Trudy Gold
DIN and Abba Kovner: Justice or Revenge?
Trudy Gold | DIN and Abba Kovner Justice or Revenge | 04.26.22
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- Well, good afternoon, everyone, and the title of today’s presentation is Abba Kovner and Din. And I’ve subtitled it, “Justice or Revenge?” with a question mark, because today I’m going to talk about one of the most acute dilemmas. And in order to be able to give you the real story, bearing in mind that history is always about interpretation, I’m going to try and slot Abba Kovner into his period, into his time. He was one of the most fascinating characters that came out of this period. And so let’s get straight into his biography, so it will give us time at the end to discuss his life and work. So he was born in the Crimea. Can we see the first slide, please, Judi? Yeah, he was born in 1918, he survived ‘til 1987. He was born in the Crimea about 50 kilometres from Vilnius. His parents were Rose Taubman and Israel Kovner His parents moved to Vilnius when he was seven-years old, which was then part of independent Poland.
If you recall, we’ve looked at the collapse of Eastern Europe, at the end of the First World War, the collapse of the Russian Empire and the various wars, and what happens to Vilnius is that Vilnius, which had once been the capital of Lithuania, is now within Poland, and the capital of Lithuania at this period is Kaunas. He was educated at a Hebrew school, at a secondary Hebrew school, and then an arts school. He was a romantic figure, he was a poet, he was an artist. He studied at the university, he was a very, very intense, sincere, educated young man. He had a great poetic soul as well. So this is the background. He is going to become an very active member of Hashomer Hatzair, which of course is the left-wing Zionist movement. And just as a by the by, he was a cousin of Meir Vilner, real name Ber Kovner, who was the youngest signatory of the Declaration of Independence, May the 14th, 1948. He’d also been in Hashomer Hatzair, but he grew disillusioned and actually became a member of the Communist Party, which was illegal in Poland. And he finally made it to Palestine in 1938.
Now, what was Vilnius like when Abba Kovner lived there? And can we see a shot of Vilnius, if you don’t mind? Yeah, thank you very much. It’s a gorgeous city, isn’t it? I don’t know if any of you have visited, I have many, many times, the symbol of Vilnius is the sign of the wolf. When you’re there, you have all, I had all sorts of complicated emotions. And I know those of you who are in South Africa or are from South Africa, of course South African immigration, the majority of it did come from Lithuania. Now, Vilna was a great centre of Jewish life. The population of the city when Abba Kovner arrived there as a young boy, was 200,000, nearly 60,000 were Jewish. It had a huge tradition. One of the greatest figures in the Jewish world, Elijah, the Vilna Gaon of course came there, it was home to the great yeshivot. It was a thriving centre of Jewish life. Great libraries, it was a centre of Bundism, it had a large Jewish working class. It was also a centre of Zionism. And it was really one of the major centres of Jewish thought historically. And we’ll be looking at it in much more detail when we look at Eastern Europe.
The great libraries, much of it, thank goodness, were transferred to America, to YIVO. Now, in this unbelievably uneasy time, of course the Jews were under a lot of pressure. There’s a large Jewish working class, that’s one of the reasons the Bund was very strong, there’s a lot of resentment from the Polish and Lithuanian population. The Lithuanians living in Vilna feel very bad about being under Polish rule. So there’s all sorts of national problems. And of course the Jews, the non-Christian minority, are the major state vote. And then things go appallingly wrong because of the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In August, 1939, and we were spending a lot of time on this, particularly when I look at Stalin, Stalin signed a pact with Hitler. It absolutely stunned the world. And as a response to that, it gave Hitler his nod. He invaded Poland, and from the east, the Russians invaded Vilna. And what happens is, in the turmoil, in the absolute turmoil, the Jews are going to be scapegoated.
What happened was, Vilnius is taken by the Soviets, then on the 10th of October, 1940, the city is then transferred to the Lithuanians. In exchange, Soviet bases were established all over Lithuania. When the Lithuanian army took over from the Soviets, there was a three-day pogrom. Jewish tradesmen actually organised self-defense units, but the Lithuanian police often took their scythes, and it was only when the Soviet army came in that there was some sort of order. Now, in addition to all of this, the situation of the Jews in Poland under the Nazis was becoming, as you all know, unbelievably horrific. And about 15,000 Jews actually fled from Poland into the Russian zone. And it has to be said that for the Jews, Soviet rule was better to German rule. And in June, 1940, Lithuania is incorporated into the Soviet Union, becomes a Soviet republic. Now, under communism, you see, which is the better?
Another dilemma for you, under communism or the activities of Jewish organisations were stopped, as were Jewish political parties, schools and cultural associations are taken over, because we’re one people now. Think of communist doctrine, “Religion is the opium of the people,” the notion is to create the international society. And the use of Jewish language, the teaching of Jewish history, the teaching of Jewish religion is prohibited. And the nationalisation of all the petty traders, most of whom were Jewish, impoverished thousands of people. Now, the refugees, in particular, the new refugees tried to emigrate, and over 6 ½ thousand managed to get out. There was an extraordinary Japanese consul, a man called Sugihara, and he granted thousands of visas to allow the Jews passage out of, the Soviets allowed them passage. And many of them finished up in Shanghai. Why Shanghai? Because a quarter of Shanghai was an open city, and they found out you didn’t need a visa. And not only that, many Jews who were seen as capitalist influences or petty bourgeoisie, were themselves actually exiled to Siberia. Ironically, it’s going to save their lives.
So this doesn’t go on for very long, it’s a very bad time. Abba Kovner, meanwhile, is studying, he is living a life, he’s at the university. Remember, he’s very left wing. But then on the 22nd of June, 1941, the Soviets break the pact, and on the 24th of June, they capture Vilnius from the Soviets. Some young Jews managed to flee eastwards into Russia, which left a population of about 57,000 Jews. And as early as June the 27th, men are picked up off the streets for forced labour, they’re never seen again. Now, Abba Kovner is very politically active in Hashomer Hatzair, and he and 16 of his comrades fled to a Dominican convent, where a nun called Anna Borkowska helped them. And I think it’s worth talking about her, because in a dark period, shall we move on to the next slides please? I want you to see the communist invasion of Vilna, and now let’s look at the Nazi invasion of Vilna. Yeah, the Nazi occupation. Now, Anna is going to be an incredible friend to the Jews. Her dates in 1900 to 1988, she was a graduate of Krakow University. And realising what was happening to the Jews, remember, nobody had a better network of knowledge than the Catholic Church, she decided she wanted to help.
She was rebuffed by the church authorities, who didn’t want any repercussions, and she hid Kovner and his group under her own initiative, with a few other nuns, and they went to work in the fields. Later on, when the Vilnius Ghetto was established, she went to offer her services, against terrible risk. If anyone had found out, of course she would’ve died. She organised food supplies, she organised all sorts of supplies. And ironically, she worked on helping to get weapons, hand grenades, other weapons, and she was aided by other nuns in this. Just to continue her story, because as I said, we do need the positive, as well as the horror, she was arrested and sent to a labour camp, but survived the war. Now, after the war, she asked for a dispensation and she left the church. And 1984, when she was living alone in a tiny little flat in communist Warsaw, her work was honoured, she was awarded the title Righteous Amongst the Nations by Yad Vashem, and it was actually presented to her by Abba Kovner.
Now, hiding along with Kovner was an extraordinary man called Abraham Sutzkever. He survived until 2010. He was one of the greatest of the Yiddish poets. In fact, “The New York Times”, in his obituary, they called him, “The greatest poet of the Holocaust.” And in Vilna, before the invasion, he had become one of the major figures in a group called Young Vilna, a group of artists, a group of writers, of course that’s where he met Abba Kovner, these young intellectuals. And later on, in the ghetto, he hides the diary of Herzl and drawings by Chagall. He later is going to escape from the ghetto and fight in the Soviet partisans. His narrative poem called “Nidre” actually reached Stalin’s Anti-Fascist Committee. Stalin set up an Anti-Fascist Committee made up of Jewish intellectuals, and in fact, we’ll be having whole lectures on this. In March, '44, he was rescued along with his wife, and fled to North Moscow, where his daughter was born. He was a witness at Nuremberg, and testified against a man called Franz Murer, who’d murdered both his mother and his son. He had a daughter in Moscow.
In '47, he made it to Palestine. And in 1985, he was the first Yiddish poet to win the Israel Prize. Now, what happens is that the military administration gives way to a civil administration, and that of course is when the two ghettos are going to be established, and that’s going to exist until July, 1943. There was a man called Franz Murer, who I’ve just mentioned to you, his dates were 1912 to 1994. He was known as the Butcher of Vilna. And against the story of the nun, you now need to hear the story of one of the worst of the Nazis, because remember, this title is, “Din and Judgement .” He was born in Austria, as were so many of them, you remember our course on Vienna. He joined the NSDAP after the Anschluss, he trained in the Hitler Youth, he transfers to Vilnius, and he was in charge of Jewish affairs. Witnesses later said he was particularly sadistic. After the war, he went back to Austria. And in 1947, happenstance, he was recognised by a DP and arrested by the British. December, '48, he is transported back to the Soviet Union, because of course he was active in Vilnius. He was sentenced to 25 years hard labour.
But then the cynicism of the world, and this is something of course that William has lectured on, as part of the Austrian State Treaty of 1955, he was released back to Austria, and the Austrian Ministry of Justice ruled that his case was closed because he’d been tried in the Soviet Union. In 1961, he was arrested and tried in Graz, he was arrested and tried, specifically, for the murder of 17 people. Holocaust survivors testified. And this was much to do with the work of Simon Wiesenthal, because two of his subordinates had already been tried in West Germany and sentenced to life imprisonment. So now their boss is on trial again, with Holocaust survivors actually giving testimony. And the prosecutor said this, “We have to prove that the past is past in Austria, and that anyone who kills regardless of the race of the victim will be punished.” But ironically, or tragically, he was acquitted and he died in Graz in 1994.
Anyway, the ghetto is established, Kovner and his friends are on the outside. And at this stage, knowledge of Ponary is coming to the fore. Ponary was an area, beautiful area, wooded, beautiful holiday area not far from Vilnius. And it is now known that the first executions took place as early as the 8th of July, 1941. These of course are killing fields, because following the German army into battle where the Einsatzgruppen. And we now know that over 100,000 men, women and children were murdered and shot into the pits. Under the orders of the Einsatzgruppen, there were only 3,000 men in the four Einsatzgruppen units, we know that the majority of the murders were perpetrated by Lithuanian volunteer units, and we also know the discarded clothes were taken in the main by Lithuanian peasants. Of those who were murdered, 70,000 of them were Jewish, 20,000 of them were Polish, and 8,000 were Russian prisoners of war. In this notion, I’ll talk about sheep to the slaughter, you’ve got to remember, 8,000 were Russian prisoners of war. But miraculously, a few people escaped Ponary, including a woman who was hidden by a peasant.
She’d climbed out, she’d managed to make it to Vilnius, and more and more evidence comes through. And it’s at this stage, can we see the next slide please? There you have the Vilna Ghetto, the Rudnicki gate. And the next one, please, Judi. Yeah, and it’s at this stage, that speaking to 150 members of the different youth groups, remember, they’ve decided they’re coming back to the ghetto and they are going to create a fighting force. He now believed that Kovner, the poet, now believed that resistance was the only option. Now, the leader, the head of the Judenrat, as you all know, the Nazis, in their particular evil, set up Jewish councils to run the ghetto. Gens, the leader of the Vilnius Ghetto, is a particularly controversial figure. He did believe that if he obeyed orders and if he could manage, he was a member of the revisionists, he was a very strong man, and he often dealt with the Nazis, that he could actually manage to save some. He had a completely different view to Kovner. And this is the pamphlet that Kovner produced, and this is one version of it.
Let us read it together. “Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter, Jewish youth. Do not believe those who are deceiving you. Out of the 80,000 Jews of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, only 20,000 remain. In front of our eyes, our parents, our brothers and our sisters are being torn away from us. Where are the hundreds of men who were snatched away for labour by the Lithuanian kidnappers? Where are those naked women who were taken away on the horror night of provocation? Where are those Jews of the Day of Atonement?” The Nazis always organised raids on Jewish holidays and on Jewish commemoration days, it was a further fillip of their evil. “And where are our brothers of the second ghetto? Anyone who is taken up through the gates of the ghetto will never return. All roads to the ghetto lead to Ponary, and Ponary means death. Oh, despairing people, tear this deception away from your eyes. Your children, your husbands, your wives are no longer alive. Ponary is not a labour camp, everyone there is shot. Hitler aimed at destroying the Jews of Europe.”
This is actually the first public pronouncement of this. You’ve got to remember, nobody really knew what was going on. It turned out to be the fate of the Jews of Lithuania to be the first, the majority of them of course are shot to death. “Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter. It’s true that we are weak, lacking protection, but the only reply to a murder is resistance. Brother, it is better to die as free fighters than to live at the mercy of killers. Resist, resist, to our last breath.” Now, gradually, the youth movement became even bigger, And together, can we see the next slide, please, Judi? They created the United Partisan Unit. Now, the leader was a communist. What they managed to do was to bring together all the different factions. The communist leader was Yitzhak Wittenberg. He had two deputies, Kovner of course, from Hashomer Hatzair, and Joseph Glassman, who was Betar.
The Bund later on also joined the United Partisans. Glassman, ironically, was deputy to Jacob Gens, but nevertheless, he was totally trustworthy, and he was trusted. And sometimes Gens did turn a blind eye to what was going on, because of course what they’re trying to do is to get as many arms as possible, they’re stealing from the Germans, they are managing to obtain arms, and they intend to fight. They know that the ghetto is due to be liquidated, they intend to fight. By autumn, 1943, there are 300 members. They managed to sabotage German infrastructure. They even had an underground newspaper to report news, such as German defeats. You’re looking at an incredibly brave group of individuals. So, now, when the Germans heard of the planned uprising, they demand that Gens hand Wittenberg over. He was betrayed to the police, but then freed by the resistance fighters. Subsequently, he surrendered, because he thought if he didn’t surrender, they would just massacre everybody.
There are differing reports of his end. Those who said that Gens had redeeming features said that he smuggled poison to give to Wittenberg so that he wouldn’t be tortured, but others say that his mutilated body was found. And this all came out at the Eichmann Trial. And it also gives you a notion of the desperation. I want to say from the start that I have a real problem with the phrase, “Like sheep to the slaughter,” I do not believe it was like that at all, but I have to do it through the words of Abba Kovner. We know now that there were incredible amounts of Jewish resistance. But if you think about it, within your own family unit, how do you take on that someone hates you enough to kill everybody you love? Let me just put that question to you, because as I said, we’re talking about very dark things. And it’s at this stage that of course Abba Kovner takes command, and they don’t resist in the ghetto, they escape to the forests. And they escape in September, 1943, and they’re going to remain in the forests until July, '44. And who escapes with Kovner?
Many of his friends, including Vitka Kempner. Can we see her please? She was later his wife. And also a woman called Rozka Korczak. And they commanded, they called the group the Avengers, the Nokmim, the Avengers. They were an extraordinary group of young people, sabotage, guerrilla attacks against German collaborators. Later on, after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Lithuanians brought all sorts of cases against these people. And Jack Kagan, who I know many of you in London knew Jack, he was a wonderful man, he was in another partisan group, the Bielski, he actually went to Lithuania to give evidence in this kind of thing. Yes, of course they were killing Lithuanian collaborators. And this was one of the four predominantly Jewish groups operating under the very loose command of the Soviet partisans. Now, let’s talk a little bit about Vitka.
There were a lot of women in the partisan movement. She’d been born in Kalisz. Kalisz is a wonderfully beautiful city in Poland. She’d fled to Vilnius because of the invasion of Poland. And when Lithuania was invaded by the Nazis, she was forced into the ghetto, where she met Kovner. She joined the United Partisans, and it was really one of the most successful groups ever. She played a leading role. She, by the way, had been a revisionist. How that worked out later on, I can imagine you can work that out for yourselves. She was most famous for blowing up a Nazi train line with a homemade bomb. She was incredibly brave. You see, most of them had lost all their families. This was a militia, they’re based in the Rudnicki Forest. What they do is they’re involved in sabotage, sabotage. They manage to destroy the Vilnius power and water system. They looted the peasants homes to stay alive. They managed to survive in the forest for over 10 months, until Vilnius is occupied by the Soviets.
Now, later on, she and Kovner marry, and she moved to Palestine, had two children, and she became a clinical psychologist, and survived to 2012. Her close friend was a fascinating woman called Rozka Korczak. She was born in 1921. She organised Jewish strikes against anti-Semitism as a student. She was a member of Hashomer Hatzair, which, by the way means, Young Guard. Along with Vitka, she fled to Vilnius after the Nazi invasion. She was one of the leading lights of the United Partisans, involved in incredible daring smuggling arms into the ghetto, trying to smuggle Jews out. And after the failed uprising, she goes to the forest with them. And she’s later going to be involved in Bricha. So the war is, well, the Russians have liberated. And after the liberation, what happens is that these three, Vitka, the wife, Vitka, Rosa and Abba Kovner become involved in the Bricha movement. You can imagine the anger, the horror, we’ve already talked about what had happened to the Jews in Poland, get a picture of the absolute horror. And one of the issues that they realised, they had to get as many Jews out of Eastern Europe as possible after the war. And what were they doing?
And I’ve already mentioned Bricha to you, of course, what were they doing is that they were smuggling Jews out of Poland, particularly after the terrible Kielce pogrom, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. They were smuggling them in this overland route, and these three were absolutely crucial to them. And the idea was to funnel Jews into the American zone. “How many can we funnel into the American zone because we want the Americans to put pressure on the British to open up the gates of Palestine?” More than 70,000 of them are going to escape from Europe en route to the land of Israel. And as I’m sure many of you already know, many of the boats of course were piloted by Allied Jewish War veterans, mainly Americans. The British, because if you recall, Bevin will not change his mind, the British established armed patrols to stop the survivors reaching the land. Over half the boats were captured by the Royal Navy. 50,000 people were sent mainly to the camps on Cyprus, some to Atlit, some to the island of Mauritius, and tragically, 1,600 were drowned.
So he’s involved in Bricha, but there’s something else. What should one do about the Nazis? What should one do about the murderers? As these people, remember, they are strong, battle-hardened partisans, what do you do about the people who have murdered your family and the whole of your people? After the war, Allied officials identified over 13 million men in West Germany alone who were eligible for arrest because they were to be deemed to be part of the Nazi apparatus. Fewer than 3.5 million were ever charged, and 2/3 were released without trial. This left about a million. Most of them faced no greater sentence than a fine or confiscation of the property they had looted, and sometimes a brief ban on seeking public office. By 1949, only 300 Nazis were in prison. And later on, we are going to look in more detail at war crimes trials and the whole notion of them. And the big question, why were not the guilty punished?
Well, we know about the Nuremberg war crimes trials, but the world was intervening, events were intervening. This is a quote from David Cesarani, the late, great, lamented David Cesarani. When he was interviewed, he said, “It would’ve ended in the jailing almost the entire male population of Germany.” Also, we’ve discussed this, what about the Cold War? Who is the real enemy of the West? Think about it, think about the leader of the American space programme, Werner von Braun. He was the man who had sent the V-2s to London. A wanted war criminal or an important scientist. And the other point, as Russia is the big enemy, when you went to America, I don’t know how many of you remember travelling, but the question you were asked, that used to be asked when I first started travelling to the States, “Were you ever a member of the Communist Party?” So many ex-fascists made it to the West. And of course you have the Vatican, and “The Ratline”, that wonderful book by Philippe Sands, where an Austrian bishop, Alois Hudal, is actually transporting Nazis out of Europe. To where? South America, the Arab world, Spain. So justice, what about justice?
And the other point, Israel, Israel had to be created. What is the most important priority, to create a home for the Jewish people so that never again will they be at the mercy of other people in this way, or should we seek real justice? There were characters of course like Simon Wiesenthal, and what did Simon Wiesenthal do? He of course stayed behind. With his prodigious memory, he set up a record centre in Linz, and devoted his life to bringing down Nazi war criminals. As of course there were many others, including a Jewish public prosecutor in Germany, better known as the General, and I’m going to run a whole session on him, because he was quite extraordinary. Anyway, Abba Kovner decided that this was not good enough. And Nakam was formed in Bucharest. There’s one account, there are many different accounts, the problem is, for a long time, nobody would talk about it. There are now a few books. The first one was by Michael Elkins, it’s called “Forged in Fury”.
There’s another book by Rich Cohen called “The Avengers”. He had family connections. He’s also the man who wrote “Tough Jews” about the Jewish gangsters in America. And one former member of the Avengers, Joseph Harmatz, wrote the memoirs “From the Wings”. And Jonathan Freedland, a journalist with “The Guardian”, has also written a book on it. So we have more information now. But the problem is, the problem is, there’s conflicting evidence as to what actually happened in many of these situations. So I’m going to try and walk the path as carefully as possible. Now, according to one account, it was formed in the spring of 1945 in Bucharest. There was a gathering of Holocaust survivors, and Abba Kovner came to speak to them. And what he did was he addressed them by reading an extract from Psalm 94. Remember, he’s a poet, he’s a writer, he’s an artist. “We will repay them for their iniquity and wipe them out for their wickedness.”
Basically, he said if international justice would not do it, the Jews should do it themselves. We also know that the Jewish Brigade, now, who was the Jewish Brigade? You will recall, they were Jewish from Palestine, from Britain, from South Africa, many other parts of that then empire. And they were allowed finally to create an their own brigade, fighting under the star of David. And they were in Italy at the time of the liberation. And they obviously, and many of them, they were met by Kovner, and many of them decided to throw in their lot with him. And of course these characters had access to military intelligence and transport, and also they could travel freely across Europe. Never forget what Europe was like in 1945, millions of millions of people on the move, ruined cities. I mean, I remember, if you look at Warsaw, for example, there were only two hotels standing, the Polonia, those of you who’ve travelled, the Polonia was one of them, and the other one was the Bristol.
One was Allied headquarters, the other was Russian headquarters. These cities were all wastelands, Europe was a wasteland. And you have the Jewish Brigade now, many of whom have decided, plus Jewish soldiers who had fought for various, the British, the Americans, who had decided that now what they wanted was justice. Elkins’ book, which was the earliest, he actually says that their efforts endured long after the war. They are, if you like, Odessa’s nemesis. Odessa was the ratline set up by the Nazis. And what they did was, there are many different accounts, but what they did, and also the numbers vary, how many people were actually in the group? Some put it as low as 50, some as high as 200. But they set about implementing death sentences on wanted Nazis. What they did was they kidnapped them, they tried them, and quite often, they kidnapped them posing as military police. They would identify themselves. They would then try them and execute them.
Often, they tried to pass the deaths off as suicide, people found dead in roadside ditches, the product of a car accident. There were many car accidents, there was many mechanical failures. One senior Gestapo man, who was a brutal sadist, was waiting in hospital for a minor op, and somehow they managed to put kerosene in his bloodstream. It seems that dozens were killed in what Elkins called, “The first hunting season.” We also know that the group were joined by some survivors, I’ve already mentioned the Jewish Brigade, and also the partisans. So many of those who worked in Bricha also worked with the Avengers. Now, they then decided to go further. Stalag XIII was a detention centre for former SS in Nuremberg. What happened was, this was known as Plan B, and I’ll talk about Plan A.
Remember, Nakam had dedicated itself to avenge the murdered Jews, what happened was this. Kovner and his colleagues, they realised that the barracks, which was housing the SS men, was being fed by a local bakery. They managed to smuggle some of their agents into the bakery, and they poisoned the bread. It was reported, ironically, in “The New York Times”, this is “The New York Times” of April the 20th, 1946. “1,900 German prisoners of war were poisoned by arsenic, and all are seriously ill.” It appears though that none of them died. There was a public prosecution in Nuremberg in 2000, but the proceedings were stopped against two of the activists, the statute of limitations, and also due to unusual circumstances. So was this justice? Was this revenge? It’s for you to think about. Now, but that was not the only plan. And the next plan is very, very difficult to take or to deal with. Now, according to Rich Cohen’s book, five cities were targeted, Munich, Berlin, Weimar, Nuremberg and Hamburg, and the plan was to poison the water supply of the cities.
The Avengers had placed agents in the city’s water filtration plants. They got hold of the blueprints, they tried to ensure that only Germans, not Americans, were struck. Everything was in place, according to Harmatz and other of the books. The plan was to poison the water supply of five German cities, six million for six million. Kovner though decided for something like this, he needed moral backing. He went to Palestine, and this is where it gets very, very convoluted. Now, according to Kovner, he had a meeting with Weitzman, and Weitzman gave him the go-ahead. However, most of the sources believe that Weitzman had no problem with the poisoning of the barracks, but he never gave the order, he never gave his blessing to the wiping out of the Germans through the water supply. Now, we also know from the records that Ben-Gurion and Zalman Shazar were completely opposed to it, because you’ve also got to remember that what they are after is the creation of a state.
Can you imagine if they did that, what would happen? How would they be treated by the rest of the world, Jews poisoning, attempting, or successfully poisoning six million Germans? So according to the accounts, various accounts, and this is where the problem lies, according to Kovner, he was given the poison through Weitzman, and that is so denied in most of the books. What happens is, he is travelling back with the poison on a British ship when he is betrayed. He throws the poison canisters overboard, and the poisoning of the plants never occur. He is imprisoned. Can we go on please, Judi? Yeah, there you have the Soviet liberation of Vilna. See how destroyed the city is. Can we go on please? You see, this is the Bricha movement. It was so extraordinary, the moving of survivors. And you will remember, in the last presentation, I talked about all the work that was being done in the camps.
You see, for these people who’ve lost everything, particularly after what had happened to them in Eastern Europe, where else could they go but Palestine? Do you see how complex all these issues are? So can go back? Go on one more, Judi. Yeah, now we have some, go back to the picture of the Avengers. Go back on one, if you don’t mind? Can you go back one to the? Yeah, here you have Abba Kovner with the Avengers. He was very much their mentor. And then if you go onto the next picture, what he decides to do, he goes back to Palestine, where he joins the Haganah. And after the War of Independence, he becomes part of the Givati Brigade. Shall we see that picture please? Yeah, this is one of the most brave brigades in the Israeli army. And finally, if we could go on one more, he and his wife settled at Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh. That was earlier.
You can see, can you, the sort of Bauhaus-style buildings? And he becomes a very important figure in Israel. He doesn’t go into politics, he’s much too controversial. But can we see the next slide please, Judi? He was involved in much of the designing of the Diaspora Museum and other museums. Remember, he is an artist. And finally, of course he never really gave up his passion, and the last slide of him, here, he gives testimony at the Eichmann Trial. The Eichmann Trial was terribly important, because it’s at the Eichmann Trial that all this knowledge is poured out before the world. So Kovner, an incredibly important figure, the accounts vary, where do we all stand on this?
I think I want to stop there, because I think there will probably be quite a lot of comments.
Q&A and Comments
Oh, and nice people saying nice things.
Q: Harriet, “Kovner means the family were from Kaunas?” A: Originally, yes, but I think he was not born in Kaunas.
Hashomer Hatzair, I’m so bad at languages. Yeah, Vilna Goan was born in Grodno, yeah. The book smugglers, Anna’s telling us, about Jewish resistance in the Vilna Ghetto. It’s an incredible story. And this is from Susan, “Sugihara’s son is participating in the March of the Living this month.” Yes, they were heroes. This is from Nanette,“ I was born in Bene Akiva in Switzerland, but the boys seem more interesting in Hashomer. My father was not pleased, so I had to go back to BA again. Mind, HH was looking back too left for me, but was so enthusiastic about the state of Israel.” Oh, this is from Anna, “Wonderful documentary about Abraham Sutzkever produced last year by his granddaughter.” I love you, you all add so much.
Monty, “There’s a documentary about Ponar. Local residents there at the time said they didn’t see anything out of the ordinary happened, no truckloads of Jews brought there to be slaughtered.” It’s extraordinary, isn’t it? Isn’t it extraordinary, Monty? Just the deafening silence. Anna, “My father of blessed memory was a partisan commander in the forest of Sarny, Volhynia, now Western Ukraine, and when the partisans were absorbed into the Red Army, he fought as an officer. During the time, he and his partisan fighters fought in the forests. They saved the lives of more than 150 people who escaped from the killing fields. My father, may he rest in peace, explained that fighting back, saving Jewish lives were the most important things to do after seeing his family and friends murdered by the Einsatzgruppen and their local collaborators.”
This from Mira, “My grandmother, a descendant of the Romm family, the publishers of "Vilna Shas”, they came to South Africa 2026, but her entire family were wiped out.“ Jeffrey, "I totally concur with your rejection of, "Sheep, to the slaughter.” Recent research is turning out some very compelling evidence, Judi Batalion on women couriers and fighters in Poland.“ Yes, I had the pleasure of interviewing her, Jeffrey. Tremendous courage. "Hopefully there will be more information in future,” from Jeffrey Fine. You know, I spoke to the great Yehuda bar about this, this was about 25 years ago, he said, “Let it all settle, let it all settle.” Because remember, Hermione’s mentioning the book, “The Avenger”. Look, it is so complicated, the anger.
Q: Paula, “Was she related to the documentarian, Aviva Kempner, from Detroit, who is now about 70?” A: I don’t know the answer to that.
“Aviva is my cousin, I asked her, no relation.” Thank you, Indy. Thank you, from Jenny, “When I started to teach in 1962, I had to take a loyalty oath in my state that I was never a member of the Communist Party.” Yes. Margaret, “I remember filling in those 50 questions for going to the States, ‘Are you a communist, are you a homosexual or are you a criminal?’” Now you have to say that you weren’t a member of the fascist party.
Q: “Were there requirements or qualifications to join the partisan?” A: Jennifer, what was amazing about the Partisan Brigade, the one I know most about is the Bielski. They would take anyone who could make it to the forest. They even had a bakery in the forest, and when the other partisan groups stole flour, they made it into bread.
Corrine Farber, “‘The three tragic heroes of the Vilnius Ghetto: Witenberg, Sheinbaum, Gens’, by N Shneidman.” Another source, thank you. You see, Gens is also complicated. You know, I personally believe you do not pass judgement on people who are in hell. You can pass judgement on the Germans, the Nazis, you can pass judgement on the perpetrators, you can pass judgement on the collaborators, but on the Jews themselves in hell. Of course there were some, like Stella in Berlin, who betrayed, but in the main, how can you pass judgement ?
Q: “Would you give us the reference books you mentioned, again?” A: I will put them on a list for you, yes. I think once the website is up, we will be assembling more and more books for you to read.
Q: “Why was he not assassinated?” A: Obviously, they didn’t get to him. You know, it’s interesting because even at the Wannsee, if you look at the Wannsee Conference, there were 16 people around the table, 1/3 of them died in accidents or committed suicide, probably the work of the Avengers. That’s certainly what Robert Wistrich thought.
Nitsa, “My father, who was part of the Brigade, formerly Royal Engineers, opened an institute for Holocaust-surviving children and youth, the largest in Europe, in Selvino, in North Italy, for three years. There were 800 children who passed for the date. Many made it, legally or illegally. Some were caught and sent to Cyprus, all came eventually to Israel. They are called the Selvino children, now an NGO.” Thank you very much for that, Nitsa. Yahuda, “Kovner and his associates were heroes. I can understand the urge for justice against perpetrators who escape justice, but not against civilians who were not themselves perpetrators.” Yes, Yehuda, so what you’re saying is, you have no moral qualms about trying to poison SS officers who were known perpetrators, but not the second thing.
Jonathan is saying, “It was said that von Braun’s autobiography should’ve been entitled, ‘I aim for the stars, but sometimes I hit London.’” If you want to really revel in Jewish irony, may I suggest you listen to Tom Lehrer on Werner von Braun. He wrote a brilliant satirical song about him. Because sometimes all we have is satire.
This is Anna, “I agree with you Judah Sinai’s comment, Abba Kovner and his organisation were heroes. During wartime and peacetime, innocents are tragically caught up in reprisals.” I’m going to get off the fence here, Anna. I think if the plan to poison the water supply had ever materialised, it might have stopped the United Nations voting for Israel. I think you got to think very, very carefully about this. Justice, revenge, it’s so complex, isn’t it? If we’d lost our families, how would we feel? You know, there are so many different responses, there is a response of people like Wiesenthal, who thought everyone should be brought to justice, or there were those who said, “Let’s get out there and make the state happen so it can never happen again.” If you think of the impact on the state, you know, the fact that Ben-Gurion insisted that Israel become nuclear, and the man who was in charge of the nuclear programme was supposedly the man who supplied the poison to, I said, “Supposedly,” who supplied the poison to Kovner.
The name of the kibbutz is Ein Horesh, E-I-N H-O-R-E-S-H. I hope my pronunciation wasn’t too bad. I really must apologise about pronunciation. There’s kind of like a kink in my brain for language, Stalag XVII is what they called the place where the Nazis were held. I haven’t explained why Kovner was controversial, because he was thinking about poisoning the water supply of five German cities, I think that’s very controversial.
Q: “What was Kovner’s relationship with Simon Wiesenthal?” A: Difficult, very difficult. They were hugely passionate, larger-than-life characters. You’ve got to remember these people, what they’d been through, the fires they’d been through.
Q: “What was Anna’s last name?” A: Anna, Anna who? Vitka, Kempner, I don’t know who you’re talking about, maybe you could get back.
This is from Valerie, “As a teenager, I belonged Hashomer Hatzair, I learned so much Jewish history there.” What is amazing, actually, is that the left came together with the right and the Bund to fight. If only that were more so. Why is it it’s only in extremists that we come together as a people.
Q: “Why does it have to be either justice or revenge? Why not both? Or justice as revenge?” That’s an interesting concept. I’ve asked Dennis Davis to, who of course is a judge, to go deeper on this when we look, he’s going to give a presentation later on about Hersch Lauterpacht and Lemkin. Lemkin was the man who, after the war, coined the phrase genocide. I mean, what is justice? What is revenge? It’s like a sliding scale, isn’t it? Where is the line?
This is from Arthur, Arthur Hirsch, “My father, born in Tel Aviv in 1923, was in the Haganah and then the Givati, cited for bravery under fire.” Oh, that’s wonderful, Arthur, yeah.“ Anna P, "Great organisation, Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation in San Francisco.”
Q: “What made him not go on with his plan to poison the water?” A: He was arrested, the British imprisoned him. He threw the poison overseas, and then he must have reconsidered.
And this is from Arthur again, “It was my wife’s father who was the man who was Haganah and then Givati.”
Q: “Would you do a session about Dan Porat’s book about the trials in Israel of Jewish collaborators?” A: That is not my field, but I’m sure I can find somebody who could. Of course the most important case is the Kasztner Affair, was he a collaborator? Be very, very careful.
“Pronounced, Ein, not Ein.” Ein, Ein, Ein, thank you. Oh, Ingrid, thank you. This is Beverly, “My late father was good friends with Heim Lazar, who fought with Abba Kovner. Heim was soft-spoken and lost one hand while fighting in the forest.” “I heard it was Katsir who was involved with Kovner and the supplies.” I believe that Katsir, there’s a question mark on that, Susan.
“Anna the nun, thank you for an,” thank you. Yes, it was Anna, oh, sorry, yes, it was Anna who saved, it was that extraordinary nun. Now, I had to bring in good people. You see, there are always people in extremists. She risked her life. Then you have Sugihara, who gave up visas, visas, against the orders of of his bosses, remember. “I agree with Sandra Cohen, and I am a lawyer,” that’s from Louise Sweet. “Abba Kovner’s son, Michael, is a prominent painter in Israel.”
I think that’s it, Judi. So I’m teaching tomorrow, and Patrick’s teaching on Thursday. Tomorrow, kind of in preparation for Russia, and also because it’s such a big subject, I’m going to be looking at Jews and revolution. What a strange people we are. Anyway, thank you all for listening. It was a tough one today, it was a tough one to prepare, it was a tough one to receive, I’m sure. But it does bring up so many points, and I think in many ways, gives a big understanding of Israel.
Anyway, thank you, Judi, as ever, for keeping me sane.
[Judi] Thank you, Trudy.
And take care, everybody.