Tag Archives: Samuel Gruber (Jewish heritage)

Lithuania’s Jewish Partisan Fort in the Forest is No. 2 on List of Top Ten Forgotten Jewish History Sites Worldwide



An excerpt from Michael Luongo’s list of the world’s top ten Forgotten Jewish History sites. Read the original in today’s edition of the Forward.

◊

‘…The Jewish Partisan Fort in Rundninkai Forest, 25 miles from Vilna. Comprising decaying concrete, wooden bunkers and other remnants, it was used as a hidden refuge by nearly 400 Jews who escaped the Vilna Ghetto between 1943 and 1944. On his website, cultural heritage consultant and Forward contributor Samuel Gruber calls the Fort “an important aspect of the anti-Nazi fight in Lithuania — something all Lithuanians should acknowledge,” and notes that the dugout structures “record a momentous movement in Jewish history, comparable to the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto.” Only one of the Jewish resistance fighters involved with the fort, Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky, is still alive. Brantsovsky, who is in her late 80s, is still running tours. This site makes the list because it might not be around much longer. As Gruber tells it on his blog, “The possibility of preserving this site… aggravates and even enrages those in Lithuania who continue to celebrate the pro-Nazi participants and policies of the war years.” (Contact historian Dovid Katz, who runs the website Defending History to arrange tours with Brantsovsky.)’


Posted in History, Jewish Fort in the Lithuanian Forest: A Last Remnant of Jewish Resistance during the Holocaust, Lithuania, Litvak Affairs, News & Views, Politics of Memory | Tagged , , , , , , | Comments Off on Lithuania’s Jewish Partisan Fort in the Forest is No. 2 on List of Top Ten Forgotten Jewish History Sites Worldwide