The meeting with Jabotinsky, the Zionist articles and the founding of the Betar branch testified to Lev Ziskovich's commitment to the Jewish people. Just so as not to fall into the hands of the Nazis "
The name of Lev (Lyuba, or in his Hebrew name Arieh) Ziskovich became already in his youth a synonym for an ardent Zionist spirit, a revisionist spirit, one characterized by uncompromising determination.
His story of heroism can serve as a tombstone and memorial to all those Jews who refused to give up, and fought to the last drop of their blood.
Ziskowicz was born in 1915 to a family of lumber merchants in the town of Ashmiani, then part of the Russian Empire, and after World War I was annexed to Poland (now Belarus).
Data from the town's census shows that at least half of its residents were Jews at the time.
"Lyuba was educated in a Polish gymnasiya, but in time devoted himself to Zionist activity," says Miri Yahalom, an archivist at the Jabotinsky Institute and a researcher of the Holocaust Revisionist movement in the Vilnius (Vilna) ghetto, who later founded the Betar branch in the town and later served as its commander. Of his wife Lisa (Elizabeth), also founded the other organizations of the Jabotinsky movement in Bashmiani.
In addition, he used to publish articles and even met with Ze'ev Jabotinsky. "
There is little evidence of Ziskovich's character, but it is sufficient to paint a reliable portrait of a determined and resourceful man.
According to Leibla Becker, a relative of Ziskovich who also grew up with him in Ashmiani, Yuva was "talented and intelligent, a proud guy who beat all the anti-Semites and did not let them raise their heads."
Zvi Hadash, who was active in Betar Oshmiana, said that Ziskovich was "a revered and brave commander, made fearless."
"As with all Betar nests, defensive training was one of the most important components of the operation," Yahalom adds, "but it was not possible to carry out weapons training in Ashmiani.
Ziskovich was tasked with finding a solution, and he did find it.
In the nearby town of Jofferni, he found a man in charge of the weapons of the Polish Szczecin Military Organization, and he agreed that members of the Ashmiani branch would come at night and train with weapons. "Meir Rodner, another Betar member from Ashmiani, said that Ziskowicz obtained an air rifle. , Apparently from the Polish army in which he served, and members of the nest used to train in it.
As a Polish citizen Ziskowicz served in the Polish army, and like everything else did so exemplary.
According to the testimony of Ephraim Wichselfish, which appears in the book "A Thousand Betar Fighters", Ziskowicz graduated with honors from the Polish Army Symbols Course and was promoted to the rank of sergeant major.
In 1939, with the outbreak of World War II, he was again drafted into the Polish army, which was desperately trying to withstand the Nazi troops.
Two and a half weeks later, the collapsing Poland was attacked from another direction, when the USSR invaded its territory from the east. At this point, evidence of Ziskowicz's experiences is blurred. He reportedly fought in a Polish unit against the Red Army, was captured by the Soviets, but somehow managed to break free. To his house, which was at that time in the territory annexed to the USSR.
"His wife noted that her husband was wanted by the Soviet government because he was a revisionist," Yahalom clarifies.
"According to her testimony, he was forced to hide, but was eventually apprehended by authorities and sent to forced labor at the airport near the town of Skidel."
The Jews of the town had no chance
Ziskowitz's Zionist background was icing on the cake in the eyes of the new Soviet authorities, and Diamond notes that his name appears on the "hostile elements" list compiled by the Communist Party's Ashkenazi Communal Committee in 1941-1940.
In the March 1941 edition of this list, Ziskovich is credited with two "sins": his origin from a wealthy merchant family and his being a revisionist Zionist activist, or in Soviet parlance, "the founder of the Revisionist Zionist Fascist Party in Oshmiana and its chairman."
According to Wichselfish, who did much research into the fate of Jewish soldiers in the Polish army, Ziskowicz intended to flee to Vilnius, where the remaining Betar Zionist activists organized underground to find a way to immigrate to Israel. However, the German attack on the USSR on June 22, 1941 put an end to all The plans, and even for Jewish life in general in the vast expanse that was once the seat of the Jews in Tsarist Russia.
The German invasion inflicted a death blow on the Jewish population of Ashmiani, and the fate of the other Jewish towns in the area was no different.
In many ways the description of the stages in the extermination of Ashmiani's Jews was typical and repeated in hundreds of Jewish settlements.
The proximity of the town to the border between the USSR and Germany was to the detriment of its inhabitants - the Nazis entered Ashmany as early as June 25 and immediately began robbing Jews and imposing various decrees that soon became massacres. In July 1941, hundreds of Jewish men were taken from the town to Lida. More than 700 other Jewish men, including the head of the Judenrat, Rabbi Heller, were murdered in the nearby village of Bartel.
On October 2, 1941, the rest of the town's Jews, mostly widows and orphans, were concentrated in the ghetto established there.
Jewish refugees from the area also arrived in the ghetto, where severe overcrowding conditions prevailed, and several dozen of them were executed.
In the spring of 1942, control of the ghetto was transferred to the Lithuanian police, and along with the deportation of hundreds of its inhabitants to a labor camp, more Jews were brought to it.
In October 1942, 406 elderly and sick Jews from the ghetto in the nearby village of Ogliovo were murdered by Lithuanians.
During March and April 1943, the Ashmiani ghetto was liquidated.
About 700 of his Jews were transferred to the Vilnius ghetto, about 1,500 to labor camps, most of whom perished, and about 700 were sent directly to the killing pits of the Ponary Forest.
The dilemma: to rebel or flee
Prior to the liquidation of the ghetto, a Jewish underground organization operated there, and about a hundred of its members fled to the surrounding forests during the Aktion, joining the partisans.
The organizers of the underground were Ziskovich and Yosef Mintz, one of the teachers from the Ashmiani Hebrew Gymnasium.
Upon the liquidation of the ghetto, Ziskowicz and his family were sent to the Vilnius (Vilna) ghetto.
"By then Lyuba and Lisa already had a little girl, a soft baby, named Rebecca after her grandmother," Yahalom explains.
From the end of 1941, a Jewish underground organization operated in the Vilnius ghetto - the "United Partisans Organization" - known as the FPO, according to the acronym of its Yiddish name: United Partisan Organization.
Ziskovich joined the organization, and served as an instructor and platoon commander in it.
Because the organization united Jews with different ideological and organizational opinions and affiliations, representatives of all streams were included in its leadership.
After the Revisionist representative, Yosef Glazman, left the ghetto for partisans in July 1943, Ziskowitz replaced him.
According to Yahalom, FPO members faced a difficult dilemma: whether to rebel against the Germans in the ghetto or to go out into the woods and join Soviet partisans.
Towards September 1943, the Germans began liquidating the Vilnius ghetto and transferring the Jews to concentration camps.
In response, FPO issued a recruitment order for all units of the organization to be deployed in two battalions in preparation for an armed clash with German forces.
However, following the tip-off, the Nazis and their local aides eliminated the second battalion, which numbered one hundred men.
On the same day, the organization issued a proclamation calling for opposition to forced divorce.
However, the ghetto residents believed that this was deportation to work and not to extermination, and therefore did not respond to the call for resistance.
"After the failure of the uprising attempt in early September 1943, the FPO headquarters decided to expel all its members to the partisans," says Yahalom. "Father Kovner, the commander of the FPO and a representative of Hashomer Hatzair at the headquarters, used to present himself The last minute, in contrast to the other members of the staff who wanted to expel the members of the organization to the partisans, but from his remarks in real time, in March 1944, it is clear that Ziskowitz was also in favor of a ghetto uprising.
"The words Kovner wrote in the Letter to the Partisan Guards speak for themselves: 'In the last, dramatic and historic consultation of FPO convened by the headquarters at those fateful moments, the question was posed: to open battle, even with these forces (part of the organization, armed, not in the ghetto) - Or retreat.
One of the Communist representatives voted in favor of immediate evacuation.
The Bund representative made a shameful speech and asked, who are you running to defend?
(He turned to my address) - about 13,000 Jews ?!
The 150 fighters are worth the same 13,000 - they must be saved for the continuation of the struggle!
(By the way, they both defected ...).
And although the representative of the Revisionists and myself voted in the yeshiva (the only ones) in favor of the fighting - it was clear to me that there was no one else to go into battle with. "
With Kovner and Ziskowicz left in the minority, the decision was made: there would be no uprising in the Vilnius ghetto, and the underground would try to take out anyone who could fight in the forests where the partisans operated.
Ziskowitz was placed at the head of one of the outgoing groups, and the most important of them, notes Diamond.
At the same time as they left, Kovner sent a note to the partisan commanders in the area, in the following language: "I am transferring the other company from the fighters of the Jewish partisan organization in the ghetto to the established battalion called 'Vengeance'. Company commander: Ziss (Ziskovich), deputy: Raf (Yasha Raf) "Composition: 32. Weapons: Self, obtained from the Germans. Characterization: Martial artists, enthusiastic partisans."
For one baby
Yahalom located testimonies of some of the fighters of this unit, which made its way from the Vilnius (Vilna) ghetto to the Naroch forests, 180 kilometers of dangers in German-occupied territory.
Hashomer Hatzair Amit Tzila Rosenberg Amit remembered the commander who led them to the forest: "We started preparing for the trip, Lyuba Ziskovich, the group commander, known as Pino Ziss, distributes the weapons. 'From now on,' says Ziss, 'we are a partisan unit for everything. We encountered the Germans, opened fire. "
The group led by Ziskovich was well organized ("a very brave and very sympathetic guy," one of the outcasts called him, "a golden guy," another fighter described).
They had a machine gun, a barrel-cut rifle, a few long-barreled rifles, about 15 pistols and a certain amount of grenades.
On their way, they encountered a Russian partisan who was impressed by their weapons and asked to join them in his unit, but Ziskovich refused: they would fight only within the framework of the "Revenge" Jewish battalion.
The partisans who led to the forest remember him well, he said after the war that Marka Kaczerginsk, "as a good guide and as a military man who did not know what surrender was" and as the one who led them "in perfect order."
But even before the departure, Ziskowitz had to deal with the personal drama, which was familiar to everyone who was in his situation - the departure of the partisans meant leaving behind, to death for sure, those closest to them who could not reach the forest and survive in it.
His comrades-in-arms came to the rescue and fled his daughter from the ghetto to the Aryan side of town.
The sensitive task was carried out by the communist Sonia Madisker, whose role was, among other things, to link the underground in the ghetto with the Vilna communist underground using forged documentation.
She located a Polish communist family, who agreed to give shelter to the baby, and carried Rebecca in their arms all the way from the ghetto.
Madisker was captured by the Nazis a few days before the area was liberated in 1944 and executed.
Josef Przewalski and her husband Jan kept Rebecca (or Irena, as she was called) in their home, but Jan was murdered by the Germans shortly before the liberation.
For the noble act of rescue they were awarded in 1966 the Medal of the Righteous Among the Nations.
Rivka-Irena immigrated to Israel in 1958 with her mother and today she is Irit Yaron and lives in Tel Aviv.
She says that her mother Lisa left the Vilnius ghetto just before his elimination with the rest of the underground through the sewers.
They reached the partisans in the Rudniki forests, but Lisa and Lyuba did not get to meet again.
"My father was killed in battle with the Germans, when his partisan unit, whose commander was Betar Lithuanian Commissioner Yosef Gluzman and was composed mostly of Betar members, encountered an ambush in the passage from forest to forest. Only one group member, Yulia Goldberg, survived this battle, all the rest According to the testimonies and the marks of the shooting in his hat that was found later, it turned out that my father and two other fighters who were alive at the end of the battle shot themselves so as not to fall into the hands of the Nazis.
"My mother served in one of the Jewish units of the Lithuanian partisan brigade, and in the job news about my father's death she was transferred to it while she was in the forest. Since then we have created his memory, and his heroic deeds, like the heroism of other Jews, will be remembered forever."