Jitzchak Wittenberg

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Jitzchak Wittenberg (also Itsik Vit (e) nberg / Leo Itsig) (* 1907 ; † July 16, 1943 in Wilna ) was a Jewish communist and commander of the Jewish resistance organization Fareinigte Partisaner Organisatzije (FPO) in the Vilna ghetto .

Life

The trained tailor Wittenberg joined the Communist Party of Poland early and was active for it during the short Soviet occupation of Vilna . After the German invasion of the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941 and the occupation of Vilnius by the Germans, he went underground. When the FPO was founded on January 21, 1942, Wittenberg was elected commander because of his underground experience.

Wittenberg managed to remain undiscovered until July 1943, but when the Germans opened up the network of communist resistance in Vilnius, the Gestapo noticed him and demanded his extradition. Jacob Gens , chairman of the Judenrat in the Vilna ghetto , then invited Wittenberg to a meeting, where he was arrested by (presumably Lithuanian) police officers. Before he could be transferred to the Gestapo, Wittenberg was liberated by the FPO. The Gestapo then issued an ultimatum: either Wittenberg would be extradited or the entire ghetto would be liquidated. Under these circumstances, Wittenberg voluntarily surrendered to the ghetto police.

That same night Wittenberg was handed over to the Gestapo. In the Gestapo prison he took his own life , allegedly with a capsule of cyanide , which he is said to have leaked gene.

literature

  • Israel Gutman (ed.): Encyclopedia of the Holocaust - The persecution and murder of European Jews , Piper Verlag, Munich / Zurich 1998, 3 volumes, ISBN 3-492-22700-7 , pp. 1609-1610.
  • Arno Lustiger , On the struggle for life and death. The Book of the Resistance of the Jews 1933–1945 . Kiepenheuer & Witsch, Cologne 1994, ISBN 3-462-02292-X . Jizchak Wittenberg , pp. 266-267.
  • Mascha Rolnikaitė : I have to tell. My diary 1941–1945 . Kindler Verlag, 2002 ISBN 3-499-23555-2 . For information on Itzig Witenberg, see pp. 140–142.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ after Lustiger, p. 267, Wittenberg was murdered by the Germans.
personal data
SURNAME Wittenberg, Jitzchak
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Jewish communist, leader of the Fareinigte Partisan Organization in the Vilna ghetto
DATE OF BIRTH 1907
DATE OF DEATH July 16, 1943
Place of death Vilna