|
Trending Topics
|
Frank Blaichman, Commander of Jewish Partisans during World War II, Dies at 96
(Washington Post) Emily Langer - Frank Blaichman, a leader of Jewish partisans in Poland during World War II, died Dec. 27 in New York City at 96. The U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington counts Blaichman among the 20,000-30,000 Jews who joined partisan groups that fought the Nazis from hideouts in the forests of Eastern Europe. "Frank Blaichman commanded a Jewish partisan platoon," British historian Martin Gilbert wrote in an introduction to Blaichman's memoir, Rather Die Fighting. According to the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, his group's exploits included dynamiting bridges and rail lines, destroying telephone lines, attacking trains that were carrying Nazi troops and supplies and bombing Nazi headquarters. He was also credited with helping protect 200 Jews living in the forest.