Abba Kovner

Abba Kovner (1918–1987) was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet, writer, and partisan leader. He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner. [ [http://www.pww.org/archives97/97-07-19-3.html] ]

He was born in the Crimean Black Sea port city of Sevastopol but soon moved with his family to Vilnius (then in Poland, now in Lithuania) where he grew up and was educated at the secondary Hebrew academy and the school of the arts. While pursuing his studies, he joined and became an active member in the socialist Zionist youth movement HaShomer HaTzair.

In June 1941, Nazi Germany attacked the city, by that time in Lithuanian SSR, and after occupation established the Vilna Ghetto. Kovner managed to escape with several friends to a Dominican convent in the city's suburbs, but he soon returned to the ghetto. He concluded that in order for any revolt to be successful, a Jewish resistance fighting force needed to be assembled. He commanded the United Partisan Organization in the forests near Vilnius and engaged in sabotage and guerilla attacks against the Nazis. [ [http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/kovner.htm] ] He is accused of violent repressions against local Polish and Lithuanian population. He continued his partisan efforts and survived through the Holocaust.

After liberation of Vilnius by the Soviet Red Army in July of 1944, he became one of the founders of the Berihah movement, helping Jews escape Eastern Europe after the war. He came to Palestine for a short period of time in 1945, and then returned to Europe to continue underground activities against Nazi POW's. However, he was deported from Europe back to Palestine, where he eventually fought in the Givati Brigade in the Israel War of Independence.

His book of poetry "Ad Lo-Or", ("Until No-Light"), 1947, describes in lyric-dramatic narrative the struggle of the Resistance partisans in the swamps and forests of Eastern Europe. "Ha-Mafteach Tzalal", ("The Key Drowned"), 1951, is also about this struggle. "Pridah Me-ha-darom" ("Departure from the South"), 1949, and "Panim el Panim" ("Face to Face"), 1953, continue the story with the Israeli War of Independence.

In 1970 Kovner received the "Israel Prize" for literature.

* See "The Modern Hebrew Poem Itself" (2003), ISBN 0-8143-2485-1
* See "My Little Sister and Selected Poems", trans. Shirley Kaufman (1986), ISBN 0-932440-20-7

References

External links

* [http://www.vilnaghetto.com/index.html Chronicles of the Vilna Ghetto: wartime photographs & documents - vilnaghetto.com]
* [http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/Kovner.html Abba Kovner Biography]
* [http://history1900s.about.com/od/holocaust/a/kovner.htm Abba Kovner and Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto]