Portrait of a Jewish Lithuanian partisan, drawn by Alexander Bogen

Alexander Katzenbogen was born January 24, 1916, in Tartu, Estonia. His parents were both doctors. His father was from a secular Jewish background; his mother was the daughter of Rabbi Tuvia Lobitzki of Volkovysk, Poland (now in Belarus). When Alexander was two years old, the family moved to Vilna, Lithuania. The atmosphere in the home as he was growing up was liberal. His parents were socialists; he was a member of the Socialist-Zionist youth group Hashomer Hatzair. He married Rachel Shachor (b. 1914).

In 1941, Alexander was studying art at the University of Vilna. At that time, Vilna was under Soviet rule. On June 22, Germany invaded the Soviet Union and German planes bombed Vilna. Alexander and Rachel joined a large exodus from the city on foot toward the east. They got as far as Minsk, a distance of over a hundred miles, before German military activity forced them to turn back and return to Vilna. The journey east and then back to the west took months. Along the way, Alexander began sketching what he saw of the suffering of his fellow Jews under the new German occupation.

Alexander and Rachel were among the Jews confined to the Vilna ghetto, where Alexander joined the FPO, the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (United Partisan Organization), an underground organization inside the ghetto with paramilitary aspirations. He had the code name Shura. In addition to activities in the FPO, he sketched images of life in the ghetto. There was a debate within the FPO about whether to make a last stand against the Germans inside the ghetto, or to join partisans on the outside in the ongoing fight against the German occupation of the region. On July 29, 1943, a small band of FPO members, Alexander among them, escaped the ghetto and joined the Voroshilov brigade of partisans in the Naroch Forest, 60 miles to the east.

The majority of the partisans there were non-Jewish Russians. An all-Jewish unit was formed, called Nekhamah (Revenge). Alexander and other members of the unit distinguished themselves in paramilitary actions. Even under those conditions, Alexander sketched, using scraps of packing paper and charcoal made by burning dry branches. He sketched his fellow partisans, sometimes doing so as he and they were going into battle. In later years, he recalled, “Each man when he is standing face to face with cruel danger, with death, reacts in his way. The artist reacts with his means. This is his protest! This is my means! He reacts in an artistic way. This is his weapon.” The partisans produced a small newspaper on a mobile press. Alexander prepared woodcuts for the publication using his pen-knife.

At the beginning of September, 1943, a plan was formed for Alexander and a band of Jewish partisans to return to Vilna to infiltrate the ghetto and help potential fighters escape. The journey from the Naroch forest back to Vilna took a week. Along the way, Alexander’s group took food from peasants, sometimes at gunpoint. Once inside the ghetto, he reestablished contact with the FPO. German troops were in the final phase of liquidating the ghetto. Again, Alexander sketched what he observed. “We saw forsaken children. We saw people being taken to slaughter. I could not let my pencil fall. To tell about this to a world that was uninformed--to be creative in the situation of the Holocaust, this is also a protest.” On September 11, he helped lead 150 FPO members in an escape from the ghetto and on the journey to the Naroch Forest. His wife, Rachel, and her mother were also among the escapees.

Anti-Semitism by the Russian partisans made the position of the Jews among them difficult. Alexander was removed from military action and spent his time recording the history of the partisans by sketching their way of life. After the war, Alexander and Rachel returned to Vilna. Alexander returned to his studies and graduated in 1947, then he and his wife emigrated to Poland, where he became an award-winning artist. They had a son, Michael. In 1951, they made aliyah to Israel. During his career as an artist there, Alexander frequently used the subjects he had sketched during the war. Rachel died in 1998 at age 83 (or 84?), Alexander on October 20, 2010 at age 94.

Teodor Scheres (Tuvia Sheres) was born on February 6, 1920, in Vilna (Vilnius), Lithuania), to Jewish parents Efraim and Peshe (Pesia) Liliansky Szeres. His mother Peshe was born in 1900 to Tajba and Wolf Lilinasky (Lilianska), also in Vilna, when it was part of the Russian Empire. The city was annexed by Poland in February 1922. Tuvia had a brother Harry. In September 1939, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland. Soviet forces occupied Vilna on September 19. The Soviets ceded the city to independent Lithuania in October. There was a huge influx of Jewish refugees from German and Soviet occupied territory and Vilna was a major Jewish center. The Soviets took back control of the city in June 1940, closing all community and religious organizations.

In June 1941, Germany launched an invasion of the Soviet Union. Germans forces occupied Vilna on June 24. There were widespread attacks on Jews by pro-German, anti-Jewish Lithuanians, killing hundreds. In July, German mobile killing units, known as Einsatzgruppe, with Lithuanian auxiliaries, began mass executions of Vilna Jews in the Ponary forest; thousands of Jews were massacred. Jews were drafted for forced labor, and had to wear yellow badges and later, a white armband with a yellow Star of David and a J for Jew. Tuvia and his family, and the other Jewish residents, were forced to move into a ghetto. Tuvia was assigned to work as a mechanical engineer at the HKP slave labor camp in the ghetto. Tuvia’s mother was killed circa 1942, possibly shot by the Gestapo or after being deported to a labor camp in Estonia. In 1943, Tuvia faked his own death in order to escape the ghetto. He joined a group of Russian partisans in the Naroch (Narocz) forest, who ran rescue missions to the ghetto to help potential fighters escape. The ghetto was liquidated on September 23, 1943. The majority of the Russian partisans were not Jewish and anti-Semitism was often an issue. He knew the artist Alexander Bogen, who was with the all-Jewish unit called Nekhamah (Revenge). Tuvia was in the Voroshilova Brigade with Markoya. He was in the Chapaev Unit and proved himself a skilled fighter in guerilla raids against German troops. He became known as Tevko the Tiger and the Germans offered rewards for his capture, dead or alive. Tuvia fought with the partisans until July 1944, when the region was liberated by Soviet forces.

Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. By 1946, Tuvia had made his way to Milan, Italy. He worked with the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee helping fellow survivors living in displaced persons camp. He also ran a factory, which served as a cover for gathering people for Bricha, an organization that helped survivors emigrate illegally to Palestine. During this time, Tuvia met Regina (Dina) Gruber, who lived in Bari DP camp. Dina was born on April 17, 1924, in Lwow, Poland (now L’viv, Ukraine) and had survived the war by living in hiding under an assumed identity. She lost her entre family to the Holocaust. Dina began assisting Tuvia in his Bricha activities and aid work. Tuvia and Dina married in Italy. They left for Canada in 1949. Tuvia went by the name Ted. The couple settled in Montreal and had three children. Ted (Tuvia), 92, passed away in Montreal in 2002.