Olena Wityk Wojtowycz

Artist, mother, survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, Olena Wityk Wojtowycz of Madison, Wisconsin, died quietly surrounded by family at home at the age of 91on Easter Sunday, March 31, 2013. She was born May 8, 1921 in Michailevychi, Ukraine, to the Reverend Michailo and Maria Wityk. With the outbreak of World War II, she and her older sister found themselves in Germany. Working first as a household servant, she was eventually able to study at the Academy of Arts in Berlin (Akademie der Künste). At the time, she also performed volunteer work for the Red Cross. In 1942, she was arrested at school by the gestapo for political activities viewed as threatening to the Nazi state. She was taken to Ravensbrück and forced along with thousands of other women to perform slave labor supporting the German war effort. After the war, she produced an illustrated record of daily life in the prison camp, a book to raise money for surviving political prisoners. In 1988, she published a second edition of "Ravensbrück - The Largest Women's Concentration Camp in Germany" under the sponsorship of the Ukrainian Institute of Modern Art in Chicago. Copies of the book may be found in the US Holocaust Museum in Washington, DC, and in the Madison Public Library.
Olena completed her art studies in Munich, and in 1949, she and her husband
Stefan immigrated to the United States. They resided in New York City for
several years before moving to the Midwest and attaining their US citizenship.
From 1956 to 2002, Olena lived in Plano, Illinois, where Stefan established his
medical practice and they raised their four children. Ten years after Stefan's
death in 1992, she moved to Madison. Over the years she created hundreds of
drawings, book illustrations, watercolors, oil and acrylic paintings, wall
plaques and sculptures, primarily as gifts for her family and friends. She had
two major public exhibitions, one in Chicago and one in Madison. She will be
remembered not only for her creative talents, but for her kindness, generosity,
optimism, humor and her deep loyalty to her homeland, Ukraine, and her adopted home, the United States.
She is survived by her loving children, Xenia Wright of Janesville, Wisconsin,
Myron Wojtowycz of Madison, Marta Voytovich (Laurie Gauper) of Black Earth,
Wisconsin, and Anna Voytovich (Steven Rudolph) of Western Springs, Illinois;
also by four grandchildren, Tim Wright (Mary Gerhardt) of Port Charlotte,
Florida, Nicole Leibman (Joe Leibman) of Fort Atkinson, Wisconsin, and Lea &
Tessa Voytovich of Western Springs; and great grandchildren, Brooke & Jackson Leibman and Sadie Wright.
In lieu of flowers, gifts may be made to the Stefan & Olena Wojtowycz Endowment Fund of the Harvard Ukrainian Research Institute, 34 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, MA 02138 or to The Taras Shevchenko Museum, 1614 Bloor Street West, Toronto, ON M6P 1A7, Canada.
A private memorial service will be held at a later date.