Jewish Partisans Joe (z'') and Rose Holm

This mini-biography tells the story of two Jewish partisans in Poland who fought in Chiel Grynspan's unit and later married one another.

Jewish partisans Rose Duman and Joe Holm were born in neighboring villages near Zaliscze, Poland. In 1941, Germans killed Joe's mother and five brothers, as well as 20 other members of his family. At 19, he entered the forest, where he knew other Jews were gathering.

Joe Holm met Chiel Grynspan and other partisans in the forest, where he proved himself skilled with a gun, and adept at demolition. Holm had two roles: his extensive knowledge of the forest and local villages made Holm an invaluable guide for his group. Holm also traveled in and out of the forest, finding food and medical supplies necessary for the unit's survival.

Near Zaliscze, Rose’s family owned a prosperous farm, where Joe would often stay overnight on Shabbat. When partisan groups began allowing a few women to join, Joe appeared on Rose's doorstep. He said, “I'm going; you come with me.”

As partisans, Rose and Joe carried out dozens of missions. Once, traveling with a Polish general into the forest, their group was ambushed. Joe and Rose ran through gunfire, and managed to deliver the General safely to the camp. Later, Rose found bullet holes through her sweater, as a testament to their narrow escape. In another narrow escape, Joe Holm and his cousin Jack Pomeranc stood before a firing squad with 80 other partisans, and prepared to be executed. Just before the signal to fire was given, Joe said, “Watch me, and do what I do.” He wrestled a gun from a German soldier and started firing. Joe Holm was shot in the arm, but they and two other prisoners escaped. All the rest were killed.

Rose and Joe stayed with the Grynspan unit for the duration of the war, living in the forest for over three years. Later, Rose and Joe married and left Poland for Germany, eventually emigrating to the United States. In New York, they built a family and a successful business. Joe Holm died in 2009. They were married for 65 years.

“We survived with our bare hands,” Rose recalls. “I just wanted to live, to see the end of Hitler,” she adds. “I was angry. It was important to me to do something, before I died.” On teaching the history and legacy of the Jewish partisans, Rose Holm says, “It is important to teach kids to fight back. To speak up.”

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Rose and Joe Holm, including four videos of Rose Holm reflecting on her time as a partisan.

Featured Jewish Partisan - Norman Salsitz, born on May 6th

Norman Salsitz was born May 6, 1920 in Galizia, a small town in southern Poland. Though he had seven different names in his lifetime, Norman Salsitz has always remained the same at his core: tough, resourceful, and honest. The youngest of nine siblings, Norman was among the Jewish inhabitants that were forced into a ghetto in June of 1941 by the Germans. Looking for strong labor, the Germans selected Norman and other healthy young Jews to dismantle recently decimated ghettos. While Norman worked to destroy any remaining signs of his heritage and religion, the Germans began sending his friends and family to the death camps.

Norman knew that with each ghetto they demolished, the workers drew closer to their own murders. In October of 1942, Norman organized an escape group of 55 people and fled to the surrounding forest. He had money he found during his ghetto work, and used it to buy his first revolver. The sympathetic Pole who sold him the weapon also led Norman to a group of resistance fighters in the woods. These fighters fought through harsh weather conditions on rough terrain to dismantle and damage German railroads, mills, and police stations.

Norman and his wife Amalie, 1945

In 1944, Norman joined the AK Polish Underground, despite the strong presence of antisemitism. He knew that as a Jew, he would never be able to make the contribution to defeat the Nazis he wanted to without disguising his Jewish identity and joining the powerful AK. Norman worked with the Underground to defeat their common foes until the command was given to seek out and kill Jews being hidden on a farm. Norman volunteered for the mission, killing the Poles who had been sent with him and rescuing the Jews in hiding. He then fled the AK and returned to his original partisan unit, where he remained until he was liberated by the Russians.

Norman in a Polish army uniform, 1944

Norman Salsitz’s mother’s dying wish was for her son to keep their stories alive. He has honored that wish by writing books and speaking about his war experiences. From the horrors of mass murder to the inspiration of weary fighters singing hymns, Norman continues to fight for the truth. “This is why I keep going,” he says, “we have to tell the world what the German murderers did to us.”

Norman Salsitz passed away on October 11, 2006. Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Norman Salsitz, including seven videos of him reflecting on his time as a partisan.

Norman during a JPEF interview, 2002

Jewish Partisan Leon Bakst (z''l) was born on May 3, 1923

Leon Bakst was one of four siblings born to a wholesale merchant in Ivie, a small Polish town 73 miles west of Minsk. Leon was 15 when the German army invaded eastern Poland in the summer of 1941, occupying Ivie and forcing the town’s Jews into a ghetto.

When the Germans asked Leon’s father what he did for a living, he lied and told the Germans that he was a brush maker. Though he traded in raw materials required for making brushes, he had never actually made a brush in his life. However, he figured that the occupiers would have more use for a tradesman than a merchant. His assessment of the situation was correct – he was spared the initial massacre of influential Jewish men. It would not be the last time his quick wits would save him and his family from annihilation. During the next round-up, as the family was approaching the SS officials in charge of choosing the next massacre victims, Leon’s father put his wife and daughters behind himself and his two sons – he realized the Nazis were more likely to spare able-bodied men than families with lots of women and children. The gamble paid off: seeing only a father and his two teenage sons from their vantage point behind the table, the SS men hurriedly dismissed the family.

The Bakst family.

By this point in the war, the Nazis were not particularly concerned about hiding their true plans for the Jews of Poland. Leon and his brother were among those forced to dig mass graves a mile outside of their town. Leon remembers seeing the soldiers execute one of the crew:

“It was a Rabbi’s son – he had a little bit…one arm. [It] wasn’t as strong as the other; it was kind of a weak arm. So after we got through digging out, before we’re fixing to go back to the ghetto, [they] shot him, right there in front of the grave. And we left.”

Months later, Leon and his older brother, along with 200 other young people, were selected by the local Judenrat council to go to a labor camp in Lida, another town 25 miles west of Ivie. The tragic separation from his family actually saved his life, but he never got the chance to see his parents again – the Germans destroyed their ghetto shortly after he left, as he learned later.

The labor camp was located in a railroad yard – the prisoners even slept in the boxcars. Their food rations were meager, and their futures uncertain. However, the prisoners had one tremendous advantage: their job was to load trains bound for Germany with weapons and ammunition captured from the retreating Russians. Having heard about partisan groups roaming the nearby forests, twenty of the youngsters decided to risk escape and join them. By slowly stealing rifles and stashing them in the ground, the prisoners were able to arm themselves before fleeing.

Having spent many summers in the area, the two brothers were familiar with the surroundings, making it easier for their group to travel at night. The rifles they stole from the Germans also ensured that the group got fed along the way, and their numbers kept them safe from bands of former Russian soldiers turned bandits and marauders – men who would not hesitate to kill a stray escapee for a pair of boots or a rifle.

Having finally reached the Naliboki forest, the youngsters encountered the Bielski Brigade, which at the time had about 200 partisans. Since the group arrived with rifles, the Bielskis quickly accepted the newcomers.

During his time with the Bielskis, Leon was involved in a series of tasks ranging from guard duty to food-gathering missions to railroad sabotage. As he says, the main purpose of the partisans was to keep the members of the group alive. By 1945, the Bielskis saved more than 1,200 Jewish lives.
After the war’s end, Leon managed to leave Poland with his brother and Libby – a partisan from another otriad and Leon’s future wife. They eventually made it to a displaced persons’ camp in Munich, where Leon met Allen Small, a boyhood friend from Ivie who fought with a Soviet partisan otriad. It would be 65 years before they see one another again. (For more on this story, see JPEF’s documentary “The Reunion”.)

Leon and Libby in Munich, 1946.

During the four years they spent in the displaced persons’ camp, Leon and Libby got married and their first child was born. They immigrated to the United States in 1949. Leon passed away on February 10, 2021, at the age of 97. He was the father of two daughters, Marsha and Paulette (Pepe), two grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren.

Of his legacy as a partisan, Leon said:

“When I was in the underground, it was a happy time of my life because I felt I’m fighting not only for myself, I was fighting for freedom, and [to] take revenge for the Jewish people. That's what I’m proud of it. And that’s why I take, I keep on living for it, you know, and I can try to tell as many people I can to relay the message to them, what happened in World War II to the Jewish people, [that] some of the people were heroic and they went to the underground and fought."

Leon with Allen Small (left) at the NY premiere of "The Reunion".

Martin Petrasek (z"l) born on April 21, 1926

Martin Petrasek (z"l) was born in Chust, Slovakia in 1926. In 1938, Czechoslovakia became the first victim of Hitler’s expansionist plans when Germany annexed a group of German-speaking regions of Czechoslovakia known as the Sudetenland (Hitler invaded the rest not long after). However, the region of Slovakia was granted autonomy in return for supporting the Nazis and rounding up and deporting its Jewish population. Martin got a job in a furniture factory where the foreman protected him, but he still lived in constant fear of being sent away. When he fell ill and was sent to a sanatorium in the mountains, he took the opportunity to leave and sought refuge in a monastery.

While at the monastery, Martin found a partisan pamphlet calling on Slovaks to resist the occupation. He decided that it was time to fight back. A local sympathizer gave him the name of a contact for the resistance in a nearby town. Martin found the man and was inducted into a partisan brigade.

Martin Petrasek's partisan identification card

Martin worked as a spy, scouting the movements of troops and conducting hit-and-run attacks against local German forces. Soviet paratroopers had organized his brigade, and they regularly airdropped supplies to the partisans.

After the German defeat at Stalingrad in 1943, public opinion in Slovakia began to turn against the Nazis, and in 1944 Slovaks staged a widespread uprising against their occupiers. However, the uprising was short lived — Hitler sent in elite SS units that brutally repressed the resistance, and the retreating German army conducted “clean-up” operations on their way back from the Eastern front.
The brigade knew that retreating Nazis were scouring the forest and killing every partisan they found. Instead of staying in the path of Germans, Martin’s brigade decided to advance to the front to reunite with the Red Army. They met up with the Romanian army en route, and were liberated.

Martin joined up with the Czechoslovakian army and became a military police officer responsible for punishing soldiers who deserted from the front. After the war, Martin defected from Soviet-controlled Czechoslovakia, entering West Germany and moving to Israel. Martin eventually immigrated to the United States in 1959. Martin passed away on May 28 2020 surrounded by his family.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Martin Petrasek, including seven videos of him reflecting on his time as a partisan.

Martin (center) at the 2011 Partisan Tribute Dinner in NYC

Romi Cohn (z"l) was born on March 10, 1929

"My biggest, what I was looking for it was the most, was not to stay alive or to die. The fear I should have, the fear from the Germans, I should be able to live without fearing those beasts, you know, these are my biggest dream and my biggest ambition."
— Romi Cohn.

Avrohom “Romi” Cohn was born in Bratislava, Czechoslovakia on March 10, 1929. He was only ten years old in 1939 when the Germans invaded his country. During mass deportations of Jews from Slovakia in 1942, the Nazis granted his family an “economic exception” and they were allowed to stay. However, as the war raged on, the family realized that staying in Czechoslovakia had become too dangerous, and Romi was eventually smuggled over the border into Hungary.

Unable to speak Hungarian, Romi knew that merely opening his mouth exposed him as an illegal refugee. He settled in a small town and enrolled at a local yeshiva, where the headmaster was sympathetic to his plight. He continued his education until 1944. When Hungary formally joined the Axis and began mass deportations of Jews, Romi returned home to Czechoslovakia, this time carrying forged Christian identification papers.

Romi became an informal member of the underground and used his connections to help find housing for Jewish refugees and to supply them with false Christian papers. The identity papers he made were very realistic: a connection working at Gestapo headquarters supplied him with German seals to stamp the documents.

Eventually, Romi was arrested on suspicion of carrying false documents. After a daring escape, he fled to the mountains and joined the partisans hiding there. To reach the mountains, Romi forged a German military travel order, sending him to the last German outpost before partisan-controlled territory. “[The Germans] all shook my hand and wished me luck. They thought I was going to go strike a blow for the Reich,” Romi remembers. By the time he joined the partisans, the Germans were already in retreat. His brigade drove them further westward — all the while capturing, interrogating, and executing SS officers.

Romi Cohn at JPEF's
2013 Tribute Dinner

The Nazis were not the only danger Romi encountered while fighting in the partisan brigade. His captain gave him a false name — Jan Kovic — in order to protect him from the antisemites in his unit. In one instance, Romi noticed a German partisan behaving suspiciously towards him. He was afraid the man would try to kill him if given the opportunity, so he replaced his bullets with rusty ones before target practice one afternoon. The rusty bullet exploded in the man's machine gun, injuring his face. Preoccupied with his facial injury, the man stopped paying attention to Romi.

When Hungary was liberated, Romi returned to Czechoslovakia. He received a number of medals for his service with the partisans, including the Silver Star of the International Partisans — an honor shared by few others.

After the war, Romi emigrated to the United States and became a noted mohel (and businessman), performing over 15,000 circumcisions in his career. Were it not for the war, he would have gone to medical school to become a surgeon, he says. Romi passed away on March 24, 2020 of the COVID-19 virus. He is survived by his wife, Malvine.

Romi's autobiography, The Youngest Partisan: A Young Boy Who Fought the Nazis, was published in 2002. Though Romi was originally against the idea, the alarming rise of Holocaust denial around the world gave him the motivation to share his story. “...we have to keep in mind today, we live in a free country and we say, ‘This could never happen here’ which is a tremendous mistake. I come from Czechoslovakia — democracy in Slovakia was even superior to American democracy — total democracy. And if this could happen in a civilized country, overnight... within six months, propaganda turned the population completely - [before] all our best friends, our best neighbors, were living in harmony. All of a sudden, they became biggest enemies."

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Romi Cohn, including eight videos of him reflecting on his time as a partisan.

Featured Jewish Partisan - Bernard Musmand, born on March 3rd

"I disliked the Germans — as I mentioned many times, I spoke German fluently, I learned it in school and so on, and I knew it fluently. At the end of the war, I have refused to talk it, to speak it, and I have kept my word. I have not spoken German since then. I know it's hateful, I know what the Germans did for Israel, but I can't forget. The famous word, I can forgive but I can't forget."
— Bernard Musmand.
Bernard Musmand was born on March 3, 1930 in Metz, a city in northeastern France. Located on the border with Germany and Luxemburg, Metz shares many historic connections with its neighbors, dating back to its Celtic and Roman roots. In fact, many high-ranking officers of the Third Reich were born there. In a border city like Metz, it was only natural for the German language to be taught in schools - this skill ended up saving Bernard's life on numerous occasions.

When Bernard was a young man, the Nazis invaded and his family fled to the south of France, which was outside of German control. In order to attend the local boarding school, Bernard had to pose as a Catholic. One night, the school’s chaplain told Bernard and his classmates that they would participate in communion and confession the next day. Since Bernard didn’t know anything about Catholic confession, he spent half the night in the bathroom studying a Bible. He made such a convincing Catholic boy that the priest asked if he was interested in going into the seminary.

While studying at the boarding school, Bernard became a courier for the Sixieme — a resistance group based in the southern town of Rodez — and transported falsified papers for those escaping Nazi persecution. His confidence and youth were his best defenses during encounters with the Germans or French sympathizers. To ease suspicions, he would initiate conversations by asking for the time or a match in perfect German.

In May 1944, Bernard was sent to deliver a package to the owner of a hotel in a small town in Figeac. But the owner of the hotel refused the package, having been informed that Germans were coming to occupy the town and make arrests. Stranded in the town and frightened, Bernard hid the package behind some bags at the local train station. He spotted a German railroad policeman in his 50s and began a conversation with him. The policeman was pleasantly surprised that a Frenchman could be so friendly and speak such fluent German, and invited Bernard into his office for some chocolate. While safely hidden in the office, he saw hundreds of Frenchmen being forced onto trains to be transported to work camps in Germany. The policeman expressed great sorrow for these men. When the trains and the German soldiers had left, Bernard thanked the policeman for his kindness and went on his way.

When the Gestapo came to the boarding school looking for Bernard, the dean arranged for his escape before the Germans could capture him. Bernard went to Millaut and again joined the Sixieme, which had by then begun to collaborate with the Maquis armed resistance. Fourteen years old and very afraid, Bernard was sent on an ambush. He described the two hours before the battle, lying under cover and waiting for a German convoy to pass, as the longest two hours of his life. But once the convoy arrived and the orders were given to open fire, Bernard’s mind was so focused on the fighting that he had forgotten his fear.

Bernard Musmand's military card

When the French Army reformed, he was made Second Lieutenant. However, the desk job he received was not what Bernard pictured the war to be like — he wanted to be fighting the Germans on the front lines. He applied for transfer, but was rejected three times. Fed up, he finally revealed his true age and Jewish identity. The Army didn’t believe he was fifteen and a half. They demobilized him two days later, however, after having made contact with his parents.

“It was an exciting time, in certain ways,” Bernard remembers. “I wish and hope it will never come back, but everything counted and you felt life was precious.”

Since their textile business was lost during the war, Bernard's family emigrated to the United States, settling in Brooklyn. Bernard met his wife, Milicent, after graduating from Lowell. They had two sons, Jon and Fraser.
Bernard spent his final years in Maine, where he spent much of his time with family, friends and at the local synagogue. A long battle with a heart condition took his life on January 30, 2010.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Bernard Musmand, including seven videos of him reflecting on his time as a partisan.

Sukkot, the Holocaust, and Spiritual Resistance

As Sukkot 1941 approached, the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto were in tremendous peril. Food was running scarce, and Jews were desperate to gather whatever resources they could, no matter the cost. But for a few days of that fateful year, the crowds did not seek food, form lines to exchange heirloom jewelry for sundries, or stand for hours for a chance at obtaining enough sustenance for their families Instead, they waited to bless the miraculous appearance of the four species celebrating the harvest festival of Sukkot: etrog, lulav, hadas, and aravah.

In the spirit of true non-violent resistance, the Jews of the Lodz Ghetto chose to celebrate in the face of loss, death, and violence. The leader of the ghetto, Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski, granted special permission for a handful of Jews to leave the ghetto shortly before Sukkot in order to gather the four species. The mission was almost impossible, given that etrogs (citron) were not only scarce, but practically non-existent in Eastern Europe at the time. However, as though it too intended to take its part in the resistance, the etrog appeared and was brought back into the ghetto.

Though outlooks were becoming grim due to recent violence and worsening conditions, Jews from all classes and levels of religious commitment came to stand under the makeshift sukkah. Despite the severe scarcity of firewood in the ghetto, an amount was specially set aside to build the sukkah. A single act of celebration became a moment of courageous resistance, with residents of the Lodz Ghetto choosing not only to celebrate holidays in defiance of Nazi policy, thereby endangering themselves, but also by dedicating precious resources for ritual use.

This Sukkot, standing underneath your own sukkah with etrogim, think not only of a bountiful new year’s beginning, but of the atmosphere in the Lodz Ghetto in 1941: frigid, destitute, oft hopeless, and yet, under the sukkah, brave, defiant, and proudly Jewish. 

Featured Jewish Partisan - Marisa Diena, born on September 29th

"They didn’t know that I was Jewish. It didn’t cross my mind because there, like I said, everyone thought that I was Mara... But there was also Ulisse, Polifemo, Lampo, Fulmine ... they all had battle names. You didn’t know anything about anyone. It wasn’t important. So most people didn’t know that I was Jewish."
— Marisa Diena.

Marisa Diena was born in Turin, Italy on September 29, 1916. Marisa was 8 years old when Benito Mussolini became dictator of Italy and was taught to love Fascism. In 1938, Italy passed its first Racial Laws, in imitation of the Nazi Racial Purity laws, which banned Jews from working in the public sector or attending public school. In 1940, Italy declared war on Britain and France, and by 1942, Turin was being bombed on an almost daily basis. By 1943, Italy was in a state of virtual civil war. Mussolini was deposed and Italy surrendered following the allied invasion of Sicily. Germany responded by seizing control of Northern and Central Italy and reinstating Mussolini as the head of a new puppet regime.

After the Nazis occupied Turin, Marisa fled into the mountains around Torre Pellice to join the partisans. The role of women in the Italian partisans was unique. Since most of the male partisans were army deserters, only women were able to move during the day without arousing suspicion. As a result, Marisa became the vice-commander of information for her unit. During the day, she would ride her bicycle around the countryside, collecting information from local informers. Each night she would report back to her commander. 

In addition to sabotage and guerrilla warfare, Italian partisans tried to keep order in the war-ravaged countryside. Marisa’s unit created local community committees in the Torre Pellice region to distribute rations and helped organize strikes among industrial workers in cities like Turin.
In the spring of 1945, the estimated 300,000 partisans working in Northern Italy organized a national liberation committee. On April 25, 1945, Marisa’s partisan unit liberated Turin, while their comrades in other major cities did the same. 

After the war, as Italian democracy began to blossom, Marisa remained engaged in politics, witnessing the ratification of the new Italian Constitution in 1948. Marisa remained in Italy, sharing her experience as a partisan with elementary school children. She passed away on May 8, 2013.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Marisa Diena, including seven videos of her reflecting on her time as a partisan.

Celebrating Eta Wrobel, born on December 28, 1918

"I was the girl who played soccer with the boys. I was the girl who rode a bicycle on the street in shorts, which no other Jewish girls didn’t do that, I had no objections from my parents. We had a very good home. And not to forget, which hurts my life, we had ten children in our family, and I’m the only survivor. The only one. I have no family whatsoever in my background, so like when we get together in the family there is that celebration, or a wedding or bar mitzvah or whatever there is, I have nobody. Everybody who comes, nieces, nephews, are all from my husband’s side. That’s the only thing I envy in my life — otherwise, I’m free." — Eta Wrobel.

Born December 28, 1918 in Lokov, Poland, Eta Wrobel was the only child in a family of ten to survive the Holocaust. In her youth, she was a free spirit who defied authority. As Eta puts it she was “born a fighter.” Her father, a member of the Polish underground, taught her the importance of helping people, no matter the circumstance.

In early 1940, Eta started work as a clerk in an employment agency. Soon she began her resistance by creating false identity papers for Jews. In October 1942, Eta’s ghetto was liquidated and the Jews were forced into concentration camps. In the transition, Eta and her father escaped to the woods.

Life in the woods around Lokov was extremely treacherous. Eta helped organize an exclusively Jewish partisan unit of close to 80 people. Her unit stole most of their supplies, slept in cramped quarters, and had no access to medical attention. At one point Eta was shot in the leg and dug the bullet out with a knife. The unit set mines to hinder German movement and cut off supply routes. Unlike the other seven women in the unit, Eta refused to cook or clean. Her dynamic personality and military skills allowed for this exception.

She was active on missions with the men and made important strategic decisions.
In 1944, when the Germans left Lokov, Eta came out of hiding and was asked to be mayor of her town. Shortly after, Eta met Henry, her husband to be. They were married on December 20, 1944. In 1947, Eta and Henry moved to the United States. She and Henry had three children, nine grandchildren and eight great-grandchildren. Eta summarized her heroic years with the partisans by saying simply, “The biggest resistance that we could have done to the Germans was to survive.”

In 2006, her memoir My Life My Way The Extraordinary Life of a Jewish Partisan in World War II was published. Eta died on May 26, 2008 at her home in upstate New York. Eta’s grandson, Barak Wrobel, is following her leadership having joined the board of JPEF in 2018.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Eta Wrobel, including seven videos of her reflecting on her time as a partisan. Eta is also featured in an Emmy-nominated documentary from PBS entitled Resistance: Untold Stories of Jewish Partisans.

Looking Back on Jewish Partisan Gertrude Boyarski (z''l) During Women's History Month

"I...went back to the partisans that should take me to [commander] Bulak. And I said, 'You know [...] I want to come back because everybody's killed and I remain all by myself.' He said, 'Yeah, I know you girls want to come to the group to have a good time. You don't want to fight.' I said, 'No, I want to fight. I want to take revenge for my sisters and brothers and for my parents.' He said, 'Well, I'll take you in on one condition.' I said, 'What's the condition?' 'You'll stay on guard for two weeks, but a mile away from the group. We'll give you a horse, we'll give you a rifle, we'll give you a gun. And anything you hear, any little noise, you'll have to let us know.' I said, 'Okay.'"
–Gertrude Boyarski

Born in 1922 on the 2nd day of Rosh Hashanah, Gertrude ‘Gertie’ Boyarski was a teenager in the town of Dereczyn (Derechin), Poland.  She lived a quiet life with her family until the Germans invaded in 1941. Though the Nazis forced the majority of the town's Jews into a ghetto, they regarded Gertie's father – a butcher and a housepainter – as a 'useful' Jew, so the Boyarskis were moved to a guarded building just in front of the ghetto's entrance.

On July 24, 1942, a night of terror descended on the ghetto. The Germans began a mass killing of the town’s 3,000-4,000 Jews. The Boyarski family managed to escape to a nearby forest, where they hoped to join a partisan unit. To prove themselves to the partisans, Gertie's father, brother, and other Jews had to return completely bare-handed and attack the town's police station. They were successful, killing the guards and taking the station's stash of weapons and ammunition.  However, in the months that followed, Gertie and her family remained in a family camp with other noncombatant refugees. The camp lacked protection, and Gertie saw her mother, father, sister, and brother murdered before her eyes in surprise attacks by German soldiers and antisemitic Poles who hunted the woods for Jews.
Bereft of family and seeking revenge, she left the shelter of the family camp and sought to join a partisan detachment under the leadership of the Russian Commander Pavel Bulak, who initially brushed her off. But Gertie was insistent, saying, “I want to fight and take revenge for my whole family.”

Impressed by her conviction, Bulak agreed under one condition: she would have to stand guard alone, for two weeks, a mile from the partisan encampment. “I was alone in the woods ... each time I heard a little noise I thought it’s Germans… Two weeks – it was like two years.” But Gertie persisted and was accepted into the group. She fought with the partisans for three years, aggressively attacking German soldiers who came to the surrounding villages.

Gertrude went on to win the Soviet Union’s highest military honor, the order of Lenin. In honor of International Women's Day, Gertie and her friend – both teens – volunteered for a dangerous mission to demolish a wooden bridge used by the Germans. They had no supplies, so they hiked to a local village and asked for kerosene and straw. When told there was none in the village, Gertrude and her friends unslung their rifles and gave the villagers five minutes to find the supplies. The villagers quickly complied.

Gertie and her friend snuck up to the bridge, prepared and lit the fire. German soldiers saw the blaze and started shooting. In response, the women grabbed burning pieces of the bridge and tossed them into the river until the bridge was destroyed. "We didn't chicken out," says Gertie. This was just one of many missions Gertie and her fellow partisans completed.

In 1945, she married a fellow partisan, and they settled in the United States. Gertie still grapples with having lived through the war when so many perished. "I was the only one who survived. Why? Why me? I'm always asking that question." Her message to students studying the Holocaust is that “they should not be afraid of their identity – no matter what color, race or nationality – and they should fight for it.”

For more on Gertrude Boyarski, please see her short biography, the short film Jewish Women in the Partisans, and our study guide, "Gertrude Boyarski: From Frail Girl to Partisan Fighter."

Gertrude passed away at the age of 90 on September 17th, 2012 – the first day of Rosh Hashanah of that year.

Featured Jewish Partisan - Nina Grutz Morecki (z"l)

Nina Grutz Morecki (z"l) was 18 years old when the Nazis invaded Poland. Nina endured the loss of her mother, father, sister and brother-in-law before being sent to Janowska Concentration Camp as part of a work detail.

She luckily escaped a killing pit outside of the camp, and fled deep into the forest where she encountered the Polish Underground and the partisans, for whom she worked for almost a year and a half. Nina provided them with important stamped documents that allowed them to create chaos and havoc among the German military, and perhaps even save other resistors. She did this knowing the danger and the terrible punishment she would face if caught.

Toward the end of the war, Nina met and married another survivor from Lvov, Josef Morecki. Together, they had three grandchildren and 2 great-grandchildren at the time of Nina’s death in 2012.

Read about Nina's incredible story, and share your family's partisan stories here.

"The Partisan, 1942" — a poem by Laura Morowitz in memory of Faye Schulman

Faye Schulman

My heart lies in the woods

Red heart on soft white snow
Songs written in blood, not lead
written in red
Sheyne mydelach sinking to her knees
and weeping for her comrades her mother her lover
longing for warm blankets and warm food
Meyn sheyne mydelach not long for this world

Clean your gun, my pretty one, the smell of fire
clings to your hair
every night and every night again
resounds with footsteps cracking twigs distant thunder without rain
A crack a burst an echo
someone’s sister someone’s captain someone lost
you see them lying on a grave of leaves
Unblinking

Meyne Ketzele, my  kitten, pull your fur hat tighter round your chin
Begin again try to forget, to fargessen, to erase
Grip your pistol hold it tight don’t think
Here, beneath the branches shrouded in snow
The trees await their future lives as coffins
To live means for the moment not to know
But only to keep moving.

Laura Morowitz is a Professor of Art History at Wagner College New York. A  specialist on art in turn-of-the -century, as well as Nazi-occupied Vienna, she is the author of numeorus books and articles. She is the co-organizer, with Dr. Lori Weintrob of the international symposium on Heroines of the Holocaust: New Frameworks of Resistance, to be held on the Wagner College campus June 15-16 2022.

The Polish Home Army and the Jews by Professor Joshua Zimmerman

The Polish Underground’s military wing – the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK) - was the largest resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during the Second World War. While several resistance groups operated inside German-occupied Poland, the Home Army was by far the largest, constituting approximately three-fourths of underground fighters. Established by order of the Polish government-in-exile in November 1939, the Home Army (then named the Union of Armed Forces, ZWZ) served as a part of the Allied war effort fighting Nazi Germany. Its commander in Warsaw swore allegiance to the Polish government-in-exile and carried the title of deputy commander of the Polish Armed Forces. Through this chain of command, the Polish government-in-exile theoretically directed military actions inside occupied Poland throughout the war. 

By June 1944, the Home Army swelled to an estimated 350,000 fighters making it the second-largest resistance movement in German-occupied Europe next to Yugoslavia.1 Due to its numerical strength, the underground army represented a cross-section of Polish society as a whole, with members drawn from all social classes. Until March 1944, when part of the extreme right-wing National Armed Forces (NSZ) joined, the Home Army consisted of members loyal to one of the five prewar opposition parties: the Polish Socialist Party (PPS), the Democratic Party, the centrist Christian democratic Labor Party (SP), the center-right Peasant Party (SL) and the right-wing National Party (ND). The underground forces of the Polish communist party, the fighters of the Polish Worker’s Party (PPR) established in January 1942, remained separate throughout the war as well, as did the National Armed Forces (NSZ). Since the fall of communism in 1989, the Home Army has remained “one of the sacred icons of Polish memory,”2 as internationally acclaimed writer Eva Hoffman maintained. 

When the German occupying authorities ordered the mass murder of Jews in Soviet lands occupied in the second half of 1941, the organizational initiative for responding to the genocide fell almost entirely upon the Polish Underground and its military wing. The response of the Polish Underground to the systematic annihilation of Polish and European Jewry is both complex and controversial. 

***

The reaction of the Polish Underground Home Army to the persecution and annihilation of the Jews was extraordinarily varied, ranging from aid efforts to the murder of Jews both in hiding and fighting as armed partisans. The reasons for this seeming contradiction – that the same organization both aided and harmed Jews - is connected to the structure of the underground itself. The Home Army was an umbrella organization representing Polish society as a whole, including socialists, liberals, peasants, and extreme nationalists. Home Army members were drawn from clandestine forces of the various parties in the underground’s political wing. The attitude of these men and women towards the Jews often corresponded with the platforms of the political parties to which they belonged and which shaped their civic values. The underground’s non-military bodies – the Delegate’s Bureau and the Political Advisory Committee - were also drawn from a wide range of social and political elements within Polish society. Thus, to the question of whether or not the Polish Underground was hostile to Jews, the answer can only be a variegated one. 

Assessing Home Army attitudes also has to take into account changes in the underground itself during the different periods of the war. Throughout the war, the Polish Underground incorporated new political and military groups under its command. Most egregious with regard to the Jews was the incorporation of the clandestine forces of the Cadre Strike Battalion (UBK) in August 1943, as well as a part of the National Armed Forces (NSZ) in March 1944. The latter organizations were openly antisemitic. There is documentary evidence that some of their units collaborated with the Germans in northeastern Poland in the pursuit and murder of hidden Jews.

In stark contrast, and at the same time that the UBK and NSZ were hunting for Jews, the central authorities of the Polish Underground issued and carried out death sentences against Poles who blackmailed Jews (szmalcowniks). Polish historian, the late Teresa Prekerowa, found that 30% of the death sentences pronounced by the underground court in Warsaw on collaborators were for szmalcowniks.3 The latter pronouncements were published in the clandestine press of the Home Army & Delegate’s Bureau with the names and addresses of the criminals to exact maximum shame and to provide disincentives for would-be and current szmalcowniks. 

The Polish Underground, on the initiative of the Home Army's Jewish Affairs Bureau and Catholic organizations, also established one of the largest Jewish aid networks in German-occupied Europe. The Council for Aid to the Jews (Żegota) was established in December 1942 under the auspices of the Delegate's Bureau. The organization, with funds from the Polish government-in-exile and Jewish organizations in the US and Britain, gave assistance to Jews hiding outside of ghettos and camps. It provided the essentials needed for survival on the Aryan side: sets of false papers, money, work permits, and shelter. Perhaps the most outstanding representative of Żegota was Irena Sendler, who, with her legion of Polish helpers, rescued an estimated 350 children from the Warsaw Ghetto.4  Żegota also included Jews on its executive board, such as Adolf Berman and Shmuel Feiner, thus making it a collaborative, Polish-Jewish aid organization.

The Polish Underground also played a key role in getting out vital information to the free world about the fate of the Jews in what became known as the Holocaust. The Home Army’s Jewish Affairs Bureau chief, Henryk Woliński, was instrumental in preparing reports on the ghettos and death camps for the underground authorities in Warsaw. A steady flow of these reports, beginning in the second half of 1941, reached London where they provided the Polish government-in-exile with enough reliable evidence that it presented to the United Nations as proof of Nazi crimes.5 In occupied Poland, the clandestine press of the Home Army and Delegate’s Bureau, with few exceptions, aggressively informed Polish society about the course of the Holocaust. It also used its pages for the dissemination of death sentences on Polish szmalcowniks.6

Geography was another factor that accounts for the immensely varied response of the Polish Underground to the persecution and destruction of the Jews during World War II. The Home Army in Eastern Poland, established in 1941-1942, brought into the ranks of the underground new social and political elements. In northeastern Poland, in particular, the attitude towards the Jews was more decidedly hostile than in other parts of Poland. Here, in territory that the Soviet Union officially regarded as their own, the local Home Army often saw Soviet partisans as a greater threat than were the Germans. As the tide of the war turned inexorably in favor of the Soviets, and it became clear that liberation was going to come from the east, and together with it the threat of long-term Communist occupation, the Home Army in northeastern Poland increasingly identified local Jews as hostile, pro-Soviet elements. This led to several cases of local Home Army commanders waging battles against Jewish partisans desperately trying to survive in the forests. Reports of local Home Army commanders to the district chiefs in northeastern Poland falsely labeled Jewish partisans “Bolshevik-Jewish bands”. Jewish partisans in the area of Nowogródek, Białystok, Vilna and Lublin often lived in fear of repercussions and persecution at the hands of the Home Army.7 

Jewish partisans in Eastern Poland commented on this phenomenon. “The members of the Armia Krajowa,” Harold Werner remarked, “were very anti-Semitic, exhibiting the same attitudes they had held before the war. Now, however, they were armed, and Jews were ‘fair game’ for their attacks.”8  Still, others, like Norman and Amalie Salsitz, concurred. Norman, who posed as a Catholic when he joined the Armia Krajowa in Eastern Poland, shared the organization's goal of defeating the German Nazis. Yet the antisemitic orientation of his unit became quickly clear. When the unit commander authorized a mission to murder Jews hiding in a bunker on a local farm, Norman volunteered. As the unit approached the farmland, Norman turned on his unit, shooting the AK members in order to free the three hidden Jews. It is not surprising, therefore, that Norman and his wife – also a former partisan – later remarked that "the AK groups began to roam the forests and they proved just as dangerous to us as were the Germans.”9

In contrast, the local Home Army in the southeastern district of Lwów tended to see Jews as loyal elements in the increasingly bloody Polish-Ukrainian conflict. The consequence of this unique set of circumstances in the Lwów district was not only the enlistment of many Jewish individuals into the Home Army but the case of Jewish platoons fighting under a friendly Polish Home Army command. The most dramatic case was Hanaczów, a village located 25 miles southeast of Lwów that was under Home Army control and was protecting 250 Jews. When, in April 1944, German forces, aided by the Ukrainian Auxiliary Police, entered Hanczów to ferret out the Jews, the Home Army commander – Lt. Kazimierz Wojtowicz - ordered his fighters to attack the enemy. While holding the Germans and Ukrainians at bay, the Home Army commander ordered his remaining forces to evacuate all Jews in hiding to evade capture. By the time the Germans broke through the Home Army lines, two-thirds of the Jews of Hanaczów had already fled. The result was that 180 of the 250 hidden Jews survived the war. Based on the testimonies of these survivors, Yad Vashem bestowed upon Lt. Wojtowicz and his two deputy commanders – his brothers Alojzy and Antoni - the title of Righteous Among Nations. In their memoir published in 1992, brothers Alojzy and Antoni expressed a deeply-felt pride in having protected Jews and deep sadness for the ones who were murdered in the raid on Hanaczów.10

One of these Jewish evacuees was 17-year-old Selma Horowitz. Born in Hanaczów in 1927, the Home Army evacuated Selma, her mother, and her three younger siblings in April 1944. "The Home Army helped us," Selma recalled, "because we knew many of its people from Hanaczów. They came from the same village. They were also educated people – most of them had gone to the university in Lwów.”11 

In central Poland, the Home Army record was more mixed. Here, the bulk of the liberal wing within the Delegate's Bureau and Home Army operated in the central underground bodies, and this led to a more favorable climate. 

Based on the documentary evidence, both unpublished and published, we can conclude that the bodies making up the Home Army linked to the Polish government-in-exile were both pro-Jewish and anti-Jewish, friendly and hostile, righteous gentiles at best and vicious murders at worst. Joe Cameron, a Jewish partisan from the Vilna region, expressed this mixed legacy when asked if the entire Home Army was antisemitic in character. “I didn’t have bad experiences personally,” he replied, “but it was a feeling that [the Home Army] didn’t like Jews, not everybody, some.”12 

Joshua D. Zimmerman

Eli and Diana Zborowski Professorial Chair in Holocaust Studies 

and East European Jewish History 

Yeshiva University 

1. Tomasz Strzembosz, Rzeczpospolita podziemna: Społeczeństwo polskie a państwo podziemne, 1939-1945 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krupski i S-ka, 2000), 224.

2. Tomasz Strzembosz, Rzeczpospolita podziemna: Społeczeństwo polskie a państwo podziemne, 1939-1945 (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Krupski i S-ka, 2000), 224.

3. Teresa Prekerowa, Konspiracyjna Rada Pomocy Żydom w Warszawie, 1942-1945 (Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1982), 294.

4. Anna Bikont, Sendlerowa: w ukryciu (Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne, 2017), 246.

5. See, for example, The Mass Extermination of Jews in German Occupied Poland: Note Addressed to the Governments of the United Nations on December 10th, 1942, and other Comments  (London & New York: Republic of Poland’s Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1942).

6. Examples of such announcements of Poles executed for blackmailing Jews in the Home Army press include, in Warsaw: “Obwieszczenie,” Biuletyn Informacyjny (Warsaw), 8 July 1943, p. 2; “Obwieszczenie,” Biuletyn Informacyjny, 16 September 1943, p. 1; & Biuletyn Informacyjny, 9 December 1943, p. 1; in Kraków: Biuletyn Informacyjny Małopolski (Kraków), 27 November 1943; & Biuletyn Informacyjny Małopolski (Kraków), 5 December 1943.  For a discussion of these cases, see Joshua D. Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945 (2017), ch. 11.   

7. See Zimmerman, The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939-1945, ch. 10. 

8. Harold Werner, Fighting Back: A Memoir of Jewish Resistance in World War II (New York: Columbia University Press, 1992), 155.

9.  Norman and Amalie Salsitz, Against All Odds: a Tale of Two Survivors (New York: Holocaust Library, 1990), 350-351; and http://www.jewishpartisans.org/partisans/norman-salsitz.

10. Wojtowicz, Alojzy and Antoni Wojtowicz. Kronika małej ojczyzny: w Lwowskim Okręgu AK. (Zielona Góra: [s.n.], 1992). 112.

11.Selma Horowitz, telephone interview with the author, 30 March 2009.

12. Transcript of interview with Abe Asner and Joe Cameron, September 2001, Jewish Partisans Educational Foundation oral history archive, Tape 6;  On Joe Cameron, see http://www.jewishpartisans.org/partisans/joe-cameron

JPEF's Tribute to Larry King (z"l)

By Mitch Braff

Fifteen years ago, I was finishing four documentary films for JPEF on “Living and Surviving in the Partisans” that were going to be released with the study guide of the same title.

I was looking for a narrator, someone with a great voice and hopefully at least a little well known; someone who would help garner attention for the organization. I was having breakfast at Nate and Al’s in Beverley Hills when I spied Larry King sitting with a few of his friends a couple booths over. As I later learned, he went there every day for breakfast when he was working in Los Angeles. “He’d be perfect for this project,” I thought.

I channeled my inner stalker and waited until he finished his breakfast, left the restaurant, and was walking over to his waiting car. I nonchalantly jumped up and followed him, and just before he reached the door, I introduced myself and dropped Ed Asner’s name. I told him that Ed had recently narrated a film for JPEF and I asked Larry to narrate the newest films. To my surprise, Larry said yes to the project! I didn’t know it at the time, but he had just completed the reading of an audio book about Jewish partisans, one about the famed Avengers brigade and was already interested in the subject of Jewish resistance. He was very interested in Jewish partisan resistance. He liked the work JPEF was doing, took my card, and said that his office would call me to make arrangements.

Excitedly, I anticipated and waited for the call – but it never came. 

A month had passed, and I needed to finish the film. I was stuck. I had no way of contacting Larry. The only place I knew I could find him was at Nate and Al’s, but I was 350 miles away in San Francisco and not about to go full stalker. 

One morning I was struck with an idea…. I called Nate and Al’s around 8:00 am. To my surprise, when I asked for Larry King, I was told to hold. About 30 seconds later his deep and distinct voice came on the phone. I re-introduced myself, and he told me to call him later that day at his office. He gave me his “direct line.” I was in.

Or so I thought.

I called him that afternoon, already picturing the two of us in the studio together; Larry complimenting my script and direction....Unfortunately, I was brought back to reality by the sound of the phone ringing  and ringing without an answer. I soon realized that he didn’t have voicemail (“This is 2005, come on,” I thought to myself) and no assistant picked up. I was not deterred. I called the following day, and the next day, and the next, and had the same experience. I couldn’t give up. Over the next couple of months, I called many times; perhaps 80 times.  I would call him after breakfast, when I was in the car, after lunch, and no one ever picked up. Not ever. 

One day, I was doing my daily “Larry call” around 5:40 pm. Most of my previous calls were in the morning or early afternoon. I never called this late.  It rang and rang as it always did.. As I was about to hang up, that distinct voice came on the line....and to my amazement it was Larry! The number he gave me was to a phone at his desk, the desk he sat at every day, just before recording “Larry King Live” at 6pm PST.

A week later, I found myself face to face with Larry King in the studio, where we recorded the narration for four documentary films for JPEF.

Larry went on to record more films for us, excepts from another book, and even offered to participate as the star attraction for one of our fundraisers. His distinctive and eloquent voice made everything he did for us more engaging and impactful. The organization, the board, and stakeholders, all loved his participation. He raised the bar for our work. 

I will always remember him as a sweet and generous man – though to be honest, he wasn’t the greatest at taking my direction in the studio. He wanted to do it his way.

Of course. He was the legendary Larry King.

We will all miss him.

Larry King’s work can be heard in the JPEF films and on our website:

Living and Surviving in the Jewish Partisans: Food
Living and Surviving in the Jewish Partisans: Medicine
Living and Surviving in the Jewish Partisans: Winter and Night
Living and Surviving in the Jewish Partisans: Shelter
Fighting on Three Fronts: Antisemitism and the Jewish Partisans
Partisan Hideout Page – JPEF Website

Jewish partisan Judith Ginsburg turns 96 years old!

Today, Jewish partisan Judith (Yudis) Ginsburg (Kosczeinska) celebrated her 96th birthday.

Judith was born into a large and well-to-do family in Lida, Poland. She lost most of her family in the slaughter on May 8, 1942 when 6,000 Jews of Lida were murdered by the Einsatzgrupen. She remained in the Lida ghetto with her oldest sister and her sister’s two children until the liquidation of the ghetto.

As a teenager, Judith escaped from the line of Jews being marched to the trains bound for Majdanek. She was rescued and joined the Raschinsky Otriad, serving as a combatant. Antisemitism in her unit was rampant and to avoid danger, Judith left to join the Bielski brigade, for the rest of the war.

Upon liberation she returned to Lida, and found that the city had been completely destroyed. Her entire family had been murdered, and she was again alone. The situation in Lida was dire; there was very little food and most of the buildings had been burned out. Because he had been designated a war hero, Motke Ginsburg and his family occupied a large house in Lida and they were feeding anyone who needed food. It was there that Judith met the Ginsburg family and her future husband, Motke. After the tragic murder of Motke’s brother Tzalke, the family left Belarussia for Poland and then traveled to the Ferenvald displaced person’s camp in Germany.

Four years later in 1949, Judith, Motke and their two children Chaim and Rivka, immigrated to the United States and settled in Troy, NY. Life was not easy at first, but conditions improved as Motke started earning a living as a cattle dealer. Judith had two more children, Fran and Sheri, both born in America. Today, Judith has 10 grandchildren and 10 great-grandchildren and the number continues to grow. Judith has always been held in high esteem by her friends and the community at large. Today she is the beloved matriarch of the Ginsburg family and lives in Coconut Creek, Florida.

At Judith’s 90th birthday party in 2015, she and several of her fellow Jewish partisans, sang the Hymn of the Jewish Partisans for her many guests.

To honor Judith Ginsburg's 95th birthday on in 2020, her family founded the Judith and Marvin (z’’l) Ginsburg Jewish Partisan History Education Fund to support JPEF’s efforts to educate young people through the lessons of the Jewish partisans.

Judith & Marvin (z''l) were, and remain, dedicated to educating future generations about the remarkable resistance of the Jewish partisans. It was essential to them that young people be presented with an accurate history of all forms of Jewish defiance against Nazi oppression. You can help JPEF fulfill their commitment by making a gift toward the fund.