Svintsyan Partisans
The heavily forested areas of Lithuania provided refuge for some
Jews.
Those who could reach the forests established family camps
or became partisans. In Lithuania, this activity took place in
the Rudniki Forest and Naroch Forest (now in Belarus). Survival
was difficult, particularly
during the harsh winters. Food often had to be stolen, and people
wishing to join partisan units had to bring their own weapons.
Nonetheless,
there were eventually more than 50 partisans from Svintsyan.
Among
them were Yosef Flexer, Feivl Hayat, Shimon Bushkanyetz, Chaya Porus
(now
Palevsky), and Boris Jochai (seen here placing explosives by a railroad
track near Vilna).
Statement
of Boris Jochai on His Partisan Activities
Another who became a partisan very early was Peretz Gerzol, or
Greizel,
also mentioned in an account by Bernard Drushkin in The Jewish
Resistance:
The History of the Jewish Partisans in Lithuania and White Russia
during
the Nazi Occupation 1940-1945.
Peretz
Gerzol, a Partisan from Svintsyan
Yitzhak Arad
was a partisan too. Arad, a member of Svintsyan's Rudnitzky
family,
was born in Svintsyan although his parents moved to Warsaw when he was
young. But in 1939, Yitzhak and his sister were sent back to
Svintsyan.
While still a boy, Arad became part of the underground in the Svintsyan
Ghetto and later fought with a partisan unit in the vicinity of
Vilna.
After World War II, he immigrated to Israel, serving as Chairman
of Yad Vashem from 1972 to 1993. Dr. Arad is the author of Belzec,
Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps,Ghetto in
Flames: The Struggle and Destruction of the Jews of Vilna,
Partisan:
From the Valley of Death to Mount Zion, and
Anthology on Armed Jewish
Resistance. Additionally he was the editor for The Pictorial
History
of the Holocaust and
The Einsatzgruppen Reports: Selections
from the Dispatches of the Nazi Death Squads' Campaign against the
Jews:
7/41-1/43, co-edited Documents on the Holocaust: Selected
Sources on the Destruction of the Jews of Germany and Austria, Poland,
and the Soviet Union, and contributed to The Encyclopedia of
the
Holocaust. He has also testified in war crimes trials in
Israel
and been a consultant for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.
Following
is a transcript of an interview with Arad about his underground and
partisan
experiences.
An
Interview with Yitzhak Arad
Mordechai (Motke)
Zeidel was also a partisan from Svintsyan. His story is at
Yad Vashem, where he has served as one of six "Torchlighters," each of
whom represents one million of the six million dead who are
commemorated each year at the annual Holocaust Martyrs and Heroes
Remembrance Day ceremony.
Mordechai
Zeidel
More names
of
Svintsyan partisans can be found at the
below
site.
(It will be necessary to choose Advanced Search and then put in
Svencionys
for City of Birth.)
The
Ghetto
Fighters' House Query Site
Another
former
Svintsyan resident, Leah Svirski, wrote a song that inspired partisans
and would-be partisans.
Leah
Svirski's Partisan Song
A number of Svintsyan residents fought in
the
Naroch Forest, east of Vilna,
alongside Vilna residents, in a partisan
brigade led by Alexander Bogen, a Vilna artist. Following is
Bogen's account of his partisan days.
Alexander Bogen's
Partisan Story
Copyright 2000 M S Rosenfeld