Fareiniche partisan organization
The Fareinigte Partisaner Organisatzije (FPO) ( Yiddish פאראײניקטע פארטיזאנער ארגאניזאציע, German: United Partisan Organization ) was a Jewish resistance group against the German occupation forces in what is now Lithuania . The FPO was formed on January 21, 1942 in Vilnius through the amalgamation of various Zionist youth organizations, including Hashomer Hatzair , Hanoar Hatzioni and Betar , and communist groups to form a unified resistance organization. The communist Jitzchak Wittenberg was elected commander. After his death on July 16, 1943, Abba Kovner was elected as his successor. After the liquidation of the Vilna ghetto on September 23, 1943, the FPO fighters retreated to the Rūdninkai forest , where they joined the Soviet partisans , among whose ranks they participated in the liberation of Vilnius on July 13, 1944 .
founding
In June 1940 Vilnius was occupied by Red Army troops and all non-communist youth organizations were banned. The Zionist youth organizations continued their work underground. After the German invasion of the Soviet Union , Wilna came under German control. Since the Zionist associations already had an underground organization, they were able to withdraw many of their members from the access of the Einsatzgruppen , which began to murder the city's Jewish residents shortly after the city was conquered on June 24, 1941 . By December 1941, over 47,000 people had been murdered in Paneriai .
At a meeting of 150 members of the Zionist youth movements in the ghetto on December 31, 1941, Abba Kovner's manifesto “Don't go to the slaughter like sheep” was read out for the first time, in which he called for armed struggle against the National Socialists . On January 21, 1942, the decision of the representatives of numerous youth associations to form a unified resistance organization, the FPO. Only the Hechaluz Hatzair Dror , headed by Mordechai Tenenbaum, was not represented at the meeting and did not join the FPO. The communist Jitzchak Wittenberg was elected commander, Abba Kovner, Nissan Reznik and Josef Glazmann formed the staff. The approximately 250 fighters of the FPO were divided into cells of five fighters. Three cells formed a platoon , six to eight platoons made up a battalion . In total, the FPO had two battalions and units that were directly subordinate to the high command.
activities
The FPO initially dealt with preparing the armed struggle in the ghetto and procuring weapons. In addition, messengers were sent to other ghettos in Lithuania, Belarus and Poland to report on the murder of the Lithuanian Jews. There was no cooperation with the Polish Home Army , but it was possible to establish contact with a small communist group in Vilnius.
Units of the FPO destroyed railway tracks outside the ghetto, while individual members sabotaged the German companies in which they worked . When Wittenberg, the leader of the FPO, was arrested on July 15, 1943, units of the FPO managed to free him. However, Wittenberg faced the Germans the next day. On the night he committed in German prison suicide .
As the liberation operation had shown that the FPO could not count on the support of the ghetto residents, it was decided to set up bases in the Naratsch Forest.
When the SS began to deport the remaining ghetto residents to Estonia on September 1, 1943 , the FPO moved into the prepared defensive positions in the ghetto and called on the population to offer resistance. However, since the majority of the ghetto residents believed the German announcements that it was a work assignment, the plan failed. When the SS combed the ghetto later, there were armed clashes with fighters of the FPO.
After the failure of the uprising plan, the FPO leadership decided to retreat to the prepared bases in the forests of Naratsch and Rūdninkai.
By the time the ghetto was dissolved on September 23, 1943, around 500 to 700 fighters managed to escape and join the partisans. There they initially formed their own Jewish battalions, but over time the FPO members were distributed to other units, while the originally Jewish units received non-Jewish members.