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Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye


The Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (Yiddish: פֿאַראײניקטע פּאַרטיזאַנער אָרגאַניזאַציע; "United Partisan Organization"; referred to as FPO by its Yiddish initials) was a Jewish resistance organization based in the Vilna Ghetto that organized armed resistance against the Nazis during World War II. The clandestine organisation was established by Zionist as well as Communist partisans. Their leaders were writer Abba Kovner and Yitzhak Wittenberg.

The FPO was formed on January 21, 1942 in the Vilna Ghetto. It took on the motto: "We will not allow them to take us like sheep to the slaughter." This was the first Jewish resistance organization that was established in the ghettos of Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II, followed by Łachwa underground formed in August 1942. Unlike in other ghettos – where the underground resistance was coordinated to some extent with the officials of the local Jewish establishment – Vilna's Jacob Gens, head of the ghetto, cooperated with German officials in stopping armed resistance. The FPO brought together Socialist Zionists, right-wing conservatives, communists and Bundists. It was headed by Yitzhak Wittenberg, Josef Glazman, and Abba Kovner.

The goals of the FPO were to establish self-defense in the ghetto, to sabotage German industrial and military activities and to join the partisan and Red Army’s fight against the Nazis. Abe (Abba) Kovner, the movement's leader, along with 17 members of local Zionist group Hashomer Hatzair, stationed at a Polish Catholic convent for an order of Dominican Sisters, sheltered from the Nazis by Mother Superior Anna Borkowska (Sister Bertranda),Righteous among the Nations, who was the first to supply hand grenades and other weapons to the Vilnius ghetto underground.


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