Abba Kovner
Abba Kovner (also Abel Kowner; b. 14 March 1918 in Ashmyany, Lithuania District, German Empire; d. 25 September 1987 in Ein HaHoresh, Israel) was a Jewish writer, WWII partisan, and officer in the Israeli military who fought in the war in Palestine. He was also a founder of the Nakam organization that planned to kill six million Germans and committed various crimes.
During the 1947–1949 Palestine war, he wrote propaganda writings referred to the Egyptian enemy as "vipers" and "dogs". As a partisan, he followed Soviet Communist command and in Israel supported a Marxist party. He played a major part in the design and construction of several Holocaust museums and testified at the Eichmann trial. Despite his participation in crimes, he was not prosecuted and is considered one of the greatest poets in modern Israel and received the Israel Prize in 1970.
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Life
Kovner soon moved with his family to Vilnius, 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. On 19 September 1939, the Red Army invaded Vilnius and soon annexed it into the Soviet Union.
In June 1941, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, National Socialist Germany liberated the city once again, which was by that time in Lithuanian SSR, and, after liberation, established the Vilna Ghetto. Kovner managed to escape with several other Jews to a Dominican convent headed by Anna Borkowska 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 terrorist fighting force needed to be assembled. He commanded the United Partisan Organization in the forests near Vilnius and engaged in sabotage and terrorist attacks against the National Socialists. He continued his terrorist efforts throughout the war, civilians had to pay for the partisans' bloody deeds.
After the occupation of Vilnius by the Soviet Red Army in July 1944, he became one of the founders of the Berihah movement, helping Jews escape Eastern Europe after the war. He came to Palestine for a short period of time in 1945, and then returned to Europe to, with the Nakam organization, continue terrorist activities against German POW's.
Post-WWII
Kovner founded Nakam (Dam Yehudi Nakam – "Jewish Blood Will Be Avenged") as a Jewish organization with the aim of avenging the alleged Holocaust. He and his terror group used English military uniforms, murdered over 100 German persons by kidnapping them, driving them into a forest, let dig their own graves and then shot them into the grave. They also wanted to mass murder inhabitants of some big German cities, however, they were not successful to organize that.
Nakam attempted a mass assassination on 14 April 1946 at the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg. Bread for 12,000 to 15,000 German POWs (mostly SS members) was reputedly painted with diluted arsenic. According to the New York Times in 1946, 207 of the interned soldiers fell ill and were admitted into the hospital but none died. For his assassinations and this mass assassination attempt Kovner was never punished. Kovner was detained and deported from Europe back to Israel, where he eventually served as an officer in the Givati Brigade in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. During his service, he authored "battle leaflets," designed to keep up morale. In 1961, he was one of the "witnesses" in the Eichmann trial.
His book of poetry Ad Lo-Or, ("Until No-Light"), from 1947, describes in lyric-dramatic narrative the struggle of the partisans in the swamps and forests of Eastern Europe. Ha-Mafteach Tzalal, ("The Key Drowned"), from 1951, is also about these terrorist activities. Pridah Me-ha-darom ("Departure from the South"), from 1949, and Panim el Panim ("Face to Face"), from 1953, continue the story with the war against Arabs. Kovner's story is the basis for the song "Six Million Germans / Nakam" by Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird.
Awards and honors
- In 1968, Kovner was awarded the Brenner Prize for literature.
- In 1970, Kovner was awarded the Israel Prize for literature.
