Struk, Evstakhii

Struk, Evstakhii or Stanko [Струк, Евстахій or Станко], b 22 September 1909 in Synevidsko Vyzhnie, Stryi county, Galicia, d end of June 1941 in Lviv. Civic leader; father of Danylo Husar Struk. After completing a business and trade degree at Lviv University (1936) he worked for Tsentrosoiuz in Lviv. For his activities as a member of the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) he was arrested by the Polish authorities in 1939 and incarcerated in the Bereza Kartuzka concentration camp. He was sentenced to be shot, but escaped en route to the execution. After the Soviet occupation of Galicia Struk became director of the Lviv Medical Institute and continued to serve as a clandestine liaison officer for couriers from the OUN leadership abroad. Because he ordered that the students of the medical institute detained by Soviet security forces be set free, he was arrested by the NKVD. His brutally mutilated body was later discovered in the cellars of Lontskyi Prison, among those of thousands of other Ukrainians murdered by the Soviet secret police on the eve of Soviet-Nazi hostilities.

[This article originally appeared in the Encyclopedia of Ukraine, vol. 5 (1993).]