A special meeting of Hashomer Hatzair in Eisiskes attended by counselors from Vilna, including Abba Kovner.
Overview
- Caption
- A special meeting of Hashomer Hatzair in Eisiskes attended by counselors from Vilna, including Abba Kovner.
Among those pictured are: top row, from right to left: Boyarski, Krupski, Kaplan, Bichvid, unknown, son of Aronka, Reb Yoshe the coachman's son, unknown; second rowfrom the top: Michalowski, Boyarski, Krupski, Bichvid, Cofnas, Portnoy, Borshanski, Levitan (first names are unknown); third row from the top: Herzl, Miriam Lewinson, Lebovitz, Ginunski; fourth row from the top: Garmenishki, Rosenblum, Shalom Kahn, Reuven Paikowski. Sitting on the floor are Abba Kovner (with his hand on the boy in front of him), Manosh Blacharowicz, and Stoller (the girl in the center with blond curly hair).
Only 11 of those pictured survived the Holocaust, among them Abba Kovner and Reuven Paikowski. - Date
-
1941
- Locale
- Eisiskes, [Nowogrodek] Poland
- Variant Locale
- Eishyshok
Eshishuk
Eyshishkes
Ejszyszki
Eishishkes
Lithuania - Photo Credit
- United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, courtesy of The Shtetl Foundation
Rights & Restrictions
- Photo Source
-
The Shtetl Foundation (Yad Vashem Photo and Film Archives)
Copyright: Agency AgreementProvenance: Wiszik FamilySource Record ID: RN46-28 - Restriction
- NOT FOR RELEASE without the permission of the The Shtetl Foundation
Keywords & Subjects
- Keyword
- BICHWID FAMILY (EISISKES) BLACHAROWICZ FAMILY (EISISKES) BOYARSKI FAMILY (EISISKES) CHILDREN (4-12 YEARS) CHILDREN/YOUTH COFNAS FAMILY (EISISKES) FAMILIES (PREWAR JEWISH) GARMENISHKI FAMILY (EISISKES) GINUNSKI FAMILY (EISISKES) GROUP PORTRAITS JEWS (POLISH) KAHN FAMILY (EISISKES) KAPLAN FAMILY (EISISKES) KOVNER, ABBA LEJBOWICZ FAMILY (EISISKES) LEVITAN FAMILY (EISISKES) LEWINSON FAMILY (EISISKES) MICHALOWSKI FAMILY (EISISKES) PAIKOWSKI FAMILY (EISISKES) PORTNOY FAMILY (EISISKES) ROSENBLUM FAMILY (EISISKES) TOWER OF FACES YOUTH (13-20 YEARS) ZIONIST GROUPS (HASHOMER HATZAIR) ZIONIST GROUPS/ZIONISM
- Photo Designation
-
LIFE BEFORE THE HOLOCAUST: Yaffa Eliach Collection -- Families W
Administrative Notes
- Artifact Photographer
- Arnold Kramer
- Biography
- Abba Kovner (1918-1988), a Zionist youth leader from Hashomer Hatzair, played a key role in the founding of the United Partisan Organization, FPO (Fareynegte Partizaner Organizatsye), in wartime Vilna. It was Kovner who coined the phrase, "Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter," In his manifesto of December 1941, calling for Jewish armed resistance against the Nazis. As the commander of the FPO during the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto (September 1943), Kovner directed the escape of the Vilna underground into the forests. For the next ten months he commanded a Jewish partisan unit in the Rudninkai Forest. After liberation Kovner returned briefly to Vilna before turning his efforts to organizing the Bricha (the movement of Jewish survivors from Eastern Europe to the West). Kovner, like many former partisans, was possessed by the idea of revenge. To this end he helped found the Nekama [Revenge] organization in postwar Lublin. Nekama members set as their primary goal the poisoning of millions of German nationals by contaminating their water supply. But as a fall back, they adopted a plan to poison several thousand former SS members incarcerated in American POW camps. Nekama's plans were foiled when Kovner, who went to Palestine to secure the poison, was arrested on his return trip to Europe in December 1945. After spending four months in a military prison in Cairo, Kovner returned to Palestine and settled on Kibbutz Ein Hahoresh with his wife and fellow Vilna partisan, Vitka Kempner.
- Record last modified:
- 2004-05-18 00:00:00
- This page:
- https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/pa1125829
