Zelda Trager — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Zelda Trager - Nisanilovitz (June 16, 1920 - March 17, 1987). She was a member of the FPO (Jewish underground in the Vilna Ghetto), and acted as a liason. In 1943, she left for the forest to join the partisans' Nekamah (Vengeance) battalion. After the war, she joined the "Revenge" group.

She was born in Vilna, Poland, in June 1920. She spent her childhood in the town of Siemiatycze, known for its Hebrew pioneering school thanks to the Hechalutz training farm in the area. Zelda's social background was from the affluent strata of the Jewish community. She was a member of the Hashomer Hatzair movement, attended the Tarbut Hebrew School and, like many of its students, attended a Hebrew seminary. In addition, she passed the first test to be accepted in the movement and joined the "Mishmar," the young aliyah kibbutz in Czestochowa. At these stations, she absorbed ideals seen as sacred: loyalty to the movement and its principles, willingness to sacrifice and fraternity in fate.

At the outbreak of the war, Zelda was one of the first to return to Vilna. On June 22, 1941, the day Zelda was released from the hospital after a serious case of typhus, the German attack on the Soviet Union also began. Emotionally overcome at seeing her friends leave the attacked city while she was forced to remain behind due to the weakness that overwhelmed her after her illness - she began to record her impressions in writing.

After the Germans occupied Vilna, an order was issued requiring all Jews to wear a yellow badge; they were also forbidden to walk on the sidewalks and to be on the streets after six o'clock. Zelda did not obey this order. On September 6, 1941, all the Jews were deported to the ghetto. Two ghettos were established: the small ghetto and the large ghetto. Zelda found herself in the large ghetto. After three deportations to Ponar, Zelda decided to leave the ghetto. She contacted a Christian woman who sent her to work for a farmer. Zelda ran his household and worked in his fields.

After seven months hiding with different families, cut off from the movement, doing grueling work and hiding her Judaism, Zelda wanted to return to her friends in the ghetto. When she noticed a group of Jews on the street, she walked toward them, not wearing a patch, and noticing an acquaintance among them, asked to enter the ghetto with them. This acquaintance sewed two patches for her and thus she returned to the group in the ghetto.

After the big Aktions, the situation seemed to calm down a bit, and Jews began to believe that there might be no more deportations. The proclamation published in the ghetto - "Let us not go like sheep to the slaughter" - struck a chord, and gave the impetus for the establishment of an underground organization designed to create opposition to the Nazi enemy: the United Partisans Organization (FPO). Zelda joined the Underground, and was soon arrested along with seven of her friends. The Germans announced that the eight prisoners would be held hostage until the commander of the underground, Yitzhak Wittenberg, surrendered. And so it was: Wittenberg gave himself up, and the group was released.

After Wittenberg's death, it became clear to the underground fighters that the ghetto public did not support their struggle, and the fighters left for the forests. When the Germans learned of this, they launched a manhunt after the fugitives. Half of the fighters in the forests fell in an exchange of gunfire with the Germans. The Germans even resorted to collective punishment: the family of each fugitive was sent to Ponar for extermination. On September 1, 1943, underground conscription was declared. The ghetto was surrounded by Germans, Lithuanians and Ukrainians. The Aktion had begun. Jews were abducted and sent to labor camps in Estonia. In the evening, the underground gathered. It was decided that open opposition was futile, since the ghetto's public would not join. During the Aktion, the underground fighters called on the Jews to revolt, but these went into hiding.

The underground fighters showed up armed and positioned. The representative of the Judenrat tried to persuade them to give up the fight, when suddenly a Latvian company led by the Gestapo SS commander Neugebauer began the deportation operation. The crowd began to search for hiding places, but to no avail. Many were captured by the Latvians and shot or deported. On the first day of the four days of the Aktion, almost the entire second battalion was taken, along with Grishka the company commander. The FPO headquarters ordered to continue the resistance. On Strashun Street, battalion companies went from house to house building barricades, boiling water, collecting stones and picking up iron bars, all of which were to be used as weapons against the Germans. "I will not forget how devoted and stubborn the companies that worked and prepared for the decisive moment were." Zelda walked through the yards and called on the Jews to come out of hiding and join their ranks. The headquarters instructions were sent almost every hour to all the units scattered in the area on how to deal with approaching Germans. Unfortunately, she happened to be in the yard of Strashun 1 where police officers found and arrested her. At around 12 o'clock, the Lithuanians and Latvians left the ghetto, relying on the Jewish police to carry out the work alone. She managed to break through the gate and reach the courtyard of the house on Strashun 8. The tension reached a peak, the fighters felt that at any moment they were likely to be killed. In Strashun 6, everyone was ready to open fire as soon as the Germans broke into the yard. "In those days I wondered: Would it have been better to die than to stay alive at this moment, when so many people were being captured and our resistance did not materialize?" The head of the ghetto knew that the underground was hidden in the area, but told the Germans there was no one there, so they missed house number 6. After four days, the Germans left the ghetto. After being disappointed by the absence of opposition, it was decided to take groups of fighters out into the forest.

"Thanks to my "good" appearance (as a Christian), I would go out to the city during the day, patrol the roads to ensure the groups' passage. In the evening I would lead the comrades out of the city, and from there a guide wuld accompany them onwards. One day, I waited at the cemetery for a coffin in which our weapons and messages were packed and gave it to our connection in the forest. This way, three groups of fighters managed to pass." The ghetto was then closed and the head of the ghetto was shot by the Gestapo. Guards were increased around the ghetto and its entrances. The day of the ghetto's liquidation was approaching. The underground's plan was to get the members out of the ghetto through the sewers. After a few days, all the fighters arrived at the designated base, Rudniki Forest. Several partisan units were stationed in these forests at the same time. At first, there were about 400 Jews, divided into four battalions. The battalion to which Zelda belonged was called "Revenge" and its commander was Abba Kovner. After settling in the forest, Zelda was sent to be the liaison between partisan battalions and members of the underground in Vilna.

The woman's role, as regards social fabric and public responsibility, was a natural and self-evident issue within the movements. The place of women stood out in various roles during the war and the devastation. For the first time, the concept of "the kashariyot (women couriers)" was adopted - these were women that visited the branches and would pass from one area to another, placing themselves in danger of death: from the Soviet area to the area of Nazi occupation and vice versa. The main task in the field of communication was to rescue groups of Jews who had decided to flee the camp and reach the forest. Quite a few of these kashariyot carried out this task. Zelda was one of them, and she embodies the "kashariyot army" of Jewish warfare.

The reason kashariyot roles were mainly held by women was because the Jewish underground assumed that the Nazis would not readily suspect that women could be centers of operations - and even occupy command status. One of Zelda's important roles was to deliver medicine to the partisans. Her mission was also to transfer to the base remaining Jews concentrated in blocks. She also served as a kasharit between partisan headquarters and the municipal underground and especially with Sonia Madeiskar. With the exposure of the urban underground by the Nazis, Sonia was tortured and murdered by the Gestapo, contact with the city was severed, and Zelda continued to fight in partisan ranks. Zelda, a slender girl with golden hair, was among the heroic Vilna girls that infiltrated eighteen times between German army units, and passed on important information from the city, weapons, propaganda literature, etc. As a courier of the partisan headquarters with the underground organization, Zelda never returned empty-handed. She infiltrated internment camps and rescued people, brought dozens of weapons from the city to the partisans, twice fell into the hands of the Gestapo, once to the police and once to the White Poles, but thanks to keeping her composure and her determination, she managed to escape all four times.

"I was assigned to return to the city. I put on peasant girl clothes and set off. In "Kailis", I met Sonia Madeiskar, and we kept in touch all the time ... After a while I returned to the base bringing medicine, literature and instructions from the party. Since then I was assigned to serve regularly as a courier with the city's underground cells. It was not easy to pretend to be a Christian. I faced death at every step. I went to the city almost every week, I would return to the headquarters through swamps and lakes to bypass the German and Lithuanian guards. From a distance, the partisans' song would reach me, encouraging me. I was so happy. I could hardly believe I managed to escape so many dangers and reached the partisans' safe area. I breathed deeply in relief: Thank G-d ..."

One day it became known that the enemy knew about the underground's base. It was reported that Germans and Lithuanians were preparing a hunt in the forest where we were. The front line approached, there was a huge awakening at the base, and it was clear they were about to abandon the forest and enter Vilna. A large part of the city was already in the hands of the Red Army. The main terminal was still held by the Germans. The partisans approached the terminal; the Germans barricaded themselves in high-rise houses and opened fire from above. Fighters fell and many were wounded. The forest fighter units united with the Red Army and fought together. The battle was decided and the city liberated with the help of a large relief corps. The Germans surrendered. Vilna was badly damaged; entire streets were wiped out and turned into mounds of ruins. On July 14, 1944, Vilna was liberated.

Immediately after the liberation, a small group of members of the Hashomer Hatzair movement from Rudniki gathered and began collecting the remains of the movement. Orders were still received from Abba Kovner. The group organized as an underground made up of about nine-ten people whose mission was to rescue Jews from the killing grounds and bring them to the long-awaited shore – Eretz Israel. Zelda also helped groups of fugitives from Beitar and Ha No'ar ha -Tsiyyoni youth movements. After the group left with Abba Kovner for Lublin, its resurgence began, and together with other members, a kind of "escape" center was formed. The destination was Chernivtsi and from there across the border to Germany. The "Revenge" Group was also organized. Abba Kovner recruited Zelda and her husband Nathaniel (Sanka), whom she first met with the partisan. The group went to Italy; Zelda's job was security - to receive the people after the "Revenge" operation that was supposed to take place, and move them across the border.

Zelda made aliyah to Eretz Israel with her husband in 1946. They decided not to join the "partisan nucleus" in Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh, and established their home in Netanya. They had two children, Gilad and Dorit. Their home became a magnet for their many friends. Even after making aliyah to Eretz Israel, Zelda could not give herself the luxury of resting and continued her activities: She was active in the Association of Jews from Vilna, appeared before soldiers, youths, and schoolchildren telling about the Holocaust, the underground and the forest. She considered it her sacred duty to continue to tell her story.

Zelda began to record her experiences when the German attacked the Soviet Union, on June 22, 1941, on the same day she was released from the Vilna hospital after a serious case of typhus. Subsequent events did not permit her to persevere in her writing. Nevertheless, she continued to record her experiences on various occasions, both when she was in the "Aryan" part of the city and within the ghetto's walls. During her 'forest' period, she also copied Abba Kovner's A Missive to Hashomair Hazair Partisans, in memory of the Jewish resistance movement. Zelda completed the last entries in her notebooks in Vilna immediately after returning to Vilna with the liberating partisans; then began the long journey to Israel - on a mission for the survivors, in the "Escape" and the "Revenge" group. At Abba Kovner's command, Zelda left her notebooks in Lvov - along with certificates, documents, photographs, and other written material - to be transferred to Israel separately. This step seemed then necessary for security and confidentiality reasons. Due to the conditions and circumstances, the documents did not reach the country - it is assumed that they were lost along the way. Close to her arrival in Eretz Israel, in 1946, Zelda tried to recreate her reports as they were in the original notebooks. She wrote them in Yiddish. Although she intended to continue to record the experiences of her journey, in the "Escape" and the "Revenge," she failed to fulfill her intentions, perhaps for the simple reason that the subject of the "Revenge" stayed secret for many years.

Source: Wikipedia [Hebrew]