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The FPO, or Fareinikte Partisaner Organizatzie, which translated to English is United Partisans Organization, was the rebel group that Abba partially founded, the FPO helped smuggle children out of ghetto's and into allied countries, helped with sabotage missions against the Nazi's, and secretly doing everything he could to bring down the Nazi empire. Him and some of his soldier friends once planted a bomb on some railroad track and blew up a German freight train.

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Vitka Kempner, Abba's fiancee

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The Story of Abba Kovner - Revolt & Resistance www.HolocaustResearchProject.org

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Holocaust Education & Archive Research Team

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Abba and his future wife, Vitka Kempner

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This is one poem of many written by Abba Kovner, "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.
As he listens through the secret door he will turn his inner ear to the dark murmur: 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's plan to stand up to the Nazi's was very well thought out, along with some quick turns, once when they were scouting, Abba and some of his comrade's blew up a German train.

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When Abba was walking through Vilna, he heard a commotion, and decided to look through a window and he reported what he saw to some of his friends, "A woman was holding something in her arms. One of them (A Nazi soldier) directed a beam of light a into her face, the other dragged her by her hair and threw her on the pavement. Then the infant flew out of her arms. One of the two, the one with the flashlight, I believe, took the infant, raised him into the air, grabbing him by the leg. The woman crawled on the earth, took hold of his boot and pleaded for mercy. But the soldier took the boy and hit him with his head against the wall, once, twice, smashed him against the wall!"

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Article about Abba Kovner by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum

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"Jewish youth! Do not trust those who are trying to deceive you. Hitler plans to destroy all the Jews of Europe...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!"

With these words on December 31, 1941, Abba Kovner galvanized the divided factions of the Vilna ghetto resistance to join together and fight back against their would-be murderers. Three weeks later, the FPO (United Partisan Organization) was born.

Kovner would go on to command the FPO, lead the famed "Avengers" partisan unit, help found the State of Israel-becoming one of its most honored poets-and reputedly continue to hunt Nazis after the war.

Born in 1918 in Sebastopol, Russia, Kovner spent his high school years in Vilna, Lithuania-the 'Jerusalem of Europe'-where he joined the Ha-Shomer ha-Za'ir youth movement. Hearing rumors of killings and mass graves in nearby Ponar, Kovner and his youth group friends self-organized as partisans. They snuck out of the ghetto to execute sabotage missions, manufactured bombs, trained fighters, and acquired weapons which were smuggled into the ghetto in false-bottomed coffins or through the sewers.

The FPO continually pleaded with the Jews of Vilna to join the partisans in a popular uprising. Realizing Vilna's Jews would not rise up before the final destruction of the ghetto, Kovner sent the majority of the partisans (about 300) into the forest. Those who stayed, including Kovner, took up positions in abandoned buildings and briefly fought the Germans before escaping the destruction.

Kovner led the remaining partisans to the Rudnicki Forest where the "Avengers" earned a distinguished record, destroying over 180 miles of train tracks, 5 bridges, 40 enemy train cars, killing 212 enemy soldiers and rescuing at least 71 Jews. Kovner was convinced that Jews could gain self-respect through fighting, and that Jews must fight as Jews. He refused to be absorbed into Lithuanian or Russian partisan groups.

Kovner and the partisans returned to Vilna with the Red Army on July 7, 1944, recapturing the city from the Germans on July 13, 1944.

Following the war, Abba Kovner helped surviving Jews reach mandate Palestine. He also formed a new organization with 50 other partisans, reportedly attempting to poison thousands of Nazi and SS prisoners in a Nuremberg POW camp. Accounts differ as to how many Germans were injured or killed. Soon after, he and fellow Vilna partisan Vitka Kempner were married and smuggled into mandate Palestine.

In 1961, Kovner testified at the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann. Kovner continued to inspire people with his writing, and won the "Israel Prize" in literature for his poetry in 1970. Abba Kovner died in 1987.

Primary resources by the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. © 2018 Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. All Rights Reserved. For more information, go to www.jewishpartisans.org.

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Read the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation's short biography of Abba Kovner.

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Ponary (Pronounced: Poh-Nar) Was passed off as a Jewish work camp, but was actually a Jewish killing camp, and whoever was sent there was eventually shot to death.

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Kovner recites his 1942 manifesto at the Trial of Adolf Eichmann---"Cast aside all illusions. your children, your husbands, and your wives are no longer alive. Ponary is not a work camp- They were all shot there. Hitler is scheming to annihilate all of European Jewry. Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter! It is true that we are weak and defenseless , but the only response to the enemy is resistance!"

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Abba Kovner | Historical Figures of the Holocaust | Yad Vashem

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"Jewish youth! Do not trust those who are trying to deceive you. Hitler plans to destroy all the Jews of Europe... 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 murders. Arise! Arise with your last breath!" -- Abba Kovner, December 31, 1941

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The Ponary Massacre was the liquidation of nearly 100,000 people, this group of people were mostly of Jewish, Polish, and Russian ethnicity were killed here. The murders took place from July, 1941, and August, 1944, near the central train station of Ponary.