Last revised august 30, 2004

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340 Yoran, The Defiant, 182–83, 188–90, 193–94. Compare with Wołkonowski, Okręg Wileński Związku Walki Zbrojnej Armii Krajowej w latach 1939–1945, 162–63, 206–207; Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1942–1944) w świetle dokumentów sowieckich, 180; Henryk Piskunowicz, “Działalność zbrojna Armii Krajowej na Wileńzczyźnie w latach 1942–1944,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 50. According to a Soviet report, around 15 “White Poles” were killed and 20 were injured. The Poles reported their losses as follows: one killed, one drowned, and four captured. The Soviet partisan losses were many times greater.

341 Wołkonowski, Okręg Wileński Związku Walki Zbrojnej Armii Krajowej w latach 1939–1945, 208; Henryk Piskunowicz, “Działalność zbrojna Armii Krajowej w pierwszej połowie 1944 roku na Wileńszczyźnie,” in Wołkonowski, Sympozjum historyczne “Rok 1944 na Wileńszczyźnie,” 167; Henryk Piskunowicz, “Działalność zbrojna Armii Krajowej na Wileńszczyźnie w latach 1942–1944,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 50.

342 Arad, The Partisan, 161–62.

343 Levin, Fighting Back, 191. The Jewish partisans in Rudniki forest included a number of policemen from the Wilno ghetto, and at least five (or possibly six) of them were executed by the Soviets as informers and German collaborators. Two of the policemen had participated in the liquidation of the Oszmiana ghetto, blowing up hiding places, revealing where Jews were hiding, and handing Jews over to the Gestapo. A Jewish partisan from Kaunas named Meishe Gerber was executed for treason. Ibid., 210, 280 n. 9; Kowalski, A Secret Press in Nazi Europe, 210, 280 n.9; Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 144, 158–59; Alex Faitelson, Heroism & Bravery in Lithuania, 1941–1945 (Jerusalem: Gefen, 1996), 311–14; Cohen, The Avengers, 121–22; Anatol Krakowski, Le Ghetto dans la forêt: Résistance en Lituanie, 1939–1945 (Paris: Le Félin, 2002), Nathan Cohen, “The Last Days of the Vilna Ghetto—Pages from a Diary,” Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 31 (2003): 42 n.78. Chaim Lazar points out that non-Jewish partisans who had previously served in the German-sponsored police forces or had worked for the Gestapo, even those who had played an active role in killing Jews, were not subjected to such treatment. He also describes the executions of three Jewish partisans by Russian and Lithuanian partisans. See Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 143, 169, 171. Anatol Krakowski mentions an execution of a Jewish partisan by the Soviets and frequent cases of Jewish partisans being killed due to mishandling of explosives and as casualties of “friendly fire” by fellow Jewish partisans. See Krakowski, Le Ghetto dans la forêt, 57, 58, 63–64, 69–70 (a Jewish partisan drowned), 79, 83, 87.

344 Arad, The Partisan, 161. Shmuel Krakowski lists some of the assaults on Jewish partisans in this area in Gutman and Krakowski, Unequal Victims, 131; however, he provides none of the necessary background or context to properly assess these cases. Yaffa Eliach’s writings are totally unreliable. Jewish memoirs, which are often contradictory, unreliable and full of hearsay, are quick to attribute Jewish losses to the Home Army without substantiating these claims. For example, Ruzhka Korchak claims that five fighters from Rudniki forest sent on a mission to Naliboki “all fell in the battle with the White Poles.” Alex Faitelson, who was part of that very mission, writes: “None of the fighters who were sent to bring weapons from Nalibok [sic] fell in battle. See Faitelson, Heroism & Bravery in Lithuania, 1941–1945, 363.

345 Joseph Stevens, Good Morning (Allendale, Michigan: Grand Valley State University, 2001), 92–96, 114–15, 144–45, 152–54, 160.

346 Lieutenant Gracjan Fróg (“Szczerbiec”) left Wilno for the forests in 1943 as part of Ruch Narodowo-Radykalny—Falanga, a radical nationalist underground organization. In October 1943, Fróg united various partisan units as the King Bolesaw Chrobry Mobile Unit. In November the unit came under the authority of the Home Army, and in January 1944 it was renamed the Third Wilno Brigade of the Home Army.

347 George Sten, Memoirs of a Survivor (Bondi Junction, New South Wales: n.p., 1996), 38–67.

348 Kahn, No Time To Mourn, 142–44. In his introduction to the second edition of his Fugitives of the Forest: The Heroic Story of Jewish Resistance and Survival During the Second World War (Guilford, Connecticut: Lyons Press, 2009), at p. xxxiii, Allan Levine writes, “According to [Mark] Paul, the AK attack Kahn describes was in retaliation for ‘a murderous Soviet attack’ on an AK partisan unit. Why Kahn’s father and young sister were killed is not addressed.” He goes on to say, “Never once does Paul or other detractors like him ask why Kahn or any Holocaust survivor would concoct such tales? And, ‘making Poles look bad’ is not the answer. Indeed, there is no logical response because certain terrible memories remain etched in a person’s mind forever.” Clearly, Levine is trying to obfuscate the issue and relies on his readers’ gullibility. The fact that Kahn’s father and sister were killed was never in dispute, so the supposed charge that Kahn concocted the story is a straw man. Unfortunately, bystanders were often killed in attacks, especially in those carried out by the Soviet partisans with whom Kahn was associated. The purpose of an examination of the surrounding circunstances of such events is to put them in context, something that Levine’s writing is sorely lacking.

349 Abraham Asner, a member of that detachment recalled: “The area was mostly poor … We used to go far away to get some food. … And mostly we carry on the horses. … the cattle used to walk by itself. And flour we used to carry it on our backs. … I used to carry myself, and some other men like me, around fifty kilogram potatoes on the back and a rifle and grenades all together. … we used to get the food from the areas … about twenty and twenty-five kilometers. We, we don’t want to bother the close villages.” See the testimony of Abraham Asner, October 10, 1982, Voice/Vision Holocaust Survivor Oral History Archive, University of Michigan at Dearborn, Internet: