Abba Kovner

Abba Kovner (Hebrew: אבא קובנר‎‎; March 14, 1918 – September 25, 1987) was a Jewish Hebrew poet, writer and partisan leader. He became one of the great poets of modern Israel. He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner.

Abba Kovner was born on March 14, 1918, in the Crimean Black Sea port city of Sevastopol. His parents were Rachel (Rosa) Taubman and Israel Kovner. At a young age he moved with his family to Vilnius, which at this time was part of Poland, where he grew up and was educated at the secondary Hebrew academy and the school of the arts. While pursuing his studies, he joined and became an active member in the socialist Zionist youth movement HaShomer HaTzair.

In June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked Vilnius, which was by that time in the Lithuanian SSR, after the illegal annexation/occupation of Lithuania (and the other Baltic States) into the Soviet Union July 21, 1940; Vilnius was given to Lithuania after Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded and divided Poland. After occupation established the Vilna Ghetto. Kovner managed to escape with several friends to a Dominican convent headed by Anna Borkowska (Polish Righteous among the Nations) in the city's suburbs, but he soon returned to the ghetto. He concluded that in order for any revolt to be successful, a Jewish resistance fighting force needed to be assembled.

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