August 20: Resistance and Destruction in the Glubockie Ghetto

Three thousand Jews were murdered and the Glubockie Ghetto (Belarus) was burned and razed by the Nazis on this date in 1943 in response to partisan activities in the area, especially among young Jews. The Glubockie Jewish community had been much-tortured and abused in the course of pursuing its survival strategy of developing workshops of great value to the Nazi war effort, but scores of its younger members had finally taken to the woods to join with partisan groups, which inflicted heavy casualties on the Germans and their Lithuanian allies. “One of the most famous partisans to first get out of Glubockie,” says the Complete Black Book of Russian Jewry “was Avner Feigelman [pictured]. Certain spiritual qualities distinguished this young man; he was intelligent, composed, and decisive. . . . Others who fought with great courage, without fear for themselves, were Isak Blat . . . Borya Shapiro, and Khasya, a girl from Disna.” Glubockie is honored with photographs and narratives here, and a very extensive description of the ghetto and the resistance movement can be read here. “Many heroic deeds could be written about other Jews from the Glubokie area. . . . How many quantities of ammunition and arms, and, indeed, German lives the young men and women of Glubokie blew up on the railroad lines; how many garrisons they destroyed and confiscated entire warehouses full of arms, which were as important as to blow up the soldiers of the enemy. . . . In the struggle against the German enemy, the unassuming Jewish youth of Glubokie displayed a source of prowess capable of exploding mountains.” —M. and Z. Rajak, Buenos Aires, 1956