Jewish Partisan Lilka (Ticktin) Bielski (z''l) – born January 13, 1926

Lilka Ticktin was born in Bialystock, Poland, on January 13, 1926. Before she was a year old, her family settled in Novogrudok. Her mother, Zina, was from a well-to-do, cultured family. Her father, Alter, had a thriving business collecting rags and processing them in multiple warehouses to produce paper. The Ticktin family was well-known in the shtetl, and often paid for weddings, a bris, or a Shabbos meal for those who couldn’t afford it.

Lilka went to a local Hebrew school, then followed in the footsteps of her older brother, Meir, and attended high school in Bialystock. At the age of 13, her mother got sick and passed away. Relatives came to stay with the children, until Lilka was sent back to Bialystock to finish her schooling. Her father eventually remarried. The new stepmother was a divorced, single mother, who worked as a seamstress to make ends meet. 

When the Russians invaded the area, and the family fled to Lida, moving into a small apartment. Alter also brought his wife’s family to Lida, including her two sisters, and her mother.

Meanwhile, Lilka’s friend lived in the same building as Tuvia Bielski, who was working in Lida as a bookkeeper. The two young girls were captivated by him and often spied on Tuvia through the window. Once, he caught them, finding their infatuation amusing, and offered to take them to the movies.

In 1941, the Germans bombed Lida, and the family escaped to the countryside, staying with peasants. When things calmed down, they went home. Tuvia also left Lida, returning to his family home in Stenkevich. When the Germans entered Lida, the Jewish population was divided into three ghettos: Postawska, Koszarowa, and Piaski. Lilka remembers that she did not feel particularly afraid, and even regarded some of the Germans as friends.  

All that changed later when the SS entered the picture. The evening of May 7, 1942, all three ghettos were fenced in. The next day, the Germans went house to house, rounding up all the Jews. Lilka was taken out with her family, wearing only a nightgown and shoeless. All the Jews were lined up and told to go to either the right or the left. Because her stepbrother was of use to the Germans, he had special privileges and he, his mother, Alter, and Lilka were told to go left. His aunt and grandmother joined those going right. When the selection was finished, those who went to the right were marched out of town, lined up by a pit, and shot by the Germans. Over 5,500 Jews were massacred. Those who remained in the ghetto were herded into one small area and told to be ready for work at 6 AM the next morning. 

Tuvia, meanwhile, after seeing his family killed by the Nazis, had taken refuge in the woods surrounding Stenkevich, together with his brothers, and a handful of family members. He sent letters into the ghetto, urging the Jews to leave immediately, before they were killed. He wrote, “I don’t promise anything, but at least you’ll be free.” Alter insisted that he was staying where he was, adamant that he would share his fate with his fellow Jews.

One night, Lilka was awakened by her father shaking her and saying, “Get dressed, we are leaving tonight.” She was stunned by her father’s change of heart, but quickly got ready. Alter told her, “I dreamed that you survive. I’m not sure about me, but in my dream, you live through this.” They crawled under a fence, and remained crawling for a full kilometer, until they were met by Tuvia. He sent them to the family camp with his brother, Asael. That group now numbered twenty-one.

There were grumblings among the seventeen already in the group about adding more mouths to feed and take care of, but Tuvia was insistent that he would save as many Jews as he could. It became his primary mission: “I would rather save one old Jewish woman than kill ten Nazis”, Lilka remembers him saying.

The group continued to grow; first, friends and relatives, and then Jews they had never met, who escaped from the ghettos or from trains bound for the extermination camps, motivated in part by knowing they had a place to go – The Bielski Camp. Hunger was widespread in the area and the Jewish refugees, the Belarusian peasants, and the Nazi army, all competed for what little food there was.  

The Bielski partisans regularly sent out food missions, to help procure food for their growing numbers. Alter insisted on joining one of these missions. At age 49, he was considered old and entitled to stay behind at the camp. Even though a tearful Lilka begged him not to go, he insisted on joining the group. That was the last time she saw her father. The group was out late, and the sun was rising.  Rather than risk discovery in the dawning light, they opted to stay in the house of a local farmer until night fell again. The Nazis came and slaughtered them all, save for one, who hid beneath a stove. 

Almost a year later, Lilka’s stepmother became extremely ill with the flu. Her son decided to bring her to the home of local peasants, where her sister had been in hiding. The Nazis discovered them, and they were slaughtered. 

Now, two years after she left Lida for the camp, Lilka found herself all alone. But the relationship between Lilka and Tuvia had been growing. At first, he would just make sure she always had enough to eat, and always showed her kindness and compassion for her circumstances. Soon, the awe and admiration the young Lilka had for the commander turned to mutual love. Tuvia continued to look out for Lilka and they eventually married in the woods. The marriage that lasted for 45 years, until Tuvia’s death in 1987. Lilka never looked for any privilege as the Commander’s wife, and she often did her part, standing guard over the camp overnight, gun in hand. She made formal reports to the Commander in the morning about the night’s activities.

As the Commander’s wife, she also played the part of hostess, entertaining the leaders of the Russian partisans. It was vital for the group to be of use to the Russian Otriads (or brigades), so they provided leather boots and gun repair in the workshops of the Shtetl Bielski, as it became known.

Despite the misgivings of those in the group, Tuvia felt it was vitally important that they accept all Jews into the community.  “As a small group, we have no chance,” he said, “we will survive in the woods, at least some of us. If we stay in the ghetto, we will all perish.”

The group, eventually numbering over 1,200 people, survived the war. In July of 1944, as the Red Army advanced and the Nazis retreated in panic. The day of liberation came unexpectedly. Much of the group returned to Novogrudok, but found their homes were now occupied by the local peasants. 

Lilka and Tuvia soon realized they had to leave Novogrudok; Tuvia was too well known, and they found out the NKVD, the predecessor to the KBG, was looking for him.  Tuvia and his brother Zus, along with their wives, Lilka and Sonia, and younger brother Aron, boarded a train heading west. It was a treacherous journey, as they were stopped numerous times by the NKVD.

They continued west, through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and Romania, where they settled for some time. While living in Romania, the group was contacted by a Zionist organization, promising legal passage to Palestine.  

They boarded the ship to Palestine and arrived in the promised land just in time for Israel’s war for independence. Tuvia went from fighting in one war to fighting in another. Lilka gave birth to a girl in Palestine in 1946. Tuvia and Lilka and their infant girl, Ruth, were given housing in the settlement called Holon, south of Tel Aviv. 

Eventually, war broke out during the fight for Israel’s independence. Tuvia was involved in the fighting but assured a worried Lilka that he would return soon. It was Yom Kippur, and he still hadn’t returned. Lilka knew something was wrong.  She walked to the military headquarters to see if she could get any news. They explained that the truck Tuvia was traveling in had been blown up in the desert and all of the occupants killed.

With a heavy heart, Lilka returned to Holon. Night fell, and she prepared to sit Shiva, tearing her clothing in the Jewish tradition. Suddenly, her young daughter stood up in her crib, calling “Aba, Aba” (father). Lilka turned to the door and could not believe her eyes. There, stood Tuvia, dirty and exhausted. His truck had exploded, but he had survived and walked through the desert for three days to return to his family.

In 1952, Lilka had another baby, a boy, who they named Meir Aztzmon, after Lilka’s brother. Ruth affectionately nicknamed him Mickey.

Tuvia soon began to develop health problems and was diagnosed with a bleeding ulcer. At the urging of two brothers, who had immigrated to the United States prior to the war, he made the journey to New York in 1955 for an operation. Lilka and her two children followed in 1956, where they eventually added a third child, son Robert. Lilka lived a fairly ordinary life in Brooklyn, raising her children and adjusting to life in a new country. She enjoyed watching her children grow up, get married, and have children of their own. Tuvia’s family and other relatives followed, also settling in Brooklyn. Lilka loved cooking for the holidays and spent winters in her later years of her life in Hallendale, Florida. Tuvia and Lilka eventually had nine grandchildren and one great-grandchild. Presently, they have two more great-grandchildren on the way.

Tuvia died in June 1987 and Lilka in September 2001. They are buried side by side on a hillside in Har HaMenuchot Cemetery, overlooking Jerusalem.  

Abe Asner's Military Training Helped Him Save Lives

"Grodno still was a ghetto, and lots of people went back to the ghetto like Saul, his father, his mother. And I said, “Me and my brothers, we’re not going back to the ghetto. We’re not going. We’re going to win, doesn’t matter what. If I die, I’ll die standing up — not to shoot me in the back.”
-Abe Asner
Jewish partisan Abe Asner (z''l), was born in the district of Lida, Poland on October 19, 1916. In 1938, Abe followed in the footsteps of his brothers and joined the Polish army. On June 22, 1941, Abe was visiting a cousin in Lithuania when he awoke to the sight of German planes littering the sky with bombs. When German tanks surrounded the ghetto where Abe and his brothers were staying, they had to make a choice: stay among the 3,000 Jews who were facing imminent death or flee to the forests. Abe disappeared into the trees with nothing but the clothes on his back.

The forest proved to be a breeding ground for resistance fighters. Soon Abe was among 60 Jewish and Russian POWs running missions. His military training gave him the skills to kill German soldiers who attempted to search the dense forest. In the beginning, Abe thought the resistance would only last a few weeks. It continued for over four years, and their partisan unit grew to several thousand people, including the woman who became Abe’s wife.

Abe and his brothers were successful on many missions. They sabotaged enemy supplies, halted German food convoys, and rescued Jews from ghettos. They frustrated the Germans with their efficiency under the cover of darkness. “The night was our mother,” Abe remembers. Eventually the Germans placed a bounty on their heads. “So much money to catch us, dead or alive,” Abe recalls.

The ongoing violence of the Partisan missions wore away at Abe’s psyche. When the war finally ended, he worked hard to adjust to normal life. Despite the physical and emotional scars he carried, Abe knew his deeds helped to shape the lives of countless people.

Abe’s passion burned brightly when he recalled his partisan days. “We don’t go like sheep. We did as much as we could. We did a lot,” he said. “People should know somebody did (fight back). People should know.”

After the war Abe moved to Canada with his wife where they had two daughters and four grandchildren. Abe passed away on May 26, 2015 at the age of 98.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Abe Asner, including six videos of him reflecting on his time as a partisan.

Don Felson (z''l) Dynamited Railroads to Disrupt German Conveys Carrying Supplies

Don Felson was born October 12, 1925 in Glubokie, Poland. A small town about a hundred miles northeast of Vilna, the town sits on a low plain amidst hills in present-day Belarus. In 1941, the Germans invaded Glubokie, and promptly established a ghetto for the town’s Jewish inhabitants.

Don, who had a job at a German POW infirmary at the time, was tipped off about the first massacre by a sympathetic German doctor, who warned him not to return to the ghetto on the night of the raid. As Russian POWs began to escape from the camp where Don worked, rumors of partisan units hidden in the forests spread throughout the village. In the fall of 1942, Don’s older brother Stan left for the forest – he convinced a Jewish partisan who was seeking recruits to take him along, despite the fact that he had no combat experience and no weapon.

The Felson family: Stan Felson on the left, Don Felson on the right

Six months later Stan returned for Don. Though Stan made it seem like joining the partisans was a matter of survival, Stan’s haggard and disheveled appearance made Don skeptical. At first he declined, but with his mother’s urging, he agreed to join Stan. He brought their mother and younger brother along with them, sequestering them in a friendly village while the two teenagers went off to join the Panomorenko company. However, a few months later the SS murdered Don’s mother and brother – along with the entire village – after having learned that a mother of a partisan was living there.

Filled with the need for vengeance, the boys dynamited railroads and ambushed German convoys, killing soldiers and building a reputation for valor. They also supplied the group with food by taking it from the local population and smuggling it back into the camps. As the war progressed and the German army was beaten back from the Russian interior, the Soviets began to airdrop short wave radios, weapons, and other much-needed supplies to the partisans in White Russia. The partisans were even able to evacuate their wounded behind enemy lines. Finally, when the Soviet army liberated the area, they enjoyed their hard won victory as the Germans beat a hasty westward retreat.

As was the case with most partisans, the Felson brothers were assimilated into the Soviet army, but soon became separated when Don was discharged after he developed an ulcer. Stan continued to fight in the Soviet Army, but soon reunited with Don when they met back in Glubokie, where they both made plans to flee westward. Staying clear of the Soviet army, they escaped through Poland to American-occupied Germany, where they ended up at a DP camp.

Back during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904, Don’s great-uncle Saul was stationed at the front; afterwards, he managed to cross the Pacific and settle down in San Francisco. The two brothers hoped to join him there. From the DP camp, the brothers used their network of family and friends to secure visas to the United States. They arrived in San Francisco in 1947 and went to work for Saul’s contracting business. Not long after, Don met and married his wife. Their three sons took over the family business after Don passed away in 2002.

For more on Don – including 9 video clips of him reflecting upon his time as a partisan – visit his bio page on the JPEF website.

Celebrating Joe Kubryk's 97th Birthday - July 1st

"We had a very difficult time in the partisans among our own soldiers. What happened is we had Ukrainians, we had Poles, we had Polish soldiers that escaped from the prisons of Juaros and came to the partisans. And we had Russians. None of them really liked the Jews." - Joe Kubryk on being a Jewish partisan.


Joe Kubryk was born in the Russian Ukraine, not far from Odessa, on July 1st, 1926. Before the war, the Kubryk family did not experience much antisemitism, but after the war broke out, Joe’s village was filled with Ukrainian fascists, who cooperated with the Germans to kill Jews. When Joe saw the Germans rounding up his classmates, he knew he had to run for his life. In August 1941, not long after his friends were taken by the Nazis, Joe left the village. He found a Ukrainian farmer who hired him as a farmhand. The farmer had no idea Joe was Jewish as Joe spoke fluent Ukrainian. While Joe cried himself to sleep at night, he never let anyone see him doing it. He didn’t want to explain why he was crying.

Near the end of 1941, Russian partisans came scavenging for food at Joe’s farm. Curious, he asked them who they were. “Russian partisans,” came the reply. “Who are you?” When they heard he was Jewish and alone, they said, “You are one of us,” and took him to a camp in the forest of Drohobicz.

A few months after Joe arrived, a junior secret service was formed. Joe and the other teenagers began serious training in spying — learning how to recognize guns, artillery pieces and officers’ insignia. They were “toughed-up” in the training, taught secret codes and the rules of espionage. The Junior Secret Service spied on German troops. Platoon by platoon, they counted men, checked equipment, and noted who the ranking officers were and where they were camped. They also provided information to saboteurs who mined bridges and railroads to disrupt German military activity. Joe still bears the shrapnel scars he received during gunfights with the German army, and a German bombardment left him deaf in one ear.

After the war, Joe worked for the Bricha, the illegal immigration of Jews to Israel. Joe then fought in Israel’s War of Independence and worked for the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, before moving to America, where he became a successful businessman.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about Joe Kubryk, including seven videos of him reflecting on his time as a partisan. Our study guides section also contains a guide titled Joe Sasha Kubyrk: Teenage Partisan Spy.

Shalom Yoran - The Defiant [Born June 29, 1925]

Shalom Yoran was born Selim Sznycer in 1925 in Warsaw, Poland. When Shalom was 15 years old, his family fled east, leaving the Nazi-occupied area of Poland for the Soviet side. However, a year later the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, and the Yoran family found their new home, the village of Kurzeniec, occupied by the Nazis.

Two years later, in 1942, the Nazis established a Russian POW camp in Kurzeniec, where the prisoners were treated brutally. Shalom first learned about the partisans through stories he was told by escaped Soviet POWs. The day before Yom Kippur 1942, the Kurzeniec ghetto was ordered to be liquidated.

Shalom was given an early warning, but his family was not as lucky. Shalom and his brother Musio managed to hide themselves in a barn in the nick of time, and were forced to listen as the entire remaining population of the ghetto, totaling 1,052 people, were murdered. The brothers later found out their parents were among them. The farmer whose barn they hid in turned out to be friendly, and the brothers safely made it to the woods – the Naroch puscha – where they found many other survivors in hiding. Shalom reasoned it was only a matter of time before the Germans conducted an organized raid on the forest, so the brothers decided to leave the area. After the brothers recruited three younger refugees to follow them, the boys spent the frigid winter of 1942 in the forest near the river Sang, where they built a zemlyanka for shelter and lived mostly off a large store of food they took from local farmers.

Detailed map of Shalom's journey through northeastern Poland

At first, they resorted to stealing and begging, but Shalom eventually had an idea: he fashioned the tops of his boots into a holster, and whittled a wooden handle to look like the one on a Soviet Nagan revolver. No longer needing to steal potatoes in the dead of night, Shalom now demanded provisions, brandishing his holstered "weapon." The balance between menace and generosity was of vital importance, and for a long time the peasants did not suspect anything.

However, one night as they ventured into the village one last time to acquire matches, an angry mob chased them down and beat them with sticks. Though he was robbed of all his clothing, Shalom miraculously escaped with his life, and even managed to avoid frostbite as he ran barefoot through the snow. Luckily, all five of the group survived the assault and managed to return to the zemlyanka.

In the spring of 1943, Shalom and the group ventured out of their hiding area. By this time, the tide was turning for the Nazi war effort, and the German army was suffering serious setbacks both in Africa and on the Eastern Front. On the road to Zazierie, the boys encountered fellow survivors of the Kurzeniec ghetto and a group of partisans roaming the village. Since neither he nor his group had weapons, Shalom was denied entry into the group — a common practice among the partisans. Unsure of what to do, Shalom and his brother stayed in the puscha. Though their winter companions went their separate ways, they were soon joined by others, including some escapees from a labor camp in Vileika.

Shalom and his companions spent the rest of the spring trying to join partisan groups roaming the area, but without weapons, they received the same reply every time. Finally, a partisan commander relented and offered them a deal: they would be allowed into the partisans if they returned to Kurzeniec and burned down a factory that made wooden rifle butts. For this mission, they were given a handgun with a single bullet and two hand grenades. Despite the odds, they were successful. However, when they returned to the partisan camp, they were met by a different officer, who took away their weapons and reprimanded them, threatening to shoot them if they didn't leave. The Russian partisans never even thought they could succeed, and had no intention of letting Jews into their group. Little did they know that the group's commanding officer – the one who initially gave them the assignment – was himself a Russian Jew.

Shalom's lucky break came when the commander of a "specgruppa" – a small unit created for a specific purpose – came through the area looking for guides. During the Soviet retreat in 1941, the local peasants had picked up many weapons abandoned by soldiers. The group's mission was to find and collect these weapons, along with food. Here, Shalom witnessed first-hand the methods of Soviet-style coercion, which ranged from the polite display of a grenade on the table to beatings and mock executions.

But in the end, the specgruppa found the weapons caches, and for his work, Shalom and Musio were both given working rifles (though Shalom's did not have a butt, and Musio's was sawed-off).

After his work with the specgruppa, Shalom heard rumors of the formation of an all-Jewish otriad, organized by one Colonel Markov, who by that time had a brigade of over a thousand partisans under his command. He was in contact with the FPO in Vilna, and their members formed the core of an all-Jewish otriad called Miest - the Russian word for "revenge". Since they brought weapons, Shalom and his companions were readily accepted into the unit. In the wake of the German defeat at Stalingrad, Shalom’s unit ambushed the retreating German troops, cutting communication lines, blowing up bridges, and destroying railroads. The unit was disbanded and merged with another otriad some months later. This would not be the last all-Jewish unit Shalom belonged to during the war – and, unfortunately, not the last to be disbanded by the Soviet high command.

When Belarus was liberated by the Soviets in 1944, Shalom and the rest of his comrades were drafted into the Russian regular forces. Fighting in the Red Army, he was appalled by the brutality and political persecution he experienced. Eventually he deserted and made his way to Italy, where he worked for the British Army through the end of the war.

In 1946, Shalom traveled to Palestine with the aid of a fake British Military passport, and joined the newly formed Israeli Army. Though he left Israel to attend an American university, he returned to become an officer in the renowned Israeli Air Force. Shalom became a leader in the Israeli aerospace industry.

Shalom moved to the US in 1979 where he lived with his wife, artist Varda Yoran. Shalom passed away on September 9, 2013 leaving a tremendous legacy.

In 2003, he published his memoir, The Defiant: A True Story of Escape, Survival & Resistance. The book, written shortly after the Shoah but rediscovered many years later, is dedicated to his parents. Click here to listen to Larry King reading excerpts from the book.

From left to right: Shalom, Steffi, Markh, and Musio. Steffi was the widow of Markh's close friend in Vilna. Budapest, 1945.

Jewish Partisan Sonia Orbuch (z''l) was born on May 24, 1925

“I didn’t even bend down my head, I wasn’t worried that I was going to get killed, If I was going to get killed I was going to get killed as a fighter, not because I am a Jew.” — Sonia Orbuch, during JPEF interview.

Sarah Shainwald was 14 years old and ready to begin high school when the bombs began falling on September 1, 1939, marking the official start of World War II. The Soviets invaded Poland from the east and Luboml was handed to the Russians under the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact that divided Poland between the two powers.

For two years, Sarah grew up against the backdrop of war with worries about her family’s future. Then in 1941, her small Polish town fell under German occupation following Operation Barbarossa, Germany's attack on the Soviet Union. Sarah and her family were confined to the ghetto alongside the other members of the Jewish community.

When Nazis began killing Jews in the ghetto, it did not take long for the news to spread. Sarah's brother and several male friends escaped to join a partisan group, but this group only accepted young men – so the open forest was the only hope for Sarah and her parents. They hid among the trees where they survived in freezing temperatures for months.

Eventually, Sarah and her family made contact with a nearby Russian partisan group through the help of a sympathetic local peasant. Fortunately, her uncle Tzvi was a trained scout. The Russians needed his life-long knowledge of the surrounding terrain, and accepted the entire family into their group. Thus Sarah began her new life in the forest encampment that served as a base for sabotage and resistance missions.

Sarah was renamed Sonia by the partisans, for 'Sarah' is not a common Russian name and would have exposed her to danger from various anti-Semitic elements. Early on, Sonia was assigned guard duty and tasked with providing first-aid on missions to mine enemy train tracks. With little training, Sonia learned the skills of a field-hospital aide, treating the wounds of injured partisans, using whatever makeshift supplies were available.

In the winter of 1943-44, Sonia’s battalion joined eleven others to establish a winter camp deeper in the forest. The camp had several thousand members and her duties were transferred to the camp’s hospital. Sonia recalls her day-to-day experience there:

“During the daytime, the fights were terrible...you didn’t take off your shoes, you didn’t wash; you barely ate. You just worked very hard providing whatever comfort your could... I was frightened, horrified at the numbers of people we lost.”

To avoid possible torture and interrogation in the event of capture, Sonia carried two hand grenades with her at all times: “One for the enemy, and one for myself.”

In 1944, Sonia and her parents faced the decision of either leaving the partisans or joining the Red Army. They decided to leave the partisans and took refuge in an abandoned house. They were unaware that the house was infected with typhus, which soon claimed Sonia’s mother, leaving only Sonia and her father.

As the war ended, Sonia focused her energy on getting to America. Sonia eventually moved to Northern California. But the past was never far away. “I miss my family every minute of the day,” Sonia always said. “I see them always before my eyes.”

In her JPEF interview, and during many classroom visits and Yom HaShoah presentations, Sonia defiantly proclaimed, “I want young people to know we were fighting back and that you can always find a way to fight back against injustice, racism, or anti-Semitism. If I was going to get killed, I was going to get killed as a fighter and not because I am a Jew. That itself gave me strength to go on."

Sonia realized that while terror was raging around her, kindness always managed to shine through. “I feel great respect for the Russian people who were so brave and helpful to us,” Sonia said. “Life is very precious. Even though the world is cruel, there are some good people and they should not be forgotten.”

Sonia vividly recounts her struggles and perseverance during the war in her memoir Here, There Are No Sarahs.

Sonia passed away on Sunday, September 30, 2018, surrounded by family and loved ones. She was 93 years old. During her lifetime, she inspired and touched the lives of so many. You can read more about Sonia's incredible life in the San Francisco Chronicle, London Times, and Washington Post.

The Board and staff of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation extend their deepest condolences to Sonia's family and friends.

Sonia is survived by her son Paul Orbuch and daughter-in law Lisa King, her daughter and son-in-law Bella and Dan Whelan, her granddaughter Eva Orbuch, and her step-granddaughter Fraya King.

May her memory be a blessing.

Sonia was the subject of JPEF's 2012 Youth Writing Contest and is pictured here with winner EJ Weiss.

Visit www.jewishpartisans.org for more about the life of Sonia Orbuch, including seven videos of Sonia reflecting on her time as a partisan. You can also download our study guide Sonia Orbuch: A Young Woman With The Russian Partisans.

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.