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, while the new German Panzerbrigade 45 is causing the fort’s rapid deterioration and disappearance.
In spite of all the laudable German statements and commitments set out below, 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; frequent restrictions on visitors 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 in 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 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 and democratic values of modern 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 never heard award about the sinking Jewish partisan fort adjoining their new training grounds. Highly publicized work on prewar Jewish cemeteries elsewhere in Lithuania can serve, whether intentionally or otherwise, to deflect attention from the Holocaust-era Jewish resistance site lying beside the brigade’s own training area — a site which German policy itself declares should be protected, preserved and incorporated into historical education, even as the places remains unknown, unmarked, unfenced, and apparently not even being mentioned to the thousands of soldiers heading “back east” this year.
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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 reverse chronological order
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.
The July hib summary contains no new reference to MACEVA or to work in Jewish cemeteries. Its focus is the partisan site itself.
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 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 Fareynegte 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 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.
The July answer does not name MACEVA again. On the question of historical-political education, however, the Government refers back to its earlier preamble in Drucksache 21/3291 — the December statement in which cooperation with “Maceva” was given 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 the Rūdninkai forest is to be incorporated into the brigade’s political and historical education.
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. 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 Drucksache 21/7197.
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. Neither MACEVA nor cemetery work is mentioned in this summary.
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 — is 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. The document itself contains no reference to MACEVA or cemetery cleaning.
29 December 2025. 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, describing the organization as devoted to the preservation and maintenance of 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. The Bundestag summary does not itself describe the work as cleaning gravestones. A separate German Goethe-Institut account of the cooperation, however, states that in spring 2025 the brigade’s military chaplain initiated a project in which Bundeswehr soldiers, working with Maceva, cleaned gravestones in the historic Jewish cemetery of Merkinė. This journal welcomes such cemetery work in itself, while questioning why it has received substantial public visibility whereas the endangered Jewish partisan fort beside the brigade’s own area has remained virtually absent from the brigade’s public commemoration.
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 MACEVA is presented as an example of its existing historical-political educational work. MACEVA is described as a Jewish NGO concerned with the preservation and maintenance of Jewish cemeteries in Lithuania. The Government says that this 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 included. Again, the Government document itself speaks of the preservation of Jewish cemeteries rather than specifically of cleaning gravestones; the latter activity is documented in the German Goethe-Institut account of the brigade-Maceva project at Merkinė.
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 cemeteries are prewar sites dispersed around Lithuania and have no direct connection with the Jewish partisan resistance in Rūdninkai Forest. We are concerned that repeated prominence given to this commendable cemetery activity risks functioning as a substitute for confronting the much more difficult issue immediately at hand: the continuing deterioration of the surviving fort from which Jewish escapees from the Vilna Ghetto fought Nazi occupation forces, directly beside the German brigade’s new sphere of operations.
The document also reproduces, as part of the parliamentary question, substantial material concerning Fania Brantsovskaya / Brancovskaja: her participation in the Rūdninkai partisan camp; the political campaign against her in Lithuania; Germany’s earlier concern over that campaign; her receipt of the Federal Cross of Merit; and her longstanding advocacy for preservation of the camp. It is important, however, to distinguish institutional responsibility: this material forms part of the questioners’ preamble and is not, as such, an affirmative statement by the Federal Government. The Government expressly states that it takes the questioners’ preamble into account but neither adopts its evaluations nor confirms all of the factual assertions contained in it.
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. It 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. Again, this is an official Bundestag document, but its assertions are those of the MPs submitting the question rather than those of the Federal Government.
The initial parliamentary question contains no mention of old cemetery cleaning. Those elements first enter the official Bundestag record in the Federal Government’s answer of 16 December 2025.
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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.