Sonia Orbuch was 17 when she joined a resistance group to fight the Nazis.

Courtesy of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (Sonia Orbuch); KEYSTONE-FRANCE/Gamma-Rapho via Getty Images (Top); dpa picture alliance/Alamy Stock Photo (Bottom)

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Common Core: RH.6-8.1, RH.6-8.2, RH.6-8.7, RH.6-8.9, RI.6-8.1, RI.6-8.2, RI.6-8.7, SL.6-8.1, SL.6-8.2, SL.6-8.5, WHST.6-8.2, WHST.6-8.4, WHST.6-8.5, WHST.6-8.9

C3 (D2/6-8): Civ.1, Civ.6, His.1, His.2, His.4, His.9, His.14

NCSS: Time, continuity, and change; People, places, and environments; Individuals, groups, and institutions; Power, authority, and governance

FLASHBACK

True Teens of History

The Girl Who Fought the Nazis 

Seventeen-year-old Sonia Orbuch was one of thousands of Jewish teens who risked their lives to fight the Nazis during World War II 

As You Read, Think About: How can learning about the past teach us about the present?

Shots were being fired in all directions, but 17-year-old Sonia Orbuch wasn’t afraid. An endless stream of wounded soldiers needed her help.

It was early 1944, and Sonia’s unit was fighting a bloody battle during World War II (1939-1945). The teen and hundreds of others were trying to prevent the Germans from capturing a key train station in the Soviet Union (see map, below)

Despite having no formal medical training, Sonia would spend the next 10 days on the battlefield. She barely slept or changed her clothes and had little to eat but crackers and bread. Day and night, she cared for injured troops, some whose limbs had been blown off. Since supplies were low, she had to reuse the same bloodied bandages over and overall while dodging bullets herself

Jewish Partisans Share Their Stories
A video in which former Jewish partisans talk about their experiences fighting the Nazis in World War II

The sounds from the front were terrifying,” Sonia recalled years later. “A relentless barrage of grenades, cannons, and rockets roared through the cold air. Any moment, I thought, we could be blasted to bits.”

At the time, German Chancellor Adolf Hitler and his Nazi forces were carrying out their plan to conquer Europe and annihilate its Jews. Yet hundreds of thousands of Euro­peans were determined to stop them. These brave men and women, many of them teens, formed organized resis­tance groups to fight the Nazis.

Under the cover of darkness, these fighters, called partisans, blew up factories and railroads, stole weapons, and upset the flow of supplies to German troops. Some even confronted enemy soldiers on the battlefield.

Many of the partisans had military experience, but others were ordinary citizens. Like Sonia, 30,000 were Jewsfighting for their livesand deter­mined to avenge the loss of their loved ones. After all, the Nazis had murdered many of their friends and relatives, and they weren’t going to give up without a fight

If I was going to get killed, I was going to get killed as a fighter, not because I am a Jew,” Sonia said years later. “That itself gave me strength to go on.”

Slideshow

Hitler’s Rise to Power 

As a young girl growing up in Luboml, Poland, Sonia never would have pictured herself fighting the Nazis. Back then, she lived with her parents and two older brothers in a small two-bedroom house on Chelmska Street. Sonia was quiet and studious, and loved going to the beautiful synagogue in town

But outside her close-knit Jewish community, anti-Semitism (prejudice against Jews) was a fact of life. For centuries, Jews’ religion and rituals had often kept them separate from other Europeansand routinely made them a target.

In nearby Germany, Hitler and his Nazi Party had risen to power by tapping into that bigotry. At the time, Germany was struggling. Its defeat in World War I (1914-18) and the economic crisis that followed left the nation humiliated and poor

Hitler gave Germans a scapegoat for all the country’s problems: Jews. He blamed them for the nation’s high unemployment rate and called themsubhumanandan inferior race.” Once in power, Hitler stripped German Jews of their rights and forbade them from working certain jobs. But that was only the start.

In September 1939, days before Sonia was set to begin ninth grade, Hitler invaded Poland, sparking World War II. From that moment on, her life would never be the same

The Partisans in Action
Newsreel footage of Jewish resistance fighters during World War II

Forced Into Hiding 

Within months of the war’s out­break, Hitler had invaded much of Europe. Many people in the growing German empire soon turned against their Jewish neighbors, setting synagogues on fire, destroy­ing Jewish businesses, and beating Jews in the streets. The vicious attacks prompted hundreds of thousands of Jews to try to flee their homes

But many of them had nowhere to go. Several nations, including the U.S., had set quotas that limited the number of refugees they would allow in. Sonia’s family was trapped.

When the Nazis arrived in Luboml, they forced the town’s 8,000 Jews into a crowded ghetto surrounded by fencing and barbed wire. Sonia, her parents, and 13 friends and relatives were crammed into a two-room house. By then, her brothers had already left to fight the Nazisone with a partisan unit, the other with the Soviet army. She would never see them again

Each resident of the ghetto was given just one slice of bread a day and made to perform backbreaking work for hours at a time. Instead of going to school, Sonia and other young girls had to lug huge steel rails. If they stopped to catch their breath for even a second, they risked being beaten by Nazi guards

Then, in the fall of 1942, rumors spread that the Nazis were planning to kill all the Jews in the ghetto. For two days, Sonia and the 15 other people in the house hid insideand didn’t dare make a sound. Every few minutes, they could hear German trucks passing by outside. But it wasn’t until years later that Sonia found out what happened: The Nazis had rounded up all the Jews they could find1,700 men, women, and childrenand dragged them to the country­side. There, they were lined up in front of giant pits and shot.

You Might Need to Know . . . 

Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis via Getty Images

The Nazis round up Jews in the Warsaw ghetto in Poland in April 1943.

World War II (1939-1945) was a global conflict that pitted the Allies (led by the U.S., Great Britain, and the Soviet Union) against the Axis Powers (led by Germany, Italy, and Japan).

Ghettos were crowded areas of cities often surrounded by fencing or barbed wire. As Hitler’s empire grew, European Jews were forced into such places. From there, they were often sent to concentration camps, many of which had been designed as killing centers.

Surviving in the Forest

Since it was no longer safe to stay in Luboml, Sonia and her parents decided to make their escape. In the dark of night, they fled into a nearby forest with little more than the clothes on their backs

For nearly a year, they hid in the woods, where temperatures remained below zero for days at a time. They built a small hut out of twigs and leaves and ate whatever they could find. Eventually, they learned of a band of partisans about 6 miles away and realized their best chance at survival was to join them.

Center for Historical Research and Documentation on War and Contemporary Society Brussels, Belgium

ACTS OF SABOTAGE: Partisans derailed this German train during World War II.

Life as a Partisan

When Sonia arrived at the com­pound, she was amazed. It was like a small town, with dozens of people cooking, sewing clothes, and laughing. “The camp hummed with the sort of human activity I hadn’t known in years,” she recalled

Sonia and her parents were given a tent and assigned jobs. Her father was sent out to raid farms and villages for food, while her mother worked as a cook, preparing hearty soups with potatoes and meat. Sonia, mean­while, was taught to care for the wounded, bandaging soldiers injured in battle and creating herbal medicines out of whatever she could find in the forests.

The Holocaust
A video about the rise of Nazism in Germany and the Holocaust

Over time, Sonia was transformed into a fighter. She learned to shoot a rifle, serve as a lookout, and guard the compound. She even went on missions to plant land mines along Nazi train tracks. Wherever she went, she carried two grenadesone for the Nazis and one for herself. Above all else, she refused to be taken alive.

I would have been happy to die,” she said, “so long as I was fighting the Germans at last.”

A Bittersweet Ending

In the spring of 1944, Sonia’s unit was drafted into the Soviet army. As the group prepared to leave, a senior official who had been protective of Sonia pulled her aside, fearful that she would die in combat. He gave her a horse and told her to flee with her parents to a nearby village, where a family would help them. Shortly after they arrived, however, Sonia’s mother contracted a disease called typhus. She died within days. Sonia, now 18, was devastated.  

By then, the Nazis had retreated, and it was finally safe for Sonia and her father to return to Luboml. But when they got there, nothing was the same. Much of the town had been burned down, including their home

A few months later, in May 1945, Germany surrendered. In total, the Nazis had killed 6 million European Jews and more than 5 million others, including Communists, Poles, Roma, Serbs, and the disabled. Many had been shot and thrown into mass graves, or herded into gas chambers. Others died in the camps of star­vation or disease. About 1 million of the victims were children.

Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation and Faye Schulman: A Partisan’s Memoir, Second Story Press

FIGHTING BACK: A group of Jewish partisans in the Soviet Union in 1944

Fighting Prejudice 

Shortly after the war, Sonia met her future husband, Isaak, a fellow Holocaust survivor. In 1949, they moved with their young daughter and Sonia’s father to New York City. Soon, Sonia had another child, a son. But the warand everyone she had lostwas never far from her mind

In 2000, Sonia was instrumental in founding the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, a group that preserves the memory of the brave men and women who risked every­thing to fight the Nazis. She passed away last fall at the age of 93.

You can always fight back against injustice, racism, or anti-Semitism.”

In the years before her death, Sonia often spoke about her life during the Holocaust to ensure that her storyand those of other partisan fighterslives on

I want young people to know that we were fighting back,” she said. “And that you can always fight back against injustice, racism, or anti-Semitism.” 

Write About It! Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place this year on May 2. Imagine that your school will be holding an assembly to honor the victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Using details from the article, write an informational essay about Sonia to be read aloud at the assembly, including who she was and why we should remember her

The War in Europe 

By the end of 1942, the Nazis had dominated much of Europe.

Jim McMahon/Mapman®

videos (3)
Video

History

Jewish Partisans Share Their Stories

A video in which former Jewish partisans talk about their experiences fighting the Nazis in World War II

Video

History

The Partisans in Action

Newsreel footage of Jewish resistance fighters during World War II

Video

History

The Holocaust

A video about the rise of Nazism in Germany and the Holocaust

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