Haika Grosman

Haika Grosman

Haika Grosman was born in Bialystok in 1919. While at school she joined the Zionist youth movement. Soon after the outbreak of the Second World War Grosman moved to Vilna.

When the German Army invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, Grosman joined the partisans and was in contact with the resistance in Warsaw. Grosman was one of the leaders of the Bialystok ghetto during the Second World War and took part in the revolt in August 1943.

Grosman emigrated to Israel in 1969 and from 1984 to 1988 she was a member of the the country's parliament. She is also the author of The Underground Army (1988).

Jewish partisans in Vilna.
Jewish partisans in Vilna.

Primary Sources

(1) Leaflet published by the Jewish Self-Defence Organization (December 1942)

Do not go willingly to your death! Fight for life to the last breath. Greet our murders with teeth and claws, with axe and knife, hydrochloric acid and iron crowbars. Make the enemy pay for blood with blood, for death with death?

Let us fall upon the enemy in time, kill and disarm him. Let us stand up against the criminals and if necessary die like heroes. If we die in this way we are not lost.

Make the enemy pay dearly for your lives! Take revenge for the Jewish centres that have been destroyed and for the Jewish lives that have been extinguished.