Appearance is often deceiving. But there are people, remembering whom, you understand that they are destined for a feat and an extraordinary, heroic life. Such a person, of course, was Viktor Oleksiiovych Tsybitovskyi (Shulkovych).
Viktor was born in the village of Balabanivka (Vinnytsia region), in a poor family of a collective farmer in 1925. His mother died in 1939, before the war. His father went to the front and died near Stalingrad in January 1942.
In June 1941, Viktor graduated from a local school. Not being called up for military service because of his age, he actively began to help the partisan detachment named after Lenin, operating in the Vinnytsia region. Anatolii Herasymovych Kondratiuk was the detachment commander. Together with the partisan detachment, Viktor Tsybitovskyi took part in the battles until 1944. By that time, he was already the platoon commander of the 2nd partisan brigade named after Stalin.
The characteristic given by the brigade head Yablochkov strikes: “[…] as a commander and old partisan, he was an example for his comrades and enjoyed their authority…”
After the war, he worked in the Ministry of Internal Affairs bodies, graduated from Moscow Law Institute and Lviv Trade and Economic Institute. After moving to Dnipropetrovsk, he worked in the consumer cooperation system until 2011, after which he retired.
The materials that are now in the Museum’s exhibition were handed over to us by Viktor Tsybitovskyi’s relative – Oleksandr Kovtunenko, dean of the 1st International Faculty of Dnipropetrovsk Medical Academy. The most important award is a first-degree medal “To a Partisan of the Patriotic War”. The battles of World War II fell silent a long time ago, but for some reason, famous lines pop up in memory:
There are still fewer medals on the chest than wounds.
It seems that life is ahead, and they call "Veteran"! ...

Liudmyla Sandul,
Chief Custodian of Funds,
Museum “Jewish Memory and Holocaust in Ukraine”