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Abba Kovner was born in 1918 in Sebastopol, Crimea. He was raised in a Jewish community were he learned Jewish teachings and beliefs. Abba enrolled as an art student at a university in Vilna. Abba along with many others were interested in the Zionist movement, so he joined a local youth group called Ha-Shomer ha-Tsair.

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June 24th, 1941 the Nazis had occupied Vilna. Many attempted to flee eastward but were quickly rounded up by rapid German advances. The Nazis then established two ghettos in Vilna, referred to as Ghetto No.1 and Ghetto No.2. Abba Kovner and members of the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsair fled the city and hid in a convnet a few hours away from Vilna.

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Kovner and his companions decided to go into the ghettos their focus being setting up an organized resistance. At the same time Kovner and his companions entered the ghetto, a handful of jews had already realized that the Nazis meant to kill them all. Although there were still some jews who didn't believe in the stories of the mass shootings. There was a divide in the ghetto between those who believed those who didn't.

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Kovner took it upon himself to motivate those who didn't believe in the brutality of the Nazis, he shouted to those around him,

"Jewish youth! Do not trust those who are trying to deceive you. Out of the eighty thousand Jews in the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" only twenty thousand are left. . . .

Ponary is not a concentration camp. They have all been shot there. Hitler plans to destroy all the Jews of Europe, and the Jews of Lithuania have been chosen as the first in line.

We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter! True, we are weak and defenseless, but the only reply to the murderer is revolt! Brothers! Better to fall as  free fighters than to live by the mercy of the murderers. Arise! Arise with your last breath!"

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With the help of Kovner's speech the FPO was then created uniting the divided factions of the ghetto. The FPO was lead by a staff command system consisting of 5 members including Kovner, their leader being a man named Yitzhak Wittenberg. The FPO's main goals: Establish a means of self defense for those inside the ghetto, sabotage German industrial and military activities, join the partisan and Red army's fight against the Nazis.

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Jacob Gens was the leader of Vilna's Jewish Council. He believed that the only way to survive total Nazi annihilation would be to prove themselves useful to the Germans economically. He also believed that the FPO was only aggravating the Nazis. He was able to change public opinion against the FPO.

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Gens had set up a meting with the leader of the FPO, Yitzhak Wittenberg were he was arrested by Gen after the Germans caught wind of the resistance movements and pressured him into doing so. FPO members were alerted and in anger began to attack Jewish soldiers and eventually broke Wittenberg out of jail. Once the Germans had found out about Wittenberg's failed arrest, they threatened to murder the remaining jews in the ghetto if Wittenberg were to not be arrested. Gens said this in a panic "Whether it was worth sacrificing tens of thousands of lives for the sake of one man?" while an FPO member said this "How could they engage in a fight against the ghetto population they had taken an oath to defend?"

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Demonstrates the tenacious efforts of the FPO.

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Set It Off, Ft. Ash Costello-Partners In Crime (Lyrics Video)

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The trajectory of the poet Abba Kovner is one of the least known and one of the most extraordinary in the dark annals of the Holocaust.

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As Wittenberg's last act as a leader before he submitted himself to the Gestapo, he had appointed Abba Kovner as the new leader of the FPO. As the new leader of the FPO, Kovner led multiple operations in which they sabotaged German military trains and equipment transports, as well as set up an illegal printing press outside of the ghetto. His main goal was to establish ties with the soviet partisans in the city and forests.

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Kovner and his companions continued to lead multiple brave deeds of sabotage, even after they were unsuccessful in saving the remaining jews from the final liquidation of the ghetto. Once the war was over Kovner helped organize the Berhia movement in which their aim was to assist those displaced in German camps. Kovner then settled down in Palestine with his wife, and later dedicated his life to poetry. Abba Kovner passed away on September 1987 at age 69.

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No more willful silences.

No more verbal contact, he who loved to listen to so many will never again hear his own voice among them.

He will sit with his friends over talk from now on under constraint.

The talk. The thoughts. The friends.

And as he listens through the secret door he will turn his inner ear to the dark mumur: Son of man,

all this and all this never was and never will be

as good as one living word.

-Abba Kovner

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Abba Kovner in the center surrounded by his companions