Jewish partisan leaves a legacy
Frank Blaichman, who as a teenager during World War II fled into the forests of eastern Poland to avoid a roundup of fellow Jews by occupying Germans and soon became a leader of a band of partisans trying to disrupt the Nazis, died Dec. 27 at his home in Manhattan. He was 96.
The Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, which develops educational material about the Jewish partisans who fought back against the Nazis, just recently announced his death.
Blaichman, who settled in the United States after the war, was active in promoting the legacy of the partisans, hoping to counter the misperception that all Jews went passively to their fate and that none fought back against the Nazis. He told his story in a 2009 book, “Rather Die Fighting: A Memoir of World War II,” as well as in an oral history recorded for the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and in several documentaries.
He was among the organizers of an effort to create a memorial to Jewish partisans and soldiers. When that memorial was dedicated in Jerusalem in 1985, he was among the speakers.
“The fact that 1 million Jews fought bravely against Nazi Germany and its satellites is too often ignored,” he said then. “This is why this monument is so important.”
He was born Franek Blajchman on Dec. 11, 1922, in Kamionka, Poland. When the Germans invaded Poland in September 1939, Blaichman’s village, southeast of Warsaw, at first didn’t feel many effects. But soon Jews fleeing Warsaw started coming through town, a German regiment set up camp in the area and restrictions on Jews were posted.
For a time Blaichman managed to bicycle about freely and ferried food from outlying farms into the village, but by 1941, the Germans had grown harsher; one of his uncles, he said, was shot when he was found to have unauthorized meat. When local Jews were rounded up in 1942, supposedly for resettlement, Blaichman said goodbye to his parents and siblings and fled, first to a sympathetic farmer and then into the forest, where he met up with others who had sought refuge.
He organized a defense force, though at first its main weapon was illusion created with pitchforks.
“We broke off all the teeth, one tooth left on, and put a strap on the shoulder,” he said in the oral history. “From far away it looked like a rifle.”
The group grew more sophisticated and more well armed, and Blaichman eventually commanded more than 100 armed Jewish partisans. His group linked up with other Jewish partisans, as well as groups like the communist partisan force Armia Ludowa, and spent the war disrupting German supply lines and communications and ferreting out Poles who were collaborating with the Nazis.
“What is most remarkable about Blaichman,” said Mitch Braff, founder of the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, “is he accomplished all of this as a teenager and in his early 20s.”
After the war Blaichman was assigned to the Polish Security Police and given the job of tracking down Nazi collaborators. In 1945, he married Cesia Pomeranc, who had been part of a different Jewish partisan group.
In 1948, they immigrated to Frankfurt, Germany, and in 1951 they took the Queen Elizabeth to the United States, where Blaichman, settling in the New York area, became a builder and developer. His wife died in 2015. He is survived by a son, Charles; a daughter, Bella Sekons; and six grandchildren.
British historian Martin Gilbert wrote the introduction to Blaichman’s book.
“Jews can hold their heads high when they read these pages,” he said, “and all people, wherever they live, whatever struggles they face, can feel a sense of pride at what human beings can achieve when they take their destiny into their own hands.”