Jewish Partisan

1. Jewish Partisan By ShahadAbdulsahib

2. Who? • The partisans were a group of Jewish people from Europe who fought and escaped from the ghetto camps in Germany, so they can go home safely. • Some examples are like Frank Blaichman, he joined a group of Partisans in a forest. Others like Abe Asner, who was in the military training, and later became an important leader. • About 10% of the Partisans were women, who usually cook, clean, take care of soldiers, and few were fighters.

3. What? • A partisan is a “member of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an Enemy, especially within occupied territory; a guerrilla”. • During WW2 Germany took all the Jews to “working camps” when it was really ghetto camps that was made to kill and get rid of all the Jews. • About 20,000 to 30.000 thousands of Jews escaped and created resistance groups. • They even joined non-Jews and settled together. Their resistance groups were beneficial because they taught kids how to read, do art and paint, and write poems. • They also used to destroy the Nazi’s plans, and take their weapons, and killed some of the Germany soldiers to make it harder on them to fight.

4. When? • These events took place around 1914, the war between the Germans and the soviets. • The first known resistance group was in Belgium 1939. Than later on the Jews in France joined in 1940. The Germans left the south of France in the control of “collaborators”, the Vichy France. • It was easier for Partisans then to form their groups there and spread out. By the time Germans invaded Greece, with the two large populations in Salonika and the Athens who were Jewish and formed their resistance groups. • It was called the “National Liberation Front” and “National Popular Army”. After 1941, the Nazi’s took up the Jews in Eastern Poland and killed all the Jews while sending some to the ghetto camps.

5. Where? • The Jewish Partisans all around Europe. Their activity was mainly in Russia, Belgium, Poland, France, Italy, Greece, and Lithuania. • Some other areas like the southern and Western Europe had very few Jewish people who had more freedom and wasn’t chased by their religion like Gertrude Boyars Ki. • Anti-Semitism was formed in the Western part while using the Southern part to protect themselves. • About 3 millions of Jews lived in Poland. They fought for liberty and justices in Italy like Walter Marx. • The people in Russia were different because they where trained to use guns and were ready to fight. Moscow were supporting by giving food, and supplies.

6. Why? • The Nazi’s planned to execute all of the Jews and get rid of them. They first started by taking their properties, and take their bank accounts, then stopped them from working and running their business. • They also made them wear yellow shirts and begun taking them to the ghetto camps were they don’t give them food and then burn them or shot them. • A lot of people were killed and murdered by the Nazi’s. Some of them fought back, or took revenge for their families and mostly escaped.

7. How? • The Jewish achieved their goals by forming organized groups and had their motivation. • They tried their best and were strongly fighting back to get their right back. One of them said “in the forest, ten Partisan’s seemed like a hundred to those on the outside “. • They lived under very bad and horrible conditions, they had no homes, no food, no water, basically nothing but thrown in the ghetto land like animals and even worst. • They had to struggle through different circumstances such as weather, and sickness. • Most of their activities were done at night where no one could see them under Camouflage with the help of certain populations. They would usually beg, steal whatever they needed to fight the Nazi’s.

8. An example: • Also an ex of a Twenty-three-year-old Hannah Senesh, a Hungarian Jew who emigrated to Palestine in 1939,. • Before crossing the border in Hungary on, 1944, to warn Hungarian Jews about the extermination camps, Senesh, who was a poet, handed a poem to one of her companions. • It ended with these lines: "Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor's sake. Blessed is the match consumed in kindling flame." Senesh than she was killed after that.

9. Another example: • A great example was Rae Kushner. She was born in February 7, 1923. Lived in the Polish town of Novogrodek, where half of its population was compromised. Around September of 1939 the Russians took away the Kushner homes and business. • The killing reached Novogrodek and the Nazi took them to camp. Rae’s mother and sister were killed. • Rae and her family spend 10 days hiding in the woods, and then met a woman who took care of them. • She made it to escape in the Naliboki and started helping out people there, and by that time she met Joseph Kushner and married him. • Than they returned home after the war and had their two sons and one daughter. Both of her sons were prominent careers in business. Rae passed away in 2004 but she was still famous.

10. Bibliography • "Jewish Partisan." Http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007743. N.p., n.d. Web. 1 Mar. 2013 • Http://www.jewishpartisans.org/t_switch.php?pageName=what+is+what+1. N.p., 1 Mar. 2013. Web. • "Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation." Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. N.p., 2 Mar. 2013. Web. 03 Mar. 2013.