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Vitka Kempner
Vitka Kempner (March 14, 1922- February 15, 2012) was born in Kalisz, Poland, where she lived until her teen years when Nazi Germany began to rise to power. She was active in Jewish resistance movements and helped hundreds of Jewish people escape to safety in the surrounding forests. In a team with close friends #REDIRECT Abba Kovner and #REDIRECT Roska Korczak, they formed their own resistance group during #REDIRECT World War II called Ha-Nokmim, translating to The Avengers. After experiencing extreme survivor guilt, the trio formed a new group, Nakam, which is Hebrew for vengeance in hopes of finding a reason for their survival and existence. The group wasn’t satisfied that the Nazis were being appropriately punished and they took matters into their own hands. They planned and executed poisoning Nazi POWs, and although none died, almost 2,000 fell ill. Vitka married #REDIRECT Abba Kovner and they had two children together. Vitka spent the rest of her quiet life dealing with the #REDIRECT survivor guilt she felt from surviving the #REDIRECT Holocaust. Her own guilt led her to become a clinical psychologist to help others heal their invisible wounds.

Early Life and Start of World War II Resistance
Vitka Kempner was born on March 14, 1922 in #REDIRECT Kalisz, Poland. She lived there for many years with her parents, until the Nazi regime in Germany started to rise to power. At the first signs of brutality from the newly formed #REDIRECT SS officers, her parents gave her their blessing to flee. She escaped with her younger brother to #REDIRECT Vilna, Lithuania where they hoped to be safe. In Vilna, she joined a student youth Zionist group called #REDIRECT Hashomer Hatzair. She was one of the first women to join a combined group, which was a revisionist youth movement called #REDIRECT Betar. Jewish people were safe in Vilna until June 24, 1941 when the Germans arrived and occupied the city. The people in Vilna were forced to assist the SS in moving the Jewish people into the newly formed #REDIRECT ghetto; the Jews there, both native and foreign, knew they were in trouble. While people were being taken to the ghetto, Vitka became an essential person in trying to hide people so they wouldn’t have to be forced into the ghetto. There was a division among the members of the movement on whether to attempt to save others and help get them to a safer place to stay, or to stay in the ghetto and hope that they would be able to survive the brutality that would follow. Vitka, along with close friends she had made in Vilna, #REDIRECT Abba Kovner, #REDIRECT Haika Grosman, #REDIRECT Roska Korczak and others, decided to stay in the ghetto and help sustain the movement, start an armed resistance, and get as many people to safety as they could. Abba Kovner became the leader of the group, which called themselves #REDIRECT Ha-Nokmim, the Avengers .

The Avengers Resistance Group- Ha-Nokmim
The group, also #REDIRECT Nakam, was founded by Vitka Kempner, Abba Kovner, and Roska Korczak because they were determined not to be taken down as easily as the Nazi soldiers had anticipated. With Abba as their leader, they began to organize an armed resistance against the Nazis. Vitka became an incredible asset to the group. Her Polish didn’t have a #REDIRECT Yiddish accent and when her hair was died, she easily passed for a #REDIRECT non-Jew, which meant that she was able to blend in with the #REDIRECT gentiles outside the ghetto. On December 31, 1941 Abba delivered his #REDIRECT manifesto to the Avengers: “The only reply to a murderer is resistance. Brothers, it is better to die as free fighters than to live at the mercy of killers. Resist, resist, to our last breath” and the group escaped the ghetto that night and found some shelter and safety in the surrounding forests. Even though Kovner uses the word “brothers” in his speech, it was not to diminish the importance of Vitka and Roska, as the trio developed a very close bond and all were very instrumental in the acts of the Avengers and were chief lieutenants under Abba. Since she was a very active coordinator, Vitka wanted to go back to the ghetto to try to help more people escape and lead them so safety. She felt it was her duty to the people and was quoted, “I begged to be allowed to return to the ghetto… not withstanding the risks, you are a part of a group…you are among people who shared a common fate”. The passion she felt for helping her fellow Jewish people and doing right by them would stay with her for the rest of her life.

One of the most well-known acts of the #REDIRECT Avengers was carried out by Vitka Kempner. The group formed to idea to blow up a train that would be transporting Nazi soldiers into Vilna, which would be the first act of violent #REDIRECT sabotage against the German forces. She studied, investigated, and patrolled the time-table of the German military trains that went into Vilna, which was very dangerous for her to be doing in and of itself. After learning when the train would be arriving, she smuggled in a homemade bomb and placed it on the tracks. She then exploded the bomb when the train was passing through, which killed many Nazi soldiers. The Avengers would become one of the most famous and most successful all-Jewish partisan units of the war. The group continued to be very determined to get the proper revenge for what the Nazis had done, and they continued their war-time life in the underground. In the group’s opinion, Kempner says, revenge should not be based upon the idea of terror but should be conceived as an essential public act meant to execute historical justice upon their murderers.

United Partisan Organization Resistance Efforts
The Avengers group of about 50 young men and women joined forces with all of the other #REDIRECT Zionist movements in the area, which was extremely uncommon in the larger resistance movement throughout #REDIRECT Europe. The newer, larger group was formed on January 21, 1941 and they called themselves the #REDIRECT United Partisan Organization (Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye) or FPO for short. They worked to smuggle weapons into the Vilna ghetto by using the sewer systems to make their travel undetectable. They were successful in getting many weapons to the people who were still living in the ghetto. During this time, the #REDIRECT Soviet Army was advancing westward, and with the help of the Avengers and the United Partisan Organization they were able to liberate the city of Vilna from Nazi control. Before their success, the ghetto had a failed uprising, but the Avengers were able to help many people escape to the forests for safety. After the evacuations, the group worked to destroy both the power plant and waterworks system in Vilna. To achieve these goals, the members placed their lives at risk numerous times and they were able to find success in the end. The destroyed power and water systems played a major role in weakening the German forces so the FPO and the Soviets were able to liberate Vilna. The strength of the combined groups were able to overcome the stationed Nazi army to take Vilna back for itself, and it helped save many lives of people who had still been living in the ghetto.

Post War Revenge- Nakam
When the war finally ended, the Avengers started to move on with their lives. Vitka and Abba started a relationship together and they were very happy with each other. But like many Jewish survivors, they suffered from extreme feelings of #REDIRECT survivor guilt. They didn’t feel like they should be able to move on with their lives because that would feel like a betrayal to the thousands who had died in the Holocaust. Abba formed another group that many of the Avengers joined called#REDIRECT Nakam, which is Hebrew for “vengeance”, and the members found a dark reason to live. With vengeance for those who had died, and the lives that were destroyed on the forefront of their minds, their slogan became “Dam Yehudi Nakam” which translates to “Jewish blood will be avenged.”  They planned to hunt down Nazis all over Europe and get justice for the Jewish people who had been brutally murdered. In Western Germany, and later in Spain, Latin America, and Canada, they hunted down ex-Nazi criminals to kill them, usually making it look like suicide by hanging them. They also tampered with the ex-Nazis vehicles to cause car accidents or simply killed them and disposed of the bodies in roadside ditches. It is estimated that the group killed dozens of former Nazis this way until they decided to take on a larger project to get the “eye for an eye” revenge right and kill as many Germans as possible for their collective part in the #REDIRECT persecution of Jews. Their first plan was to poison the waterworks systems in important Nazi cities, where many had yet to be punished. The plan was mapped out in the final stages and Abba was traveling back from Palestine where he was picking up the poison when he was arrested for transporting poisonous substances across country boarders. With a wrench thrown into their plan, the group had more time to consider the consequences of the plan. Along with advice from elders, they soon realized that poisoning the water systems would also kill many innocent Germans, and there would be negative consequences for the Jewish people who wanted to reclaim their homeland.

Then it was time to think of a plan B and they found a way to target their revenge on the people who were most involved in the attempted destruction of the Jewish people. The #REDIRECT Nakam group decided to target a Nazi Prisoner of War camp in Nuremberg with their poisonous anger. They snuck into the bakery of the camp on April 13, 1946 late in the night and went to work coating over 3,000 loaves of bread with a mixture of #REDIRECT arsenic and water in hopes of killing 12,000 SS personal being held in the #REDIRECT prison camp. When a pan was dropped and loudly clamored to the floor their mission was compromised as guards came rushing in. They had to abandon the plan having only poisoned about 2,300 loaves. Somehow, none of the former Nazis died from eating the bread, but about 2,000 became extremely ill with symptoms similar to #REDIRECT cholera . Some say that people did die from the poison, but the information was suppressed to keep others who shared their anger from attempting to do something similar. After their effort, no charges were filed for the attempted murders due to “extraordinary circumstances” so the Nakam involved got away without having to face consequences. Prosecutors at the time were reluctant to press charges against Jewish retaliation because the scope of the injustice done to them was so vast. A memo found in 1947 which was stamped “confidential” contained information about the group’s attempt that said they had enough arsenic to kill approximately 60,000 people. The loaves of bread that were investigated had 0.2 grams of arsenic on them and that would have been ingested by the POWs. The arsenic range for “lethal in most cases” is 0.1-0.3 grams. It is speculated that maybe the water and arsenic mixture was spread too thinly or that the prisoners suspected something was wrong with the bread, so they ate very little of it and didn’t get enough poison in their systems to be deadly. Even though some were disappointed that they didn’t kill any of the ex-Nazis, they were satisfied that they had executed an elaborate plan to get the justice they deserved, and some suffering was brought to the Nazis.

Post-resistance Life
As time wore on after the #REDIRECT Nuremberg bread poisoning event, Vitka and Abba grew in their relationship together and got married. They had two children as well. Vitka struggled with illness for a long time after having contracted
 * 1) REDIRECT tuberculosis. For years she wasn’t allowed to be near her young son in order to keep him healthy.  Against doctor’s orders because of her health, they had a second child.  She was not able to kiss or hug or hardly even touch her daughter after she was born .  Her limited ability to mother her children took a large toll on her mental health as well.  It was extremely painful for her.  The family settled to have a quiet life in #REDIRECT Kibbutz Ein Hakhoresh, Palestine where many other #REDIRECT Holocaust survivors flocked to as well . Even as they moved on with their lives, they still struggled with the survivor guilt they felt for getting to move on while so many others had been killed.  To deal with her guilt, Vitka decided to become a psychiatrist to help others who were struggling with their own guilt.  She attended Bar Ilan University at 45 where she studied psychology and quickly earned her degree .  With her patients she used “#REDIRECT non-verbal therapy by color” which was shown to have great success with children .  Vitka Kempner-Kovner spent the rest of her time healing and treating the invisible wounds left by World War II and the Holocaust.

Legacy
Vitka Kempner serves as a great strong role model for girls everywhere. She didn’t let the fact that she was a woman keep her from participating in the masculine activities of the resistance movement. She was just as quick to carry a gun as any man. Her heroism was very influential and has lasting affects on people who knew about her. She was commemorated in a song by #REDIRECT Hirsh Glik in Yiddish called #REDIRECT Shtil di nakht iz oysgeshternt (The silent night is full of stars) that describes the act of her resistance. “In war, many things are acceptable. You kill and there seem to be no consequences. But there are consequences- they just come after.” -Vitka Kempner