Dr. Daniela Ozacky Stern — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Dr. Daniela Ozacky Stern is a historian and researcher of the history of Nazi Germany and Jewish experiences during the Holocaust. Daniela completed a doctorate at the University of Haifa and received a Master's Degree from Tel Aviv University. Her research deals with Nazi propaganda and Jewish resistance during the Holocaust, especially the story of Jewish partisans and the story of her family (Daniela is the granddaughter of Chaim and Chaya Lazar). She is a lecturer in Holocaust Studies at the Western Galilee Academic College, and a researcher at Bar Ilan University. She has managed the Heritage Archive in Givat Haviva for over a decade.

Instruction Booklet for the Use of Weapons and a Journal: This us how Partisans Lived in the Forests: By Hanan Grinwood, 28/1/2020

Rare documents unveiled by a lecturer at the Western Galilee Academy shed light on the life of Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis in Europe will be displayed in an exhibition in the USA.

Rare Holocaust documents, recently uncovered, shed light on the activities of Jewish partisans and their confrontations with their Soviet counterparts in the cold forests of Europe.

The documents will be exhibited at the Holocaust Museum in Houston, Texas, USA, along with other original documents from the Moreshet Archive - the Mordechai Anielewicz Testimony House. The documents tell the story of Vilna Ghetto and the Jewish partisans. Members of the Moreshet Archive signed, among other things, a booklet containing instructions for the use of weapons and a partisans' combat journal.

The experiences of Jews in Vilna Ghetto and its Jewish partisans have fascinated scholars and researchers worldwide for many years. In a chaotic reality, Jews joined the struggle, risking their lives and that of their comrades left behind killed by retaliatory actions carried out by the Nazis on ghetto prisoners. Even when they managed to reach the forests, they were not easily accepted into Soviet partisan units, as they were required to arrive with weapons and prove their combat capability.

The person behind the disclosure of the documents is Dr. Daniela Ozacky-Stern, a lecturer in Holocaust Studies at the Western Galilee Academy in Akko and the academic advisor for the exhibition which is expected to travel to other cities in the United States. "These documents are very critical for understanding the life of the Jewish partisans, who after difficult years in the ghettos came to the forests in very poor mental and physical condition compared to non-Jewish partisans, and yet were a very significant force in the fight against the Nazis. They teach about the impossible moral dilemmas of those Jews who fled to the forests, due to the fact that the Germans carried out cruel collective punishments and sometimes even liquidated entire ghettos in response to the partisans' escape."

One of the documents to be displayed in the exhibition is an instruction booklet on the use of weapons, translated into Russian from its source language - Finnish. The Jews who escaped the Nazi oppressor were forced to demonstrate fighting ability which they often did not have, and therefore the booklet was of great help in their bridging gaps and dealing with enormous difficulties.

The booklet, printed in Moscow in 1940, was in fact a guide to partisan warfare. The booklet explains that the mission of the partisan movement is "to undermine the ranks of the enemy in its rear and its branches, and harass its forces, such as attacks against guards and patrol units, thus causing it maximum material damage."

Another document shows partisan operations in Rudniki forests - about 40 km south of Vilna.