Remember the Jewish Partisans - Lublin District (eastern Poland)
INTRODUCTION
Prior to the German occupation, more than 80,000 Jews lived in the five southern counties of the Lublin district: Janow Lubelski, Bilgoraj, Krasnystaw, Zamosc and Hrubieszow. These areas were ideal for partisan activities because the main railroads the Germans were using were north or south of the area and the area was hilly with several deep forests. An additional 250,000 Jews lived in the other portions of the Lublin district, while many Jews were imported to the Lublin district between 1939 and 1943 from Germany, Czechoslovakia, Austria, the Netherlands, and elsewhere during the Holocaust.
During the initial deportations of Jews from the Lublin district to Belzec, largely between April and September of 1942, Jews in small towns of southern Lublin showed persistent resistance -- according to the scholar Shmuel Krakowski, "perhaps greater resistance than in most other areas of Poland." The total number of those who fled from the five counties in southern Lublin reached 20,000 -- greater than in any other part of occupied Poland. Sadly, the majority of the fugitives were caught and killed in the first German hunts for escaped Jews.
The most successful Jewish partisan groups in the Lublin district were as follows: Chil Grynszpan's group in the Parczew forests; Frank Blaichman's group of youthful disobedients who refused to be confined to the ghetto of Kamionka near Lubartow; Shmuel Gruber's group of escaped prisoners of war from Lublin; the Knopfmacher group which escaped from the Wlodawa Ghetto and Adampol Labor Camp; and the Adolf Bron group in the western part of the Lublin district in the area around the Janow Lubelski forests. Sobibor camp escapees eventually joined each of these groups after the Sobibor Uprising in October of 1943. The groups listed here consisted of solely Jewish members, with only a few exceptions for pro-Jewish Russian fighters, but had mostly helpful cooperation from the Armia Ludowa.
Amcha ("your people") was the "code" that the Maccabees had used when they fought the Syrians in the 2nd Century BCE. Jewish partisans in the forests of Lublin used this same password to identify other Jews in the area. In fighting as partisans, their number one goal was to save Jewish lives. Women with small children and the elderly found refuge because of the men and women listed below. Several of the "family camps" grew to hundreds of people, most especially the camp called Tabor operated by Grynszpan's 2nd Holod Battalion and the camp called Ohozhe operated by the Lichtenberg group.
As is evidenced from almost every testimony I have read to compile the research herein, both the Narodowe Sily Zbrojne (NSZ) -- which had around 75,000 Polish fighters -- and the Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) -- which had around 270,000 fighters -- consisted of many vicious anti-Semites. The groups were very active in the Lublin district. Therefore, not only did the partisan groups have to withstand the Nazis and anti-Jewish Polish fighters from these two armed groups, but also the combination of Polish military men and Polish farmers intent on murdering Jews.
Of course, there were some pro-Jewish Polish military men and an occasional pro-Jewish farmer as well. In spite of these obstacles, two cases of Jewish partisans rescuing Poles is documented in Marek Jan Chodakiewicz's book "Zydzi i Polacy 1918-1955" (Jews and Poles 1918-1955). In February of 1944, Abraham Bron saved his friends, Stanislaw Saganowski ("Dab") and his son Jerzy Saganowski ("Brzoza") of Aleksandrowka from the NKVD and the UB. They were active members of the NSZ, and thus had to go into hiding after the arrival of the Red Army. Bron arranged for immunity for the Saganowskis from the local secret police and protected them afterward. Bron helped them move to his house in Krasnik. Subsequently, Saganowski, Sr. went into a black-market business with his Jewish friend. Saganowski, Jr. enrolled at a high school in Krasnik. Both maintained personal contacts with their NSZ colleagues but remained passive in the anti-Communist struggle. In a separate incident in the spring of 1945, a Jewish general, Aleksander Mieczyslaw Skotnicki saved Pawel Golombek from the Communist secret service (UB). Golombek was a Polish policeman who was secretly in the Underground. Skotnicki was later killed in battle.
Collectively and individually, Jews throughout the Lublin district resisted Nazi oppression. The Jewish partisans listed below are an inspiration. They valiantly fought and died for freedom against the Nazi murderers. In many cases, very little information remains about the existence of particular partisan groups due to the complete annihilation of the units by the Nazi murderers. The conditions the partisans had to overcome are monumental by any standard. There was not just the lack of food, the constant starvation, and the need to find food by any means possible. Another obstacle was dealing with the fact that most of their family members had previously been murdered and overcoming the feeling that they were now truly alone in the world. There was also the problem of how to get weapons, how to stay warm in the winters, and how to avoid detection by Polish and German soldiers. Complicating this last matter was the fact that a majority of Poles and Ukrainians were eager to report Jews to the Nazi murderers. We fondly remember the Jewish partisans of the Lublin distrct as heroes, today and forever.
PARTISAN GROUPS
Three of the most successful Jewish partisan group leaders -- Shmuel "Mietec" Gruber, Yechiel "Chil" Grynszpan, and Abraham "Adolf" Bron -- had been corporals in the Polish Army. Jews had been required to serve their country, even as the borders changed, for centuries. This previous military training was crucial to their success as unit leaders. Below is information on the specific groups that formed between 1942 and 1944 in the district, each formed to fight off the Nazi murderers:
— Partisan Groups Northwest of Lublin
— Partisan Groups Northeast of Lublin
— Partisan Groups Southwest of Lublin
— Partisan Groups Southeast of Lublin
— Partisan Groups East of Lublin
— Betar Partisans in Hrubieszow
— Unidentified Partisan Groups in the Lublin District
— Additional Articles, Books, Films and Resources
— Jewish Revolts and Uprisings in the Lublin District
— Jews in the Polish Resistance During World War Two
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