This tribute was written and shared by former science department colleagues Michael Furnari and Francie Caudill with contributions from Nina Sacharuk Anderson ’77.
Eva Hamersky Sacharuk passed away peacefully on June 1, 2021, at the age of 90. We offer this tribute to our dear friend.
Eva Sacharuk was an outstanding teacher, mentor, and science department head at Pingree School for over 40 years. She was competitive and driven, and thus eager to tap the potential in every student by challenging them to go beyond the textbook and lectures and think outside the box. Top achievement by her students could lead to a firm handshake or the title of “scientist of the day”. She was generous with her knowledge and always available for extra help. She valued the importance of daily prep and gave lots of quizzes. Her classes were always fun. Eva was the daredevil on a skateboard and willingly walked under a third-floor window as students tried to drop eggs onto her head. She wore a helmet! She did countless demonstrations that involved disappearing test tubes, explosions, expanding marshmallows, and flaming twenty-dollar bills.
And those questions: Why does a dog pant? What is worse, putting your hand in boiling water or being burned by steam? In all of her classes, she maintained a high level of excitement and enthusiasm. She believed that teaching was truly an art that required special talent. Eva Sacharuk was a master!
Eva mentored many teachers and always shared her experience and knowledge. Before each unit she would meet with a new member of the science faculty to discuss concepts, labs, and important demonstrations and explained what students would have difficulty understanding. She always changed the courses we taught each year and frequently selected new textbooks so that we would not become stale.
As science department head, Eva led by example. Often, she was the first person to arrive in the morning and the last person to leave in the afternoon unless she was putting in her spring garden. She diligently prepared her daily lessons. We had weekly department meetings during lunch to discuss issues like the scientific literacy of the average American. This prompted us to develop and administer our own test to the Pingree community. Eva was one of the founders of the North Shore Science League and designed many events for the monthly meets. We discussed strategies at our meetings and decided who would coach the teams of students at the monthly competitions. We almost always finished in the top three in a field of twenty-five schools. She championed amusement park physics and designed a field trip to Canobie Lake Park that took place annually with the participation of hundreds of students from North Shore area high schools. Eva frequently hosted department dinners and was a catalyst in leading discussions on current events, always eager to hear opposing points of view to improve her understanding of a situation. She arranged for our science department to attend lectures of key scientists and educators who presented in the Boston area. Once we went to an open house at M.I.T. and Eva offered up dried mushrooms that were collected, dried, and sent by Ukrainian relatives after the Chernobyl nuclear reactor accident for analysis. They were found to contain high levels of radioactive elements.
The fact that Eva was such a remarkable educator is all the more compelling given her early life story. Over our years of friendship with Eva, she shared stories of her childhood in what is now Ukraine. In later life, she wrote her story, a synopsis of which we are sharing here with her family’s permission. Eva grew up in a small city called Buchach in the province of Galicia, which is now part of western Ukraine. For a little historical perspective, before World War I, Galicia was part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and its educated ethnic Ukrainians spoke both Ukrainian and German. After WWI, Galicia became part of Poland and the Ukrainians spoke Ukrainian, German and Polish. During the Second World War, Galicia was claimed by the Soviets (1939), then conquered by the Germans (1941), then recaptured by the Soviets in 1944. Ukraine became an independent country in 1991. The turbulent history of this part of the world became a critical factor in Eva’s life view. Eva’s mother was a classical pianist, and her father was a physician, who was educated at the University of Vienna when it was the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. As was ubiquitous at the time, Eva’s father’s practiced medicine out of his house, and his patients were always in and out of her childhood home. No patient was ever turned away regardless of their ability to pay for treatment. Her father worked long hours often being called away at night and during holidays. Today there is a plaque in the town honoring his many contributions. Eva admired her father very much and she inherited his values of education, work ethic, and dedication to community.
Eva’s early childhood was a happy one and relatively uneventful. She lived in a large home with her parents and younger brother. Her grandmother and aunt also lived with them. At the age of eight, Eva’s life changed dramatically; the portion of Poland where they lived, which is modern-day Ukraine, was annexed to the Soviet Union (1939). Joseph Stalin and the Soviets ruled by terror. Stalin’s treatment of the Ukrainians was cruel and included deliberate starvation and deportations to Siberia. The appearance of cattle cars at the railroad station in Eva’s small town signaled the round-up of strong young people for forced labor, undesirables, anyone with education and /or wealth. Random arrests of mostly young men in the middle of the night by the KGB followed. There was no recourse and whole families were often deported to Siberia, never to be seen again. A knock at the door in the dead of night caused great fear at Eva’s house. Was it a sick patient or the KGB? The Soviets expropriated property and food, creating shortages of everything. Eva’s grandparents lost their country estate but were lucky not to lose their lives. The Soviets seized most of Eva’s father’s property and the family was forced to live in his office and waiting room. At school, children were encouraged to spy on their parents and share any damaging information with the Soviets. It was a terrifying time for Eva’s family.
When Hitler invaded the Soviet Union and Galicia in 1941, the residents of Eva’s town breathed a sigh of relief at the thought of freedom from the suppression of the Soviets; the Germans were welcomed with open arms. This feeling of optimism was short-lived. Ukrainian flags were ordered to be taken down and many schools were closed. Access to education was limited by the Germans based upon ethnicity. The Ukrainians in the region were limited to 50 students per grade for high school, with only five spots allotted to girls. Poles were only allowed to attend elementary schools and there was no schooling for Jews. There was the relentless round-up of Jews and the harsh consequences that came with associating or helping them. One of Eva’s Jewish playmates was deported and most likely died in a concentration camp despite efforts by Eva’s father to get her released.
Although Eva was a good student, she was only able to secure a position in a gymnasium (a high school for the best students who were destined for university) through the influence of her uncle, a mathematics professor in a neighboring city. She lived in a boarding house, had adequate food sent from home, and was under the watchful eye of her uncle. She was 12 years old. The war was raging around them and Eva’s parents were determined that she lose no time in her schooling. At this time Germans were periodically surrounding high schools and deporting young men and women to Germany as forced laborers.
The first two years of German occupation were relatively trouble-free for Eva’s family. Her father was director of the newly opened hospital and food was plentiful because many patients paid with food staples. In 1943 the war started going badly for the Germans and many of the Ukrainians panicked that the Soviets would be back. Fearing deportation if the Communists returned, Eva’s family made a chaotic exodus west to the Carpathian Mountains where her father had distant relatives. They remained there for several months, but the advancing Russian army forced them to flee again and they eventually ended up in Vienna. In Vienna, as a Viennese-trained medical doctor, Eva’s father found work in a village outside of the city. In addition, he was the doctor at a forced labor camp. The seemingly peaceful life of Vienna was soon interrupted by American bombs. Eva and her uncle, the math professor, worked out solutions to math problems in bomb shelters during air raids. She had been immediately enrolled in a new school upon arrival in Vienna, but the school was eventually forced to close with the bombings.
The family decided to remain in Vienna and wait for the war’s end. The Soviet army was advancing, but fleeing at this time was risky because evacuation routes were being heavily bombed. In May 1945, Germany surrendered, and Soviet troops arrived in Vienna in search of Nazis and collaborators. There were rumors of looting and rapes. When the Soviet troops were in the area, Eva’s parents hid her in a trunk for fear of her being raped. She was only fourteen years old.
By July of 1945, food became increasingly scarce. Eva’s father decided to take the train to the village where he served as a doctor in order to obtain food for his family. After he failed to return, a woman from the village came to their house to report that Eva’s father had been found dead. He had been dragged from the train and killed. The family never found out who was responsible.
Later in 1945, Eva was enrolled in an Austrian girls’ high school. They followed the European system and classes were taught in German. Eva had a wonderful chemistry teacher who did lots of demonstrations. She was fascinated by the subject and decided right then that she would eventually study chemistry.
Eva’s mother was running out of money and wanted to leave Vienna for the safer American zone in Salzburg. This was a very dangerous journey by train as Soviet authorities were repatriating former Soviet citizens. Inexplicably, the Soviet soldiers allowed them to cross the border into the American zone. They were able to secure a small room in one of the three Displaced Persons camps for Ukrainians in Salzburg that were part of a United Nations program. The camps were like little towns with fire, police, a hospital and doctors. Room and board were provided but clothing was hard to come by. They had been wearing the same few outfits they owned for two years!
There was a feeling of hope in the camps. Many believed America would start a war with the Soviet Union or its government would just collapse. Ukrainians could then return home and help build a free Ukraine. As time passed this possibility became more remote and the goal became to emigrate to another country. Austria was unable to keep all of the displaced persons. The Soviets wanted their citizens back which could have resulted in death for Eva’s family. America refused to return the Soviet citizens back to the Soviets. Displaced persons living in the British zone were not as fortunate.
A Ukrainian high school had been established in their camp and Eva was immediately enrolled. The school was housed in a wooden barracks that got cold during the winter. There was a stove that only operated if someone brought wood. There were no books. Learning was by lecture and the students took copious notes. Sports and the arts were not offered. Theater, folk dancing, chorus, and scouting were some of the activities that were organized by the refugees themselves within the camp. During the summer, students went to scouting camps in Salzkammergut, a beautiful section of Austria with lakes and mountains. Eva hiked, swam in crystal clear lakes, and sat by campfires-- it was one of the happiest periods in her life. Eva met Serge, her future husband, in the camp. They knew each other for three years before they began dating in the summer of 1948. He was three years older but in the same grade as Eva. Like many other boys, he had lost years of schooling during the war. They graduated from high school in the spring of 1949, passed the comprehensive final exam, and decided to emigrate to the same country, America. In total, Eva attended five different high schools in three different languages and spent five years in a displaced persons camp.
What would Eva face in her new country? Was Chicago really full of gangsters, as she had seen in the movies? Would she be facing lawlessness when she headed to the “wild west” with a scholarship to the University of Colorado? With just ten dollars in her pocket and lots of determination, she arrived on campus and began her studies. She majored in chemistry and graduated with honors four years later. During her time at University, she married Serge in 1951, just before he left for a year of military service in Korea. After Eva’s graduation, they moved to Delaware where Eva had accepted a job with DuPont. They relocated to the North Shore when Serge was offered a job at Maynard Plastics in Salem. They purchased a beautiful house in Wenham that Serge restored over the next ten years and they raised their three children there. Fortunately for us, Eva got a job teaching science at Pingree where she taught for four decades serving as department head for most of those years.
After retiring from her full-time position, Eva returned to Pingree to teach honors physics for many years. At this time, she did something quite extraordinary. Motivated by her commitment to service and a desire to help better the lives of people in newly independent Ukraine, she contacted and visited the high school principal from her childhood village of Buchach and set up a student exchange with Pingree. For several years the four most talented students from that school would come to Pingree, live with host families, take classes, and visit places of interest in the Boston area. All the planning, the cross-cultural weekend training upon their arrival, and the transportation costs for each student were underwritten by the Sacharuks. It was Eva’s way of offering her fellow Ukrainians an opportunity to see democracy in action. She finally retired from Pingree at age 79. For those of us who were fortunate enough to know Eva Sacharuk, we will never forget her keen intelligence, her commitment to her students, and her love of a dramatic science demonstration.