Yitzhak (Tolka) Arad — Association of Jews of Vilna and vicinity in Israel

Yitzhak Arad (Rudnicki) (1926-2020) was born in Švenčionys, Lithuania.

In June, 1941, following the Barbarossa campaign, he found himself under German occupation. He had escaped the first Aktion and continued to live in the ghetto.

Arad was later employed by the Germans to sort Soviet arms which had been looted. He went on to organize a group from the underground to smuggle weapons into the ghetto. 

In 1942, the group tried, but failed, to flee the ghetto and join the partisans. In March 1943, members of the group did manage to escape from the ghetto and join the Chapayev partisan battalion in the Vilna area. Arad later moved to a non-Jewish Lithuanian partisan unit called Vilnius. Other than an incursion into the Vilna Ghetto in April 1943, to meet with Abba Kovner, the leader of the underground, Arad stayed with the partisans until the whole area was liberated by the Red Army.

He continued to fight against the Germans and Byelorussian collaborators under the nickname Tolka, which he was known by for many years to come. He received a first-degree partisan badge in recognition of his activities.

Subsequently, Arad joined the Red Army and fought with them until the end of the war, when he left Lithuania and managed to reach Italy through illegal immigration routes.

Source : Wikipedia