NEW YORK – In the summer of 1941, when the German occupation of Lviv unleashed terror on the city’s residents, Kurt Lewin, the son of a prominent rabbi, made his way to St. George’s Cathedral, the seat of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church.
There he met with Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky, the church’s leader.
Lewin hoped Sheptytsky could help save not only manuscripts and documents owned by his father, who had earlier been killed in the city’s violence against the Jews, but the rest of his family as well.
Writing in his 1994 memoir, A Journey through Illusions, Lewin recalled meeting Sheptytsky for the first time.
“Learning that I was the son of Rabbi Dr. Ezekiel Lewin, he put his arm around me and hugged me to his powerful chest. He gently stroked my hair and repeatedly whispered …‘Poor child.’… I briefly described the tragic situation of the dying Jewish community and the death camp in Belzec. The old man, looking like an Old Testament patriarch, listened carefully, tears streaming down his wrinkled cheeks,” Lewin wrote. “When I finished, he again embraced me, reflected a while and suggested that I return in two days. ‘Son, your father was my friend. You can rest assured that I will do all I can. Bring with you the manuscripts and I will place them in a safe place. However, I have in mind to find a way to save you.’”
Sheptytsky, who lived from 1865 to 1944, kept his word. Under false papers supplied by the church, Lewin, a Jewish boy from Lviv, survived the war’s Nazi terror by living with monks.
Seven decades after this and other acts of benevolence, the Anti-Defamation League last week posthumously honored Sheptytsky for his heroism in saving Jews from the Holocaust. Founded in 1913, the ADL is the world’s leading organization in combating anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry and hatred. The group commemorated its 100 year anniversary this year.
“We are honoring Metropolitan Sheptytsky for his selfless commitment to the goal of preserving human life, and for fighting anti-Semitism under the Nazi regime during a harrowing and dark moment in history,” said Abraham H. Foxman, ADL’s national director, in presenting the organization’s Jan Karski Courage to Care Award, which was accepted by Sheptytsky’s grand-nephew, Jerzy Weyman. “We can only speculate how many countless innocent lives were spared by the untiring efforts of this one compassionate individual.”
Sheptytsky was recognized for his courageous efforts to protect Ukrainian Jews from extermination by supplying false identification papers and shelter from the Nazis at a time when such acts were punishable by death.
Historians estimate that more than 150 Jews, including children, were saved through the metropolitan’s efforts. Although ailing and largely confined to his residence at St. George’s Cathedral, Sheptytsky instructed his brother, Klymentiy, and closest associates to hide Jews in monasteries and local parishes. Jewish children were supplied with baptismal certificates, while others wore church habits to avoid detection. Among those who found shelter in Sheptytsky’s residence was David Kahane, who would later become chief rabbi of the Israeli Air Force.
Sheptytsky, however, also took very public stands against Nazi brutality: In February 1942, he wrote a letter to Heinrich Himmler, the head of the Nazi SS, asking him to stop the murder of Jews by Ukrainian policemen. Later that year, in November, he wrote his famous pastoral letter “Thou Shalt Not Kill” urging Ukrainians not to participate in Nazi atrocities. He also notified Pope Pius XII of the mass murders taking place in Lviv.
“He endangered his life and so many others to save Jews,” said Rabbi Yaakov Dov Bleich, Chief Rabbi of Kyiv and Ukraine. “Today we celebrate another example of courage…He’s being recognized by the Jewish community. He should be recognized [by] the greater world.”
In a move meant to promote the spirit of Sheptytsky’s efforts, the Jewish Confederation of Ukraine earlier this year unveiled the Metropolitan Andrei Sheptytsky Medal to be awarded annually for contributions to the cause of Ukrainian-Jewish understanding and cooperation. The first recipient was Canadian businessman and philanthropist James Temerty, who, among his initiatives, has funded three chairs at Lviv’s Ukrainian Catholic University (UCU) for the study of Ukrainian-Jewish relations.
Weyman, who is a professor at Northeastern University, said despite Sheptytsky’s immense influence, the metropolitan never felt truly comfortable in his role as the head of a church.
“He was a priest and a monk. This is the essence of that person,” he said. “Thanks to his moral vision, he succeeded in saving many during times so terrible they are hard to imagine for anybody who did not live through them.”
Speaking on behalf of His Beatitude Sviatoslav Shevchuk, the head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church, Bishop Paul Chomnycky of Stamford, Connecticut noted that Sheptytsky was “one shining beacon of hope in the darkness, one powerful voice of reason and humanity in the silence.”
Several of those present said they hoped the ADL recognition will bring Sheptytsky one step closer toward being recognized as a Righteous Among the Nations. The honorific is bestowed by the State of Israel to non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews from extermination by the Nazis during the Holocaust.
“It’s important because we live in a world of increasing hatred,” said Reverend Peter Galadza of Canada’s Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky Institute of Eastern Christian Studies. “His example is of universal significance. Hopefully it will accelerate the cause of his beatification [by] the Vatican.”
Although Sheptytsky’s brother, Klementiy, was beatified in 2001 by Pope John Paul II, the process of the metropolitan’s beatification has dragged on.
“The Nazis created a world of choice-less choices,” said ADL’s Foxman, who survived the Holocaust in Poland by being hidden as a Catholic child. Pointing to worrying nationalistic trends in Ukraine, he said “the Ukrainian nationalism of Andrei Sheptytsky, one of compassion, even love, for his Jewish neighbors, is one that Jews around the world can embrace and support.”
Over 350 people attended the luncheon honoring Sheptytsky. Prominent Ukrainians included Ukraine’s ambassador to the United Nations Yuriy Sergeyev and Father Bohdan Prakh and Myroslav Marynovych, UCU’s rector and vice rector respectively.
Other recipients of the Jan Karski award include Emilie and Oskar Schindler, The Partisans of Riccione, Italy and Varian Fry. Karski was a Polish Roman-Catholic diplomat who witnessed first-hand the Nazi’s treatment of Jews. He traveled to London and Washington with pleas to save European Jewry, to no avail.
Natalia A. Feduschak, a former Kyiv Post staff writer, is director of communications for the Ukrainian Jewish Encounter, a privately organized initiative to deepen understanding of the breadth, complexity and diversity of Ukrainian-Jewish relations over the centuries with a view to the future. She can be reached at [email protected].
