The Avengers
When the War Ended, They Were Just Getting Started
The Forest
By 1944, Abba Kovner had been living in the forests of Lithuania for over a year. He commanded a Jewish partisan unit fighting the Germans from the trees. He had watched the Vilna Ghetto get built, filled, and liquidated. He had lost nearly everyone. He fought anyway.
When the Soviets finally pushed the Germans out, most men would have gone home. Kovner had no home left. What he had was a list, a word and 50 people who felt exactly the same way he did. The word was Nakam. In Hebrew, it means vengeance.
The world exhaled. Somewhere in the ruins of Eastern Europe, what was left of a Jewish community tried to pick up the shattered pieces of everything it had lost.
The Holocaust murdered more than 15 million people. The Nuremberg trials eventually convicted a few dozen men. Most of the people who ran the machinery of that killing lived out their lives in Germany, in Argentina, in quiet retirement.
Kovner had a different retirement plan for them.
This work is entirely reader-supported. By choosing a paid subscription, you allow me to continue this long-form research to bring these vital stories to light. Thank you for helping this Lioness roar for the truth.
