LAST JEWISH PARTISAN FORT IN EUROPE | 20-YEAR CAMPAIGN TO DEFAME THE VILNA JEWISH PARTISANS | HISTORY | GERMANY | CHRISTIAN-JEWISH RELATIONS | HUMAN RIGHTS
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Berlin speaks of respect for the last remnant of Jewish partisan resistance, and particularly the partisan fort where the Vilna Jewish Partisans, all escapees from the Vilna Ghetto, lived and fought the Nazis, most famously after the ghetto’s liquidation on 23 September 1943 and right up to the end of Nazi occupation in July 1944.
But the German army’s new Panzerbrigade 45 is the new factor causing the fort’s rapid deterioration. In spite of all the laudable German government statements and commitments set out below (with links to sources), the remnants of Lithuania’s last surviving Jewish partisan fort from the resistance to Nazi rule — in the historic Rudnitsk Forest, today Rūdninkai Forest — have been deteriorating rapidly since the arrival immediately nearby, in the same forest, of Germany’s new NATO-affiliated Panzerbrigade 45 (“Litauenbrigade”).
Forest clearing for new roads; numerous danger signs along the access route; road closures cutting off access for visitors from near or far who are turned back at various points during shooting exercises; and late-night partying by construction workers building the brigade’s gleaming new barracks have all, in the view of this journal, contributed to the accelerating degradation and disappearance of this unique historic site.
These developments come against the background of a twenty-year campaign within Lithuania to prosecute and defame the Jewish Partisans, and ultimately erase from public memory the inspirational history of Jewish resistance to the Nazis in a country where around 96% of the Jewish population was murdered during the Holocaust. The partisan fort could instead become a powerful site of education and remembrance for the thousands of German soldiers now arriving in Lithuania, as well as for the growing number of younger Lithuanians who are uncomfortable with the far right’s history-rewriting institutions — institutions which, in the view of this journal, have done serious harm to the reputation of beautiful, welcoming, modern, democratic Lithuania.
Disturbingly, the unrelated issue of the Panzerbrigade 45 soldiers scrubbing old Jewish gravestones with a Lithuanian NGO in faraway cemeteries that have nothing to do with the Jewish partisan fort being degraded by their new military base, is emerging as a recurring PR pivot to change the subject. Those old cemeteries are fenced in, protected by law, honored by their local townships, and do not need these soldiers’ hands. German military personnel encountered in Vilnius had never heard about the sinking Jewish partisan fort adjoining their new training grounds, while highly publicized work on prewar Jewish cemeteries elsewhere in Lithuania serves to deflect attention from the Holocaust-era Jewish resistance site lying beside the brigade’s own training area.
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Official German Bundestag and Federal Government statements and documents relevant to the remnants of the Jewish partisan fort adjoining Panzerbrigade 45, in ascending chronological order
3 December 2025. Initial parliamentary question, Kleine Anfrage, Bundestag Drucksache 21/3059, formally dated 3 December 2025; the underlying question was dated 26 November. The inquiry raised the danger to the remnants of the Jewish partisan camp in connection with Panzerbrigade 45 and asked the Federal Government what it knew about the site and what measures it would take to protect it.
The question also placed Fania Brantsovsky (Brancovskaja) at the centre of the historical background, describing her as a fighter from the camp and drawing attention to her efforts for its preservation. This is an official Bundestag document, but the assertions seem to be those of the MPs submitting the question rather than those of the Federal Government.
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16 December 2025. Full official German Federal Government answer, Bundestag Drucksache 21/3291, transmitted on behalf of the Federal Government by the Federal Ministry of Defence. The Government states emphatically that it “nachdrücklich” supports preservation of the former partisan camp as a place of learning and remembrance. It says that the Lithuanian Government had been asked to examine the area’s worthiness of protection and take it into account in further planning, and states that the Bundeswehr, as future user of the training ground, will work for the protection and preservation of the historic site. It also says that the history of the Jewish partisans in Lithuania is to be actively incorporated into the brigade’s remembrance and educational work.
In the same Government preamble, Panzerbrigade 45’s cooperation with a Lithuanian NGO, “Maceva” dedicated to preserving and inventorying old Jewish cemeteries — a most laudable work! — is presented as an example of its existing historical-political educational work. The Government document itself speaks of the preservation and maintenance of Jewish cemeteries.
From the perspective of this journal, the juxtaposition is important. The cleaning and care of centuries-old Jewish cemeteries is admirable and should continue. But these are prewar Jewish sites elsewhere in Lithuania and have no direct connection with the Jewish partisan resistance in Rūdninkai Forest. We are concerned that the repeated prominence given to this commendable cemetery activity risks functioning as a substitute for confronting the difficult and urgent issue immediately at hand: the continuing deterioration of the surviving fort from which Jewish escapees from the Vilna Ghetto fought Nazi occupation forces in a forest fort directly beside the German brigade’s new massive military infrastructure.
The document also reproduces, as part of the parliamentary question, substantial material concerning Fania Brantsovsky / Brancovskaja: her participation in the Rūdninkai partisan camp; the political campaign against her in Lithuania; Germany’s earlier concern over that campaign; her award of the Federal Cross of Merit from the President of Germany; and her longstanding advocacy for preservation of the camp. This material belongs to the questioners’ preamble and is not, as such, an affirmative statement by the Federal Government. The Government expressly states that it takes the preamble into account but neither adopts its evaluations nor confirms all of the factual assertions contained in it.
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29 December 2025. Bundestag heute im bundestag (hib) summary of the German Federal Government’s first reply. The Bundestag reports that the Federal Government favours preservation of the former Jewish partisan camp in Rūdninkai Forest as a place of learning and remembrance; that Lithuania had been asked to examine the area’s worthiness of protection; and that, as future user of the training ground, the Bundeswehr would work for the protection and preservation of the historic site. It also states that the history of the Jewish partisans is to be actively incorporated into the brigade’s historical and political educational work in cooperation with the German Embassy in Vilnius.
The same official Bundestag summary specifically highlights the brigade’s cooperation with the Jewish NGO “Maceva” and describes the organization as devoted to the preservation and maintenance of prewar Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania. It says that this existing remembrance work is to continue in cooperation with the German Embassy in Vilnius and that the history of the Jewish partisans is to be actively incorporated into it.
22 June 2026. During a troop visit to Lithuania, Federal Defence Minister Boris Pistorius personally raised the partisan fort with Lithuanian Defence Minister Robertas Kaunas. According to the Federal Government’s subsequent official answer of 16 July, Pistorius stressed the political importance Germany attaches to responsible treatment of the site and asked that the historic location be preserved, marked and made accessible. Kaunas promised to examine the request. The same Government answer contains an important new official statement about Fania Brantsovsky.
So far as we have been able to determine, this was not issued as a separate contemporaneous press statement, but it constitutes an official ministerial intervention recorded by the Federal Government in Bundestag Drucksache 21/7197.
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2 July 2026. Follow-up parliamentary question, Kleine Anfrage, Bundestag Drucksache 21/6830, formally dated 2 July 2026. The parliamentary group’s own website lists the initiative under 6 July, which explains the apparent discrepancy, but for an official-document chronology the date printed on the Bundestag Drucksache — 2 July — seems preferable.
The inquiry challenges the apparent divergence between Germany’s December commitment to preservation and subsequently reported attitudes toward the site on the Lithuanian side. Among other things, the MPs ask what contacts the Federal Government has had with Jewish organizations, Holocaust memorial institutions, historians, NGOs, Yad Vashem, Defending History and others; whether representatives of the German Government or Bundeswehr have actually visited the partisan site; whether the German Embassy and leadership of the brigade have inspected it; whether its history has yet become part of brigade education; and whether Germany’s credibility in the field of remembrance policy is affected if a historic site of Jewish resistance immediately adjoining a permanent Bundeswehr location is not preserved.
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8 July 2026. Bundestag hib summary of the follow-up parliamentary question, Drucksache 21/6830. The summary records that the Left parliamentary group sought clarification of what steps the Federal Government had taken since its earlier pledge to work for preservation of the former Jewish partisan camp, including whether Germany would again press Lithuania for preservation and whether it was considering financial or specialist assistance. This is an official Bundestag publication describing the parliamentary inquiry rather than a statement by the Government itself.
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16 July 2026. Full official German Federal Government answer, Bundestag Drucksache 21/7197, transmitted on behalf of the Federal Government by the Federal Ministry of Defence. This is the most detailed German Government statement on the matter to date.
The Government states that its assessment of the site’s worthiness of protection has not changed; that it supports preservation of the former partisan camp as a place of learning and remembrance; and that it considers responsible treatment of the historic site necessary. It says that Lithuania has been asked to examine protection of the area and confirms, in answer to a direct question, that the German Government will again press the Lithuanian Government for its preservation.
The Government further gives an explicit assessment of the Jewish resistance itself. Asked how it evaluates the historical role of the Jewish partisans who escaped the Vilna Ghetto and fought the German occupation from Rūdninkai Forest, it answers that the courage and deeds of all those who resisted National Socialist dictatorship and tyranny in its various forms deserve “große Anerkennung” — great recognition. It also answers “Nein” to the proposition that Soviet-era reconstruction necessarily deprives a historic site of its value as a place of remembrance. [Editor’s note: Various eyewitness accounts assembled over the years from Fania Brantsovsky, Rachel Margolis, Abraham Zeleznikov and others confirm that the visible wooden barracks on the site are original, while Soviet-era preservation involved underlying log supports and, in places, unsightly concrete underpinning the visible wooden barracks, in addition to Soviet signage not even mentioning the Jewish partisans, hijacking its meaning for the standard Soviet narrative. Moreover, the Soviets erected picnic tables for outings; the last of these disappeared some years ago and they are not relevant to the surviving fort structures.]
On historical-political education, the Government refers back to its earlier preamble in Drucksache 21/3291 — the December statement in which cooperation with “Maceva” is cited as an example of the brigade’s existing remembrance work. The July answer says that, once permanent Bundeswehr use of the Rūdninkai training area begins, currently expected in the second half of 2027, the history of Rūdninkai Forest is to be incorporated into the brigade’s political and historical education.
The same Government answer contains an important new official statement about Fania Brancovsky. It identifies her as Fania Brancowska, née Jocheles (1922–2024), a former member of the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (FPO), and records that she brought groups to the former partisan camp and told them about her time in the resistance. It also notes that Germany awarded her the Verdienstkreuz am Bande des Verdienstordens der Bundesrepublik Deutschland in 2009.
The July answer does not itself contain a new reference to “Maceva” or cemetery cleaning. But the brigade’s extensive public-relations activity continues prominently to feature cemetery-cleaning projects, while failing, so far as we have been able to determine, even once to mention the Vilna partisans’ fort whose survival is directly affected by their own Panzerbrigade’s military infrastructure construction in the same forest.
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29 July 2026. Bundestag heute im bundestag (hib) summary of the German Federal Government’s reply, Bundestag Drucksache 21/7197. The Bundestag summary reports that the Federal Government supports preservation of the former partisan camp as a place of learning and remembrance and considers responsible treatment of the historic site necessary.
It further records that the camp area is not part of the Bundeswehr’s training installations and is not affected by ongoing or planned construction work; according to the Government, manoeuvres on the training ground have no effect on the area, while responsibility for regulating public access remains with Lithuania. These assertions stand in stark contrast to this journal’s repeated on-site observations of serious deterioration of the fort and mounting obstacles to ordinary visitor access.
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Media coverage to date:
Jewish Telegraphic Agency (JTA), Der Spiegel, Berliner Zeitung, and Defending History.
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The Background:
The 20-year campaign to prosecute, defame and erase from history the memory of the Jewish partisans who fought against Nazi Germany’s forces.
Coverage of Fania Yocheles Brantsovsky from 2008 onward in Defending History. Fania Brantsovsky resources page with links to multiple videos. 2007 video of Fania at the fort.
The renewed campaign (from 2025) to defame Ms. Brantsovsky after her death.