Jews in the Resistance in Soviet Ukraine in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XXIII

Jews in the Resistance and Partisan Movement in the Soviet Ukraine

This study opens with a brief description of the Soviet partisan movement in Ukraine and estimates of the Jewish participation in it. The first Jewish resistance groups in Ukraine were formed not in the prewar Soviet regions, where the bulk of eligible, able-bodied Jews were either conscripted in the summer of 1941 or evacuated, while the others were shot by the Nazis in the first weeks of the occupation, but in the western, formerly Polish regions and in Transnistria, where there were ghettos. Later, these groups were included in mixed partisan divisions. It is shown that a large number of Jewish partisans were former POWs who had fled from POW camps. Jews held various positions in the partisan units in Ukraine, from the rank-and-file to commanders, both combatants and non-combatants. In conclusion, Spector discusses the diverging statistics for the partisan movement in Ukraine, including estimates of the number of Jewish partisans.