A place for families of Jewish partisans from World War II to connect and share their stories.
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Boris Jochai


Boris Jochai was born in early 1922 in the small village of Swencian, Poland. He lived with his parents, Chaim and Chasia, and his younger siblings, Lova, Dudke, and Pesia. A third of Swencian’s population was Jewish, and it was a vibrant, interconnected community. Boris’ father was a tanner...

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Community Stories

Benjamin Bedzow


Benjamin Bedzow (Bedzowski), was born on November 11, 1933 in the town of Lida, Poland, located in present-day Belarus. He lived with...

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Yehoshua Kanonich


Yehoshua Kanonich fled from his hometown of Manyevich, Poland on September 1, 1942, as the Gestapo was emptying the surrounding villages of...

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Julius (Yehuda) Rytman


Julius (Yehuda) Rytman was born on July 13, 1925, in the village of Dokshitz-Parafianov in Belarus. He lived with his parents, Eli...

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Esther Klug


Esther Klug (born Esther Ass) was born on June 5, 1928, in Novogrudok, Poland. She lived with her parents, Yaakov Menachem and...

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Sonia Orbuch


In 1941, the small Polish town of Luboml fell under German occupation following Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union. Among the 8,000...

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David Elazar


David Elazar was born on September 16, 1919, in Kosovska Mitrovica, then part of Yugoslavia. David had eight siblings, Moshe, Nissim, Yaakov,...

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The biographies on this site are compiled from testimonies, recollections, transcripts, memoirs, and biographies of Jewish partisans, their children and their grandchildren.