Discover the Hidden History of the Holocaust

Discover the Hidden History of the Holocaust

Explore: What is a Partisan?

Explore: What is a Partisan?

Approximately 30,000 Jews throughout Eastern and Western Europe - many of them teens - fought back during the Holocaust as Jewish partisans.

JPEF develops and distributes effective educational materials about the Jewish partisans and their life lessons, bringing the celebration of heroic resistance against tyranny into educational and cultural organizations.

Watch: Our Documentary Films

Watch: Our Documentary Films

Witness the resistance of the partisans and hear their stories of endurance, struggle, and victory against the Nazis and their collaborators during World War II. Each 3-24-minute film tells the true story of courage and survival in the words of actual Jewish partisans.

Film

Introduction to the Jewish Partisans (6:37)

Film

Everyday the Impossible: Jewish Women in the Partisans (15:00)

Film

Living and Surviving in the Partisans: Food (3:52)

Film

Living and Surviving in the Partisans: Medicine (4:43)

Teach: Resources for Educators

Teach: Resources for Educators

Captivate and inspire students with free, ready-to-use curricula for teaching History, Leadership, Ethics and Jewish Values through the examples of Jews who fought back during the Holocaust. Lessons are appropriate to 6th – 12th grades.

Lesson Plans and Activities: Interactive and stimulating lessons that generate critical thinking, teacher guides, classroom discussion prompts, films, drawings, maps and photographs examine the unique resistance of the Jewish partisans during the Holocaust.

Study Guides and Biographies: Extraordinary personal stories of Jewish resistance and survival from partisans, revealed through video testimonies. Study guides that stimulate discussion on a variety of topics from Ethics of War to Jewish Women in the Partisans.

Empower: Our Featured Partisan Story

Empower: Our Featured Partisan Story

Meet one of JPEF’s 54 featured Jewish partisans as they share their stories of loss, resistance, survival, and perseverance with video testimonials, images and documents, and a short biography. These unique stories tell of partisan activities in Poland, Russia, Greece, Italy, France, Czechoslovakia, Bulgaria, Lithuania, Ukraine and other countries.

Sara Fortis

Born Sarika Yehoshua in 1927 in Chalkis, Greece, Sara Fortis went from village to village recruiting women who wanted to fight. She organized a band of all-female partisans, training young women to become bold fighters. They burned down houses, executed Nazi collaborators, and aided the Greek partisan movement in a way no group of females had before. By age 18, Sara was known as ‘Kapetenissa (Captain) Sarika’, a prominent and well-respected figure in the resistance, .