Remember the Jewish Partisans of the Lublin District - Groups South of Lublin
Groups Southwest of Lublin: In late 1942, several independent fighter groups were present in the forests around Krasnik and Janow Lubelski: 1) A Jewish partisan unit from Frampol that had escaped from the ghetto; 2) a group under Yaakov Freitag that had originated near the village of Reczyca in Pulawy County; 3) a group under Reuven Pintele's leadership; 4) a group that escaped from the Majdanek Concentration Camp under the leadership of a partisan named Robert; 5) a group of 40 escaped POWs from Lipowa 7 led by David Reisler; a group of Russians (including some Jews) under Ciencow; and several non-Jewish Polish fighting groups.
In July of 1942, Armia Ludowa partisan detachment "Jastrzab" led by Antoni Palen ("hawk") burned a sawmill and lumber depot in Janowek, near Janow Lubelski. In March 1943, Jastrzab attacked two German cars on the highway near Bilgoraj, and in May 1943, they attacked the German garrison in Lipa near Krasnik.
On October 2, 1942, 300 Jews fled Frampol during the deportations to the death camps. Some of them had acquired guns earlier and had them hidden in the forests. The escaped prisoners joined with Korczynski's Armia Ludowa unit and was also wiped out before the end of 1943.
Robert's Majdanek unit carried out a successful ambush on the road near Bychawa, attacking two trucks carrying gendarmes, on October 15, 1942. They were based in the Lipsk forest, according to partisan researcher Shmuel Krakowski.
In October, 1942, prisoner David Reisler led a group of 40 Lipowa 7 prisoners in an escape from the Lublin labor camp that housed POWs. By December, they were betrayed by the Armia Ludowa (AL), supposedly their allies. All except two fighters, Jan Szelubski and Chaim Blacher, were murdered. Szelubski survived the war and went to Israel. Blacher was killed at a later date in battle.
Reuven Pintele's partisan group -- of whom little is known -- attacked the Germans, killing commandant Peter Ignar, at the Janiszow Labor Camp near Annopol on November 6, 1942. Although all of the prisoners were free to leave the camp, they had no resources such as food and arms, and many were either caught and killed or sent to the Budzyn Labor Camp. Around 60 prisoners successfully escaped but were eventually attacked and murdered by armed Polish bandits.
From 1942 until the liberation in late July of 1944, the Armia Ludowa also continuously operated a secret radio transmitter in the city of Lublin which transmitted valuable intelligence to the Soviets. In an effort to display their organizational and tactical superiority, the Armia Ludowa dispatched two important figures to the Krasnik area in February, 1943: 1) Joseph Szapiro, a former officer in the Spanish Civil War, brought along instructions for intensifying the partisan action in the area; and 2) Grzegorz Korczynski, also a former officer in the Spanish Civil War, brought along instructions to command units in the area.
Soon, the Tadeusz Kosciuszko unit was formed, which consisted of the following AL groups under Korczynski's command: 1) A group under Ciencow, a Russian POW, which included Russians and a Jewish officer named Grisha, from Kiev. 2) The Berek Joselowicz detachment under Eduard Forst, which was based near Puszcza Solska, a little northwest of Jozefow. The group formed and fought in April and May of 1943, but by August they had been murdered. 3) Two Polish units under the command of Andrzej Flis ("Maksym") and Choina. Polish fighters in the unit also included Jan Plowas, Edward Plowas, Stefan Staregowski, Edward Gronczewski ("quail"), Jan Pytl ("Leon"), and Jan Wzietek ("negro"). 4) A Russian unit under the command of Mihael Atamanov (also called Umer Adamanov and Miszka Tatar). 5) A mixed Russian-Polish-Jewish unit under the command of Antoni Palen ("Jastrzab"). And 5) A Jewish unit called Staszic. The total number of fighters was 300 and they concentrated their efforts in Zamosc and Bilgoraj counties.
In March 1943 they destroyed the device substation at the railway station Rapy and burned warehouses and workshops, liquidated the police station and vandalized municipal office in Huta Krzeszowska. Korczynski was intent on attacking the Rejowiec-Lwow rail line. But on April 4, 1943, nearly every Jewish partisan in the unit -- with one exception, Korczynski himself -- was murdered. The circumstances surrounding the deaths have never been explained. Additional details regarding Korchinsky's appalling anti-Jewish activities are available here. A group of Jews from the Staszic unit survived and decided to join the nearby Kovpak unit on March 1, 1944, who were based in Tarnogrod.
Another unit in the area was the Abraham Bron unit, which had 40 Jewish fighters who had mostly escaped from the Krasnik ghetto. They also operated a family camp which had around 200 Jews. The group's initial concerns were finding food and carrying out small attacks on Polish police and German gendarmerie posts to acquire arms. They later were joined by around 30 escaped Soviet prisoners of war. The combined group attempted a series of attacks on trains but had difficulty carrying out these attacks due to their lack of military training and the superior skills of the German enemy.
By summer, 1943 the Armia Ludowa units were reorganized into two groups: Battalion number 3, which consisted of Polish fighters, under Wladyslaw Skrzypek, and Battalion number 4 under Karol Lemichow-Herzenberger. The Jewish Adolf unit and a Russian unit were thus working side by side under the German Lemichow, who was made a commander of the Armia Ludowa after being injured during his service in the Red Army. However, a plan was drawn up for the destruction of Abraham Bron's Jewish partisan unit by the commander of Battalion number 4. And nineteen Jewish partisans were murdered when their own unit, the Armia Ludowa fighters led by Lieutenant Karol Herzenberger Lemichow and armed Polish bandits led by Andrzej Kielbasa, turned their guns on the Jewish fighters.
A majority of the Jewish Bron unit managed to escape their attackers. After this incident, the Bron unit understandably left the Armia Ludowa. A month earlier, Kielbasa was also involved in the murders of 26 other Jewish fighters, including Yaakov Freitag, the commander of a group of fugitives from Rzeczyca (near Poniatowa Concentration Camp), and Yehoshua Pintel. Frank Blaichman describes this incident his book as follows: "We learned that on September 9 a unit of the Polish National Armed Forces (NSZ) had killed 26 Jewish partisans in the Borowa Forest, south of Lublin. They had gained access to the partisans' base by pretending to want to help them and then had come at night and thrown grenades into the bunkers while the partisans slept. The AL later composed a song in memory of these partisans, but the words fail to mention that the partisans were Jews."
Herzenberger was killed on December 26, 1943 in a clash between his unit and the Germans. After his death, the Bron unit rejoined the Armia Ludowa. According to Shmuel Krakowski, the Jews made up a significant part of the Armia Ludowa forces operating out of bases in the forests of Lipsk in the winter of 1943-1944. The units were as follows: Lenek's group, a mixed unit of Jews and Russians numbering 43 fighters; Grzybowski's unit; Jastrzab's unit; Bohdan's unit; and Prohor's unit, which was an all-Jewish unit. By this time the Bron unit numbered around 25 fighters. Bron unit partisans included Prohors or Prohor (a non-Jew), Zysmilch, Hirsh Brones, and Yehoshua Kleinman (who was killed).
In winter and spring of 1944, the Jewish units gained new members: 26 prisoners who escaped from the Klemensow Labor Camp near Szczebrzeszyn, 13 prisoners escaped from the Budzyn Labor Camp, and eight escapees from Skret (Krasnik) Labor Camp.
The Germans opened a large anti-partisan campaign in Poland on June 9, 1944 which included more than 25,000 fighters. The operation was led by the Nazis Haeneke and Bork. The partisans numbered around 5,000 fighters, including 3,000 Soviets, more than 1,500 Poles, and more than 100 Jewish fighters (most of whom belonged to the Adolf Bron unit). Jewish fighters were also serving in the Janowski and Wanda Wasilewska units, which included several dozen Jews among many Russians. The two groups moved into the Krasnik area around this time.
The partisan forces suffered heavy losses in battle and the Janowski and Wanda Wasilewska retained only around 1/5 of their members. The Adolf unit lost most of its members in a battle with Division 154 on June 14, 1944 in the forest of Janow Lubelski. It was just a few weeks before the area was liberated. Around 15 of the Bron unit fighters survived. Additional information about resistance in the Krasnik area is available in the Krasnik Yizkor book. Abraham Bron is discussed on page 111 of "The Routledge Atlas of the Holocaust" by Martin Gilbert.
Groups form Southeast of Lublin: There were also several Jewish partisan groups that formed in the southern tier of the Lublin district. They were frequently in touch with Russian units that traveled in and out of the district and then headed back east. In May 1942, a group of young Jews from Tomaszow Lubelski -- led by Mendel Heller, Meir Lilkemakher (Lalichmacher), and Szymon Goldsztein -- organized a Jewish partisan unit. This unit fought the Germans for some time, but was betrayed by local Poles and annihilated.
According to Shmuel Krakowski, in July 1942, Jews and Poles joined Rayevski's Russian unit in the south of Lublin. This unit became the largest in the area and had three submachine guns and a few rifles as well as grenades and pistols for each fighter. Rayevski (Ryavski) decided to leave to go to Russia but the Jewish partisans stayed behind because they were familiar with the local area. The unit split up, with a majority heading east. The leftover Jewish unit, led by the brothers Chaskiel Met and Yaakov Met, was based in Kosznia near Frampol. A local forest watchman in Kosznia told the Germans exact details of the whereabouts of the Jewish partisans. The Jews killed this Polish collaborator. But when the Armia Krajowa found out about it, they spread anti-Jewish propaganda in the area and recruited hundreds of peasants to expel the partisans from the forests (source: Shmuel Krakowski).
In the vicinity of Majdan Tyszowski, Tomaszow Lubelski county, a Jewish partisan unit commanded by a Jew from Lublin named Cudok (also spelled Tsadok, Tzadik or Chudak) established contact with the local unit of the Armia Krajowa. After a successful joint operation, the Armia Krajowa unit invited the Jewish combatants for a feast. The Jews were first served poisoned vodka and then fired upon. No one survived (source: Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews during World War).
Beginning in 1941, many Jews from Lublin looked for shelters in the region between Lublin and Bychawa, in the villages and farms. At the beginning of October 1942, when the decrees with regards to Belzec came out, many Jews were hidden in this area. According to partisan Motel Sternblitz,
"In order to give you an idea of the amount of Jews that were hidden, I would like to tell about the following incident: In the latter part of 1942, 70 Jews were gathered at the garden of Palyuch, the farmer. We were there all day. My heart is bleeding when I recall that out of all 70 Jews, among them my father, only 12 people were left as far as I know. All others were killed.
After this incident, a partisan group was formed by Henoch Zimerman and operated in the Dombrow and Osterlic forests. Zimerman informed all the villages in the area that anyone who will expose a Jew will be shot to death and his house will be set on fire. After a farmer named Balachuk killed Zadok's brother-in-law (Yoel), Zimerman burned his house and the partisan caught Balachuk and killed him. They put his body on the road and left a note that he was killed because he turned in a Jew to the Nazis.
Zimerman terrified the villages in the area. He also took care of food supply for the hidden Jews. For example, once he ordered the farmers of the Dombinski farm to take out every night pots with cooked potatoes and to put it next to their huts. He also announced that he will come to check if the order was carried out, and he did. For several weeks, the farmers took out pots with cooked potatoes for the Jews. At the beginning of 1943, Zimerman attacked the police station of Piotrkowek. He took from the seven policemen their weapons and set fire to the documents and Archive to prevent checking of false documents.”
Szernblitz was in a cowshed and heard the shooting. He went to the forest and saw the Zimerman group killing four German gendarmes and three or four others were able to escape. Zimerman took their machine guns from them. In May or June 1943, Zimmerman was arrested, but the arresting forces did not know he was a partisan . They took him to Piotrkowek, from which he was able to escape.
In the end of summer of 1943, Zimerman was killed along with six others, including Cudok. A German unit surrounded the village Majdan Tyszowski. They burned 12 houses of Zimerman and his group -- 16 people in total were hiding in a cowshed in the village. The German surrounded them. Zimerman tried to break out to the forest. The battle took from 11:00 until 16:00 hours. Zimerman continued to shoot until his last moment. Reznik and few others reached the forest and survived.
At the end of June, 1942, a Polish-Soviet unit called Miszka Tatar (led by Mihail Atamanov) combined with Peasant Battalion detachment "Iskrzak" and Armia Ludowa detachment "Tomasz" to burn a sawmill and furniture factory operated by the Germans in Tarnawatka, a little north of Tomaszow Lubelski.
Partisans near Hrubieszow: A group of Jewish partisans from the ZZW (Jewish Military Union) had a camp in Hrubieszow where anti-Nazi training took place. Andrew Kolin writes in his book One Family Before and During the Holocaust, "Many members of Betar would be sent to training camp on a farm close to Hrubieszow. A Jewish supporter of Betar was willing to employ members to work on his farm. A number of Betar members went to work there and maintained the organization [and] those who returned [to Warsaw] became the vital core of the Jewish Military Union. Zivia Lubetkin, who was part of the movement, characterized the efforts as follows: "Agricultural work was particularly important because it enabled us to remove groups of Jewish youth from the suffocating confines of the ghetto. It succeeded in creating a humane, cooperative atmosphere based on mutual aid, equity, and social relationships which were altogether different from what was current in the ghetto."
Testifying in 1946, Holocaust survivor Adam Helperin from Warsaw notes that "special fighting units" were formed around Hrubieszow. "They underwent military training in order to fulfill the Betar pledge: 'I will prepare my arm for the defense of my people ...'." However, according to Holocaust scholars Dariusz Libionka and Laurence Weinbaum, Halperin's account only mentions two names of the fighters themselves: Felek Langleben and Asher Frenkel. The only known survivors of the group were Perec Laskier and Fela Szabszyk Finkelsztajn.
According to Laskier [writing in Hebrew in 1962], in the summer of 1941, Julek Brandt -- also called Joel or Jakob -- appeared in the Warsaw ghetto accompanied by Hans Brandwein, a veteran Betar leader from Bielsko. Both were well known to the organizational leadership in Warsaw. Brandt was a Hrubieszow native whose relatives were key leaders in the Judenrat in Hrubieszow. (Note: Judenrat members in the Lublin district, in general, did not cooperate with the Nazis. The primary exception to this was in Zamosc, where the Judenrat chairman was complicit.)
Notes Libionka and Weinbaum, "After learning about the tragic situation in the [Warsaw] ghetto, they came up with the idea of organizing the legal transfer of the Betar activists to Hrubieszow." They note that around 600 Betar activists were brought to the Hrubieszow area, where they worked on six farms in different locations. It is not clear on what farms or in what suburbs of Hrubieszow they worked, but several testimonies confirm that there was a farm in Dluzniow where 30 Jews worked along with Poles and Ukrainians. However, the records of the Judenrat in Hrubieszow have been lost, so no account of these facts exists.
Separate from the Betar movement, Libionka and Weinbaum mention that a Dror kibbutz was established at a sawmill in Werbkowice near Hrubieszow in 1941. Forty Jews lived there, led by Moshe Rabinowicz and Henoch Gutman. However, no conclusive link can be made to evidence that the Dror and Betar members were cooperating with each other. Frumka Plotnicka and Chawa Follman were the Dror representatives.
Others mentioned in the testimony of Fela Szabszyk as participating with Betar in Hrubieszow include: her brother Moshe Szabszyk (perished at Sobibor), Olek Halbersztadt, Natan Schulz, Josef "Jerzy" Bielawski, Salek Hazenszprung, Avraham Bekkerman, and unknown Apfelbaum. Laskier mentions only Chaim Haus, Aszer Frenkel, Felek Langleben, and unknown Szochet. Researcher Chaim Lazar-Litai, in his book Muranowska 7, notes that Chedwa Wicher and Langleben were arrested on the train to Zamosc and shot.
The fate of Julek Brandt is known: after jumping from a transport to Sobibor in October 1942, he and several Judenrat members were betrayed by local peasants and turned over to the gendarmerie. They were then delivered to the Gestapo in Hrubieszow. Somehow, Brandt to convince the Germans to create a work camp in Hrubieszow. This work camp saved the lives of the 200 remaining Jews in Hrubieszow, who would have surely been murdered if it did not exist. (Note: My grandfather was among those in the Jatkowa camp.) Tragically, Julek Brandt was taken to the Jewish cemetery in Hrubieszow and murdered by Gestapo-man August Ebner in December 1942 or January 1943.
According to partisan Adam Halperin, "This was the first stage in Betar's war of defense. It was also the first military action undertaken by the Jews of Warsaw." Concludes Libionka and Weinbaum, "No matter how we choose to assess this curious chapter in history, we do know that the few survivors of the Hrubieszow experience were mobilized into the nascent Revisionist fighting organization and heroically fought and died in its ranks." Read more about the Betar partisans near Hrubieszow here.
