Below are questions answered by many of the Jewish partisans JPEF interviewed. Check and uncheck any answer or combination of answers, then scroll down to see which partisans answered like you did. Click their photo to find out more about them.
Many Jewish partisans in Eastern Europe lived in underground bunkers called zemlyankas (Russian for "dugout"): small, primitive shelters that provided a living and hiding space, sometimes for dozens of people, even through freezing winters.
Click and drag in the window below to explore a virtual model of Shalom Yoran's zemlyanka that he built and lived in with four other men in the winter of 1942.
1937 borders. Approximate areas of Jewish partisan activity marked in yellow.
Approximately 30,000 Jews throughout Eastern and Western Europe -- many of them teens -- fought back during the Holocaust as Jewish partisans.
During World War II, approximately 30,000 Jews throughout Eastern and Western Europe -- many of them teens -- fought back against the Germans and their collaborators as Jewish partisans. They were men and women from a variety of backgrounds.
Joe Kubryk was born in the Russian Ukraine, not far from Odessa, on July 1,1926. Before the war, the Kubryk family didn't experience much antisemitism, but after the war broke out, Joe's village was filled with Ukrainian fascists who cooperated with the Germans to kill Jews. When Joe saw the Germans rounding up his classmates, he knew he had to run for his life. In August 1941, not long after his friends were taken by the Nazis, Joe left the village. He found a Ukrainian farmer who hired him as a farmhand. The man didn't think Joe was a Jew because he spoke Ukrainian perfectly. While Joe cried himself to sleep at night, he never let anyone see him doing it. He didn't want to explain why he was crying.
Approximate area of partisan activity for
A few months after Joe arrived, a junior secret service was formed. Joe and the other teenagers began intensive spy training, learning how to recognize guns, artillery pieces, and officers' insignia. They were "toughed-up" in the training, taught secret codes and the rules of espionage. The Junior Secret Service spied on German troops. Platoon by platoon, they counted men, checked equipment, noted who the ranking officers were and where they were camped. They also provided information to saboteurs who mined bridges and railroads to disrupt German military activity. Joe still bears the shrapnel scars he received during gunfights with the German Army, and a German bombardment left him deaf in one ear.
After the war, Joe worked for the Bricha, the illegal immigration of Jews to Israel. Joe fought in Israel's War of Independence and worked for the Mossad, the Israeli Secret Service, before moving to America, where he became a successful businessman in Florida, where he lives to this day.
Engage and inspire your youth with these free, ready-to use materials for teaching History, Leadership, Ethics and Jewish Values through the life lessons of Jews who fought back during the Holocaust. Designed for 6th-12th grade History, English, Social Studies, Holocaust/Genocide and Jewish Studies classrooms and informal settings (youth groups, summer camps, etc.). Most materials can be completed in 45-60 minutes.
Watch short documentary films narrated by Ed Asner, Tova Feldshuh, Larry King, and Liev Schreiber made from from a collection of 50 original interviews with surviving Jewish partisans shot all over the world.
JPEF's Defiance Multimedia Curriculum, developed in cooperation with the film makers. Engage your students in critical thinking about History, Leadership, Ethics, and Jewish Values with JPEF's multimedia curriculum on teaching with the film.
