Stepan Fedak

Stepan Stepanovich Fedak (6 May 1901 in Lviv[1] – disappeared 1945 in Berlin; aka Smok, "Dragon") was a Ukrainian independence activist and a member of Nazi Einsatzgruppe C who, on September 25, 1921, attempted to assassinate Poland's Chief of State, Marshal Józef Piłsudski, as the latter visited Lwów (now Lviv, Ukraine) for the opening of that city's first Eastern Trade Fair.

Having earlier that day participated in the opening of the Trade Fair and then met with bankers, journalists and civic leaders, about 8 p.m. Piłsudski left the city hall, accompanied by Lwów Province Governor Kazimierz Grabowski.

The Governor, sure that it was a back-fire, continued sitting upright; Piłsudski, however, immediately recognized it for a pistol shot and reflexively ducked.

The crowd pounced on him; he was saved from certain death by policemen and soldiers of the guard standing before the city hall, who knocked the would-be lynchers aside with their rifle butts.

The Governor was treated by physicians and went home, while Piłsudski, as planned, proceeded to Lwów's Great Theater, where he received an ovation from the gathered public.

After the performance at the Great Theater, a banquet was held at the provincial administrative offices, with the wounded Governor Grabowski in attendance.

He possibly redacted and/or translated the public notice displayed around the city on 28 September 1941 ordering all Kyivan Jews in Russian, Ukrainian and German to assemble for supposed resettlement.

According to testimonies from post-war trials in Western Germany, during the shooting at Babyn Yar, he was patrolling the road which led to the massacre site.

[2] According to the Russian secret service SVR, while he was working as an interpreter for the Germans, Fedak delivered information about German spies behind the Russian lines and Nazi Abwehr structures active in Kyiv to Soviet intelligence agent Ivan Kudrya (1912–1942) present in Kyiv at the time, until he was discovered in July 1942.