Jewish Partisan Community

Poland Partisan

Rita Gurwitz Yelgin was born on June 21, 1921, in Slonim, Lithuania, and grew up in Grodno, Poland. She lived with her parents, Aryeh Leyb and Esther (Samsonovitz) Gurwitz, and an older sister Bertha (Gurwitz) Wolynski, who was born...

Poland Partisan

Henry Yelgin was born on March 24, 1915, in Bobruisk, Russia, and grew up in Grodno, Poland. He lived there with his mother, Cila, and his older brother, Abraham, on the city’s outskirts. Henry was not yet born when his...

Poland Partisan

Benjamin Lombrowski (Inoma Dombrovsky) was born on January 10, 1916, in the small village of Deretchin, Poland, which was formerly in the area of Novogrudok. He lived with his parents, Shlomo-Mordechai and Badaneh, along with four siblings: Yehudah, Golda...

Poland Partisan

Sonia Lombrowski (nee Lazowski) was born on October 25, 1917, to a wealthy family in Dvoretz, Poland. She lived with her parents, Eliezer and Chayka, and four siblings: Motil, Yaakov, Heshel, and Yehoshua. When the war broke out in...

Poland Partisan

This report is based on a chapter of Betty Brodsky Cohen’s upcoming book, “The Tunnel People,”  which tells the personal stories of the Novogrudok tunnel escapees. Shlomo Ryback was born on March 12, 1914, in Radun, Poland. He lived...