The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum will honor a non-Jewish Ukrainian who helped save a Jewish woman from the Nazis.
In conjunction with the Israeli embassy, the museum will present the Medal of the Righteous Among the Nations on Tuesday to the son of Yevgenia Zamoroko-Lysenko, a Ukrainian who with her roommate obtained false papers for a Jewish woman and allowed her to share their apartment. The medal was awarded by Yad Vashem, Israel’s Holocaust Memorial, the institution that makes the determination in these cases.
Masha Spivak lived with the pair until April 1942 and performed forced labor in Germany until her liberation. She immigrated to Israel in 1948.
Yad Vashem has honored 21,758 non-Jews for their efforts to save Jews from the Nazis. This represents the first time the American Holocaust museum will present such a medal.
