Viter Olena (Yosyfa)

Olena Viter was born in 1904 in the village of Myklashivka, Lviv region, then Austria-Hungary. Soon after that her parents moved to Austria, where the girl’s childhood passed. They returned to Galicia in 1918. In 1922, soon after her father died, to whom she was very close, Olena abandoned studies at the medical institute and became a nun under the name Yosyfa.

In the interwar period, East Galicia was a part of Poland. The Polish government provided strict polonization there, reducing the usage of the Ukrainian language a lot. In the monastery of Yaktoriv village, where nun Yosyfa lived, she organized “Native school”, and later – evening school for adults and the Ukrainian theatrical group. Except this, the abbess established the orphanage at the monastery, where 30 children were brought up.

The peaceful life of the monastery ended in September 1939, after the outbreak of World War II. Soon after that, Poland was shared between USSR and Germany. East Galicia was included to the UkrSSR. The new authorities began anti-religious campaign. The monastery in the village of Yaktoriv, as well as many others, was plundered.

In 1940, Yosyfa was arrested for helping the OUN member Yaroslav Chemerynskyi emigrate abroad. In that time she already was the abbess of the monastery. For establishment of the “Native school” and enlightenment, she was accused of “nationalist education of the youth”.

For nearly a year Yosyfa had been detained in the notorious Prison in Łącki Street, experiencing numerous interrogations, psychological pressure, moral and physical tortures. She was sentenced to death by shooting, but survived due to the beginning of the German-Soviet war. On June 24, 1941, when Soviet troops retreated from Lviv, citizens and the OUN members liberated several prisoners, in particular the abbess.

The clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church considered the outbreak of the war as the end of the persecution of believers and priests, as well as the chance to restore the national statehood. However, no independent Ukraine was in the occupiers’ plans. When the German troops entered the city, they began the arrests of the OUN and the Ukrainian National Assembly members, who declared the Act on the Ukrainian State Restoration. East Galicia was turned into the administrative unit of the General Governorate, which included the Wehrmacht-occupied Polish lands. The Ukrainian lands were separated again.

Alongside the persecution of the Ukrainian patriots, the Nazis started reprisals against the Jews of the region. The bloody pogroms happened in Lviv in the early days of the occupation. Then, in late 1941 – mid 1942, the occupiers began to exterminate the Jews of the region systematically.

In Lviv, in the autumn of 1941, the Nazi administration established the ghetto, the third largest in Europe by the number of prisoners after the ones in Warsaw and Lodz. In the territory, where normally 25 – 30 thousand people lived, 130,000 Jews from the different parts of the city and the outskirts were concentrated. In the summer of 1942, the Janowska camp of the forced detainment was established in the city, where the most work-capable prisoners of ghetto were sent. Those, who could not work – elderly people, sick and children – were deported to the Belzec death camp. Mass murders took place in the outskirts of Lviv as well, in the specially dug sand trenches.

In early 1943, the Lviv ghetto was transformed into the forced labor camp, so-called Judenlager or Julag. In July that year. trying to clear the evidence of their crimes, the Nazis organized “Special operation 1005”, during which the prisoners of the Janowska camp and former prisoners of war excavated the mass graves, burned and shredded the bodies.

In total, during the Nazi occupation, nearly 200,000 people were exterminated in Lviv and the suburbs, including the prisoners of war and resistance fighters. However, most of the victims were the Jews. After the expulsion of the Nazis by the Red Army, nearly 1,000 former prisoners lived in the remains of the former Lviv ghetto.

During the occupation there were people who helped the persecuted ones, despite the risk to share their fate. In saving the Jews, there was notable role of the believers and clergy of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. The large-scale rescuing action was initiated by the Head of the Church, Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky. The Jews were sheltered in the monasteries, residential houses and outbuildings, belonging to the church. The group of the Jewish shoemakers hid at the shoe factory “Solid”, where the monks of the Studite Rite also worked. Part of the Jews, in particular the orthodox Lviv rabbi David Kagane, found shelter in Saint George Cathedral and Metropolitan’s residence.

Abbess Yosyfa (Viter) had a big role in saving of the Jewish children. Part of them were settled in the house in Taborova Street, where the nuns of the Studite Rite organized an orphanage. For the safety reasons, Yosyfa sent some of them to the Univ and Yaktoriv monasteries. Children felt help and care, were provided with clothes, treatment, and documents, if needed. To minimize the risk of exposure, they were taught the Christian prayers.

“... In early April 1944, one could see the retreat of the Nazis and the decisive defeat of the German troops. The Red Army began to bomb Lviv... Probably, it was decided in the Metropolitan's palace that the time had come for me to meet my wife after such a long separation. Before that, I had very little information about her. Indeed, on Sunday morning the abbess Yosyfa came to see me accompanied by my wife who told me everything that had happened to her. It turned out that my dear left the ghetto on Yom Kippur in 1943. She found herself alone in a threatening, hateful world. At first, she was sheltered in a convent located in Lychakiv, on a small side street. This convent was the residence of the abbess. Then she found refuge in a monastery in Briukhovychi, where the abbess sent her. There she learned Ukrainian. Later, she was provided with official authentic papers on her belonging to the Ukrainian community. At first, everything was strange in her eyes: the environment, customs, and people, but slowly she began to adapt to her surroundings...” From the memories of Itskhak Levin

Among those rescued by abbess Yosyfa were Lili Stern-Pohlmann and her mother Cecylia Stern. Cecylia did not speak Ukrainian, so on the advice of the nuns she pretended to be deaf, and Lili lived in the monastery's orphanage. This is how they waited till the end of the German occupation. Among the survivors were the wife of the Lviv rabbi David Kahane Nekhama, their three-year-old daughter Ruth, and several other Jewish children.

“...Near the monastery in Briukhovychi, there was an orphanage where many Jewish children found shelter… My wife was in regular contact with abbess Yosyfa. In one of the hard days in the winter of 1944, during the visit to the monastery, they noticed two girls aged nearly 10 and 5. The younger girl had a festering gunshot wound on her leg above the knee. Both girls were dirty and undercared. The abbess noticed all this and treated the kids with the real humanness. She came to them, washed them, gave new clothes, cleaned the wound on the leg of the injured girl, bandaged it. Then she ensured that the children were fed and settled. She thoroughly washed the girls’ heads with petrol. These two girls rescued from death when they jumped from the train heading to the Belzec extermination camp. The younger girl was wounded by the SS-man’s shot. The elder one was more lucky and brought her to the nearby village with all her might. There, the children were fortunate to meet good people, who decided to take them to the monastery. My wife came to the abbess and offered to help in work. The abbess explained: “I do only what I am obliged. I perform my sacred duty and do it because of commandment. I want to perform this great commandment only by myself and do not ask anyone’s help”, – abbess Yosyfa concluded her speech. Both girls remained alive, some time later they were sent to one of the monasteries in East Galicia…” From the memories of Itskhak Levin

Among those who survived under the care of abbess Yosyfa was Faina Liakher. In the winter of 1943, she was taken to the monastery by Fr. Vitalii (Matkovskyi). Girl, together with her parents and brother, was saved from the Peremyshliany ghetto by her lover, the OUN member Volodymyr Zaplatynskyi. There were good relations between nuns and Faina.

“The nuns surrounded me with great love and great warmth… from the early days I was theirs. I understood Church Slavonic very soon and took part in the prayers with them… For my safety, I did not go anywhere, helped the nuns in work and had opportunity to read a lot…”. From the memories of nun Maria

After her family and lover died, Faina had a wish to become a nun. This was not a momentary wish, but the long evolution of her mindset, starting from the childhood. Finally, in September 1944, Faina became a nun under the name Maria.

Many times abbess Yosyfa helped the persecuted Jews as well as the OUN members and the fighters of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army. For this support of the Ukrainian nationalists she was repeatedly arrested in 1945. She spent over 10 years in exile, after which she had to live in the Ternopil region, as she was deprived of right to come back in Lviv. During her imprisonment, the Ukrainian Greek Caholic Church was forcibly joint to the Moscow partiarchy. Many people remained Greek Catholics in conspiracy, so abbess, being not so young, headed the underground monastery.

Abbess Yosyfa (Viter) died in 1988. In 1976, she was recognized as the Righteous Among the Nations. Before Olena Viter, there were people from Ukraine listed among the Righteous Among the Nations, but they were recorded as the citizens of Poland or the USSR. She insisted on recording Ukraine as her motherland.