NOTABLE JEWISH PARTISANS

MORDECHAI ANIELEWICZ

Mordechai Anielewicz was born in 1919. At the age of 14, he joined the Betar youth movement which was a Revisionist-Zionist movement committed to helping Zionist kids become leaders. When he was 18 he went to a training camp meant for people who were about to enter the Polish army. Near the end of 1939, Mordechai started trying to convince Jewish youth movements to turn into fighting partisan groups. In 1940 the Germans rounded up 400,000 Jews and forced them into the Warsaw Ghetto. Later that year Anielewicz intentionally snuck into the ghetto with intentions to establish a secret underground newspaper and to train and organize partisan groups. In the year 1942, a partisan group that operated outside the ghetto was able to sneak in a meager amount of weapons into the ghetto. On January 18, 1943, Mordechai led a small group of fighters to attack German soldiers and free Jews who were being deported. It might have seemed like a small victory but for Anielewicz, it was the first spark of resistance. On April 19, 1943, members of some of the groups Mordechai helped form bombarded the Germans with pistols, homemade hand grenades, and Molotov cocktails. The attack was a success but later that week the Germans started burning down the Ghetto. The Jews had nowhere to hide and take cover. Later that week the Jewish resistance headquarters in Muranow fell. It is presumed that Mordechai Anilewicz died on May 8, 1943, alongside his girlfriend, Mira.

MARIA BRUSKINA

Maria Bruskina was born in Belarus in 1924. She lived with her mother in Minsk which is the largest and capital city in Belarus. She was part of a youth group called the Vladimir Lenin All-Union Pioneer Organization which was the Russian-Communist equivalent American Scouts because it taught leadership and team-work. In June of 1941, she passed high school with outstanding grades. She volunteered to help the Soviet Army as a nurse at the Minsk Polytechnic Institute. Additionally, she helped members of the Soviet army escape by giving them normal clothes and fake identifications. Someone at the hospital told the Germans about what Maria was doing and on October 14, 1941, she was arrested by members of the Wehrmacht's 707th Infantry Division and the 2nd Schutzmannschaft Battalion. After she was arrested she wrote a letter to her mother saying “I am tormented by the thought that I have caused you great worry. Don't worry. Nothing bad has happened to me. I swear to you that you will have no further unpleasantness because of me. If you can, please send me my dress, my green blouse, and white socks. I want to be dressed decently when I leave here.” The Germans later decided that she was going to be hanged on Sunday, October 26, 1941, along with two other members of the resistance, one of them being a 16-year-old, and the other being a World War One veteran. On the day of her execution, the Germans forced her to wear a sign saying “We are partisans and have shot at German troops".

HIRSH GLICK

Hirsh Glick was born in 1922 in Vilna, Lithuania. He went to a Jewish elementary school until his family ran out of money and he was forced to work in an iron factory. When he was 13 he started writing poetry in Hebrew but later he switched to Yiddish. When he was 16 he formed a poetry group with a lot of other young poets called Yungvald or translated to English, Young Tree. In 1939 when the Soviets took over Lithuania, Glick’s poetry became even more famous because it was featured in multiple newspapers and articles. Even though his poetry was successful he and his family were still poor so again, he was forced to work multiple jobs. In 1941 when Germany invaded Lithuania, Glick was one of the multiple Jews who attempted to flee the suburbs and run to the forest to join the partisans. Like multiple others, he was caught by the Germans and thrown in jail. When he was released he decided to volunteer at Rezeza Labor Camp, to cut peat. Since he was working in a swampy area he nearly died of typhoid fever. Even while he was sick he continued to write poems. Later, he was imprisoned in a concentration camp, and then in 1942, he was transferred to the Vilna Ghetto. During his time at the Ghetto, he wrote his most famous songs yet called Zog nit keynmol. That song basically became the anthem of the Jewish Partisans quickly because it was a song of resistance and optimism. At the Ghetto, he was involved in sabotages and preparations for planning a revolt. Glick was then sent to a concentration camp in Estonia. In 1944 when the camp was going to be destroyed by the Germans, Glick and another 40 prisoners managed to escape and flee to the forests. Once he was in the forest he joined a group of partisans. It is presumed that he died in combat fighting the Germans.

HANNAH SENESH

Hannah Senesh was born on July 17, 1921 in Hungary. When she was just six-years-old, her father who was a journalist and playwright, passed away. After that, she lived with her mother, her sister, and her brother. She went to a Protestant private school that allowed Jews and Catholics to learn there for triple the amount of money it cost Protestants. Once her mother thought it was too expensive she bargained with the school so that she only had to pay double, so the school allowed Senesh to remain as a “Gifted Student”. Later she joined a Zionist youth organization called Maccabea. In 1939 she graduated and then moved to what was the British Mandate of Palestine so that she could learn Girl’s Agricultural School in Nahalal. In 1941 she joined a kibbutz called Sdot Yam and then she joined the Haganah which was the beginning of what would become the Israel Defence Force from 1920 to the creation of Israel. In 1943 she enlisted in Britain’s Women's Auxiliary Air Force or WAAF as an aircraftwoman 2nd class. Because she was doing so well, she was selected to get into the Special Operation Executive or SOE. Once she was selected, she went to Egypt for parachute training. On March 14, 1944, she and two other colleagues parachuted into Yugoslavia with intensions to join them and establish communications with them for the British. Her superiors called off the mission because they thought it was too dangerous. Only three months later, on June 7, 1944, she crossed the Hungarian border in order to escape but was immediately captured by Hungarian police who were on the Germans side. Once they found her British transmitter she was brutally tortured and lost several teeth. Even once her mother was arrested she refused to give the Germans the information they wanted. Even while she was in prison she continued to rebel by sending signals and carving Magen Davids in the dirt. On November 7, 1944, she was executed by firing squad for treason. In 1950 her remains were brought to Israel and until today she has been seen as a hero to the Jewish people.

EUGENIO CALÒ

Eugenio Calò was born on July 2, 1906, in Pisa Italy but when he was a kid he moved to Arezzo. Calò was born to a Jewish-Sephardic family and both he and his wife, Carolina Lombroso Calòwere were Jewish. Once the German invasion of Italy happened in 1943, Anti-Semitic prosecutions rose by a considerable amount. Calò was second in command of a partisan division called Pio Borri which fought against the Germans in the mountains of Casentino in Tuscany. One day, Calò was shocked to see that his family had been arrested and that they were now at Florence's, Le Murate jail. He tried to break them out but failed, but in the end, in May 1944 his family was sent to Auschwitz where they were murdered by the Germans. In July of 1944, just two months after his family was sent to Auschwitz, he and his group of partisans captured 30 German soldiers. The other members of the group wanted to shoot them on site, but Calò knew that was not the right thing to do so he made the Germans that he captured POWs (Prisoners of War) much to his comrade’s distaste. Calò decided and volunteered that he was going to take the German prisoners and hand them over to the Allied troops in Cortona. After they gave them the prisoners, General Clark Mark of the United States Fifth Army asked for two volunteers to bring a message back to Calò’s partisan group, saying where and when to coordinate the attacks for the liberation of Arezzo. They succeeded with there mission, but on June 14, 1944, the same day that the liberation of Arezzo was planned to be, Calò, some of his fellow partisans, and some civilians were captured by the Germans at Molin dei Falchi. Even when the Germans tortured him he would not give away any information about anything so they decided to kill him. Eugenio Calò died on July 14, 1944, just a month after he got captured. In 1947 he was awarded Italy’s Gold Medal For Military Honor which is the highest medal military personnel can be awarded.