Myron chabursky

Date of birth – 7 July, 1931  

Place of birth – Lviv, Ukraine  

Place of interview – Toronto, Canada

Date of interview - 17 August, 2016

Video interview

Language – Ukrainian

(Excerpt):

MC - Now I will say this. There were many different experiences. My father was constantly in contact, while we were in France, with his friends from Germany, in Munich, and other cities, but mostly Munich. While in Munich, one man met with him and said: "Father Chabursky." "Yes." "I must tell you that you should be thanking me for your life." "Really?" "You know when you were in Lviv, when you were pastor in that village, in Pidbirtsi, I was a translator for the Gestapo at that time. The Gestapo had an office in Lviv. I was a translator there. I translated all of the letters hat arrived there that were not written in German. There was one letter that said 'Father Chabursky is helping the Jews. He is giving them 'metryky' and writing that they were baptised in his parish. In the parish books it says that they are parishioners.'" At that time, the word 'metryky' meant baptismal certificates.

Interviewer - Was that the truth? Your father was doing this?

MC - Yes. He had a lot of friends. He was a good man and he was on good terms with the Jewish people, on friendly terms.

Interviewer - Was there a lot of Jews in your city?

MC - There was quite a lot of them. Here and there. In Lviv. So they came to my father asking if he could help them. And that is how he helped. He saved them by giving them baptismal certificates saying they were members of the parish, saying they were baptised 'this and this' date. He issued these baptismal certificates.

Interviewer - Do you know how many he issued?

MC - I can't say. But in any case, there were quite a few. He had to do it very carefully. He told us about it after he returned from Munich.

Interviewer - So you didn't know about it.

MC - No. The man met with my father in Munich and told him about it [the letter]. He said: "you know father, when this letter came, this complaint"...

Interviewer - Who wrote this letter? Do you know?

MC - Somebody wrote it, somebody who probably didn't like Jews. Somebody who didn't want my father to be doing what he was doing. They probably wanted the Germans to stop him, I think. He said "Father, I knew about you, I knew you."

Interviewer - He was Ukrainian?

MC - Yes, a Ukrainian interpreter who worked for the Gestapo. He said "I took the letter and tore it into little pieces and threw them out.

Interviewer - So that the Gestapo would not find out about it?

MC - Yes.

Interviewer - Do you remember his name?

MC - I can't remember. I don't know. For some reason my father did not mention this at the time he was telling us this story. I think that if word got out to the Germans, then they would have shot my father for such a, in their mind, crime. Because for them this was a big crime at that time. My father took great risks, but he never expected someone to do something so vile. The fact that there are people who, after hearing about what my father did, or maybe one of the Jews boasted about it, will write about it and complain to the Gestapo...