The Start of the Jews Rescue Campaign by the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in August 1942

• Main Author: Skira, Yu. R.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oles Honchar Dnipropetrovsk National University 2017-06-01
• Series: Vìsnik Dnìpropetrovsʹkogo Unìversitetu. Serìâ: Ìstorìâ ta Arheologìâ
• Subjects: Campaign; Metropolitan; Rescue; Rabbi; Children
• Online Access: http://www.via.dp.ua/index.php/VIA/article/view/261709
• ISSN: 2412-5334; 2414-9578

Start of the campaign for the rescue of the Jews by the Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky in August 1942 is studied in the article. The author begins with an analysis of the August campaign in 1942 as a massive Holocaust of Lvivʼs Jewish community. He focuses on the fact that a foreboding of imminent catastrophe felt by some Jews led them, in despair, to address the Head of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church. A visit of Rabbis Dawid Kahane and Kalman Chameides started the campaign for the rescue of Jewish children from Lviv Ghetto. Active rescue efforts regarding adult Jews were made during the August operation. Some sources allow us to assert that sheltering the Jews in cellars of St. Georgeʼs Cathedral architectural complex was not a one-time act of commitment but an ongoing rescue operation under conditions of growing genocide. Events that took place in August 1942 became the turning point for Metropolitan Andrey Sheptytsky and Lviv Jews and their relationship, since they started the process of rescuing people deprived of the right to live by the Nazis. This rescuing campaign developed during the following months of autumn 1942.