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“Frank Blaichman’s Biography”. Facing History and Ourselves,

https://www.facinghistory.org/resource-library/resistance-during-holocaust/frank-blaichman-s-biography. Accessed 15 February 2022.

Genzlinger, Neil “Frank Blaichman, 96, Dies; Led Jewish Fighters in World War II”. New York Times, 25 January 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/25/obituaries/frank-blaichman-dead.html. Accessed 15 February 2022.

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Frank Blaichman was born in the small town of Kamionka, Poland on December 11, 1922.  When the German Army invaded the western and central parts of Poland in 1939, Frank was only 16 years old. Frank's family, among the several hundred Jews living in the town, were merchants. His grandmother owned a grocery store and his father bought grain from farmers in the area, selling it to nearby towns and cities in Lublin. After the invasion, Germans took away businesses, land, valuables, and free will to leave their homes away from Jews. Frank immediately began to take daring risks to help his parents and six siblings survive, which caused him to illegally take the road. He would ride his bicycle to neighboring farms and villages, such as Lubartów and Lublin, to buy and sell whatever he could get his hands on. These materials are things such as chickens, honey, butter, and meat which he would sell to farmers, where he would then buy tobacco, yarn, and saccharin.

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Frank refused to be put in a ghetto. Even if it meant that he would never see his family again. In 1942, he said his goodbyes to his family and took off to a farm where he was safely kept, then to the woods where he met others who had sought refuge.

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“I’m very proud of what I did all those years….The reality was we had nothing to lose, and our way to survive was to fight.” -Frank Blaichman

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They made it harder on the Germans to do their jobs, which were taking, harming, and putting Jews to work as well as distracting them. It also led them to fight in World War II.

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Frank found an encampment in the woods with small bunkers built into the sand with padded straw, which was later attacked by Germans who killed 80 Jews. Frank was luckily one of the 22 who survived the attack. This led to the surviving group to split up and stay at local farmers' houses until Frank's group grew to 60 members. This was when he joined forces with refugees from the town of Markuszaw. From there the group would grow bigger, which led him to meet Samuel ``Mitek'' Guber who had escaped from an prisoner-of-war camp with 28 other men. Before being caught by Germans, Gruber 's group had fought in the Polish army, and had experience with fighting and handling explosives. They were becoming a disciplined fighting  force known as the Markuszaw group. They hunted spies and collaborators in the area, disrupted communication by destroying telephone lines, damaged dairy factories that produced German food, and ambushed German patrols. Eventually, the group expanded again giving them access to explosives, hand grenades, land mines, machine guns, submachine guns, mortars, anti-tank guns, and all of the ammunition they needed. At the age of 21, Frank became the youngest platoon member in the expanded unit. He was also selected to escort the future prime minister of Poland to a secret meeting with Soviet high command.

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Mr.Blaichman was assigned to the Polish Security Police where he would track down Nazi collaborators. Frank then moved to the United States with his wife, Cesia Pomeranc, whom he met during the war. He was active in promoting the legacy of the partisans. Frank was hoping to counter that misperception that all Jews went passively to their fate and that none fought back against the Nazis. In 2009, Frank told his story in a book called, “Rather Die Fighting: A Memoir of World War II.” He also told his story in an oral history recording, made for the United Sates Holocaust Memrial Museum, as well as in many documentaries.

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To find interviews of Frank Blaichman, visit https://collections.ushmm.org/search/catalog/irn505560

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Oral history interview with Frank Blaichman - Collections Search - United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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Frank Blaichman discusses his memories of hard labor and various persecutions suffered by Jews when Germany invaded Poland at the beginning of World War II; his time in a ghetto in Poland; his escape to and time in hiding in a forest in Poland; his involvement with a group of