians and Jews, between Chernivtsi and Israel, between the past and the present.

Because a nation that remembers its Righteous preserves not only history. It preserves a moral foundation.