One of the leaders of the OUN (b), a prisoner of the Auschwitz camp, Omelian Koval, has died in Lviv, Ukrainian National Remembrance Institute head Volodymyr Viatrovych has said.
“Omelian Koval has died – one of the leaders of the OUN (b), a prisoner of the Nazi Auschwitz camp. (…) In February, he was to turn 99 years old. He lived in Ukraine last years, and died in Lviv,” Viatrovych wrote on his Facebook page on Jan. 19.
According to him, Koval “defeated death” in the concentration camp and, having been released, began to develop the Ukrainian Diaspora in Belgium.
Koval was born in Ivano-Frankivsk region on Feb. 24, 1920. He joined the OUN under the pseudonym “Demyan” in 1938. He was arrested by German invaders in September 1941, was sent to the Auschwitz-I concentration camp, was subsequently evacuated to the Milch concentration camp, and then in Ebensee. He was released by American troops in May 1945.
