The Story of an Underground: The Resistance of the Jews of Kovno (Lithuania) in the Second World War

by Dov Levin

Overview

This is the story of the fighting underground of the Jews of Kovno, Lithuania, in World War II. The authors, historians Zvie A. Brown and Dov Levin, were themselves members of the Kovno underground, and this well-researched book based on documentary material, verbal testimonies, and written memoirs of witnesses, among other sources is supplemented by the authors own personal accounts. The authors here describe the first steps of the organized Jewish underground in the Kovno Ghetto, its desperate search for allies outside the ghetto, and its first bloodstained attempts to break through the ring of isolation and establish a base of support for partisan battle. They relate the insurgence at its height: contacts with partisans in the forest, acquisition of weapons and equipment, and training of fighters for partisan warfare. They also analyze the complex relationship between the Jewish fighting organization on the one hand, and the Council of Elders and the Jewish police on the other, as well as the active assistance these official organizations gave to the underground. The text goes on to describe the operations of the partisans, many of whom were fighters from the Kovno Ghetto, and the process by which the fighters were accepted into Soviet partisan units. The authors paint a picture of daily life in the partisan brigades, including the tense relationship between the Jewish and non-Jewish fighters. They relate the final days of the underground as the ghetto was being destroyed, and then the last journey of the Kovno brigades from the forest bases back to liberated Kovno.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9789652296160
Publisher:	Gefen Publishing House
Publication date:	10/01/2014
Pages:	512
Product dimensions:	6.90(w) x 9.60(h) x 5.20(d)

Table of Contents

Foreword ix

Preface xiii

Introduction xvii

Key to Abbreviations Used in Footnotes xxxi

Part I Ravage and Horror

1 Murder and Plunder 3

2 The Ghetto in Frenzy 21

3 Birth of the Underground 55

Part II The Awakening

4 Toward Active Resistance 105

5 The First Breakthrough 127

6 Escape from the Fortress of Death 157

Part III Momentum

7 The Partisan Forest Receives the Ghetto Fighters 185

8 The Preparations Behind the Departures to the Forest 226

9 The Resistance Movement in the Labor Camps 263

Part IV War of Revenge

10 The Birth of the Kovno Battalions 277

11 Way of Life and Social Relations in the Partisan Units 306

12 Supply and Defense Activities 345

13 Partisan Missions 362

Part V The Final Days

14 Last Days of the Kovno Ghetto 401

15 Liberation 431

Appendix I Members of the Resistance Movement in the Kovno Ghetto 449

Appendix II Index of Witnesses 455

Appendix III Map of Kovno Ghetto 457

Suggested Reading 465

Bibliography 467

About the Authors 479

Index 483

Maps following page 288:

Kovno (Kaunas) Vicinity 1941-44

Kovno Ghetto 1941-44

Searching for a Way to the Partisans

Partisan activity in southeast Lithuania in February 1944

Penetration of the Partisans into Lithuania and Offensive of the Red Army in July 1944

What People are Saying About This

JPOST - Greer Fay Cashman

Holocaust survivors who resisted the Nazis as ghetto fighters, partisans, soldiers in the Red Army, or simply as freedom fighters who joined forces with non-Jewish comrades, are almost obsessive in their endeavors to prove that contrary to popular belief, not all Jews went like lambs to the slaughter.

One such person is Kovno-born historian Dov Levin, who fought as a partisan against the Nazis and later fought in Israel's War of Independence. Together with the late Prof. Zvi Bar-On (Brown), a philosopher who was born in Warsaw but went to Kovno where he joined the Jewish underground and fought as a partisan against the Nazis, Levin wrote The Story of an Underground, which details the resistance of Kovno's Jews during World War II.
What is particularly crucial about this book is that Levin interviewed the partisans more than half a century ago, and was thus able to get firsthand stories of many who have since died. Among these were Zev Birger, who for many years headed the Jerusalem International Book Fair; poet Abba Kovner, the visionary for Beit Hatfutsot, and his wife, Vitka, a partisan heroine in her own right; and Avraham Sutzkever, the acclaimed Yiddish poet who The New York Times described as “the greatest poet of the Holocaust.”

Editorial Reviews

"…the more he became involved with it, the more he realized its significance and what an important learning tool it could be for countless people with gaps in their knowledge of the Holocaust years."

"What is particularly crucial about this book is that Levin interviewed the partisans more than half a century ago, and was thus able to get firsthand stories of many [who have since died.]"

Jerusalem Post - Greer Fay Cashman