Died one of the leaders of OUN 98-year-old Omelyan KovalOmeljan Smith/Photo: Screenshot

Smith was a prisoner of Auschwitz

19.01.19 148000

In Lviv died one of leaders of OUN (b), the prisoner of the Auschwitz camp Omeljan Koval. This was reported in the Facebook head of the Ukrainian Institute of national memory Vladimir vyatrovich.

“Died Omeljan Koval – one of the leaders of OUN (b), a prisoner of the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. (…) In February he would have been 99 years old. Recent years lived in Ukraine, died in Lviv”, – wrote viatrovych.

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According to him, the Smith in the camp “conquered death” and released, began to develop the Ukrainian Diaspora in Belgium.

Koval was born on 24 Feb 1920 in Ivano-Frankivsk region. Joined the OUN in 1938 under the pseudonym “Damian”. Arrested by the Germans in September 1941, was sent to the concentration camp “Auschwitz I”, later he was evacuated to the concentration camp “Melk”, and then in the “Ebensee”. In may 1945 he was liberated by US troops.

After the war, Kowal was the Chairman of the Board of Ukrainian public organizations in Belgium and also one of the presidents of the European Congress of Ukrainians. Under the Geneva Convention Koval had refugee status in Belgium, and in 1997 received the citizenship of Ukraine.

Earlier it was reported that deputies of the Lviv regional Council announced 2019 as the year of Stepan Bandera and the organization of Ukrainian nationalists.