Joseph Serchuk

Joseph (Yozhik) Serchuk (Hebrew: יוסף סרצ'וק‎‎) born Józef Serczuk or Josef Sierczuk (Chełm, 1919 – 6 November 1993, Tel Aviv) was the leader of a Jewish partisan unit in the Lublin area of occupied Poland during the Holocaust. After World War II, he testified at trials of the Nazis, and received special recognition from the State of Israel.

After his parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto in 1941, Joseph and his brother David were taken to Sobibor extermination camp. After one day in the camp, he fled with his brother to the nearest forest, and together with other survivors founded the core of a partisan group. During the war, the group was led by Jews who had escaped from nearby ghettos and from Sobibor. The group also included the postwar writer Dov Freiberg.

After the war, Joseph took part in locating the fleeing Nazi war criminals in Europe and served as a witness in the Nuremberg Trials. He joined communist forces in Poland under the Soviet military control (pictured). His brother joined the Stalinist security apparatus and was killed in an anti-partisan action. In 1950, during the darkest years of Stalinism in Poland, Serchuk obtained a passport and went to Israel. Immediately upon arriving in Israel, he was drafted as a soldier to the Israeli army. After service, he married, settled in Yad Eliyahu in Tel Aviv, and opened a business.

...
Wikipedia