On October 9, Olena Rybalko, a doctor and former liaison for the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA), died in Lviv at the age of 109. She survived the Holodomor and provided medical assistance to wounded Ukrainian insurgents. According to the city authorities, she was Ukraine’s oldest resident.
This was reported by the Lviv City Council.
Olena Rybalko was born on June 2, 1917, in Vinnytsia region, where she received her medical education. Her father, Kyrylo Rybalko, was a soldier of the Ukrainian People’s Republic and one of the founders of the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church.
In 1937, he was executed by an NKVD troika for activities aimed at reviving the Ukrainian Autocephalous Orthodox Church. According to the city council, Olena Rybalko’s mother was the last representative of the Ukrainian branch of the Potocki counts and died during World War II.
Olena Rybalko survived the Holodomor of 1932-1933. In 1946, she moved to Lviv, where she later worked as a doctor in Lviv region and headed the Pustomyty District Hospital.
During her medical career, she helped wounded Ukrainian insurgents and performed surgeries in UPA hideouts, risking her own life.
Rybalko devoted almost her entire life to medicine and retired at the age of 89. Among her patients were Dmytro Pavlychko, Ivan Krypiakevych and Yosyf Kladochnyi.
A farewell ceremony for Olena Rybalko will take place on Monday, October 12, at the Church of the Dormition of the Mother of God on Ruska Street in Lviv. The funeral service will begin at 12:00, and she will be buried in the family tomb at Yaniv Cemetery.
