Reading

The Importance of the Partisans

Learn about the key role that the partisans played in saving the lives of many Jews, Gentiles, and Greek citizens.

Subject

History

Language

English — US

Updated

May 13, 2016

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Sara Fortis was born in Chalkis, a small town near Athens, Greece. When the Nazis invaded in 1941, Sara fled. While on the run, she agreed to join the resistance. In her new position, Sara recruited other women and formed an all-female partisan unit. Here, she reflects on the importance of the partisans in Greece.

Without them, without the partisans, many Jews would have died or shared the fate of the Jews of Thessaloniki at Auschwitz. And they weren't the only ones; [also] many gentiles and many Greek people. They captured Greeks along with the Jews, those who helped the Jews, those who resisted—it was a very grave matter.¹

1© Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. All Rights Reserved.

Facing History & Ourselves, “The Importance of the Partisans”, last updated May 13, 2016.

Collection

Find interview transcripts, historical overviews, and primary source documents about a particular Jewish partisan or country.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

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The Importance of the Partisans

Subject

Language

Updated

Access all resources for free now.

How to Cite This Reading

You might also be interested in…

Explore the Partisans

Resistance during the Holocaust: An Exploration of the Jewish Partisans

Telling Our Histories

Watching Who Will Write Our History

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Contextualizing a Found Poem

The Holocaust and Jewish Communities in Wartime North Africa

10 Questions for the Past: The 1963 Chicago Public Schools Boycott

Indigenous Rights and Controversy over Hawaii’s Maunakea Telescope

Confronting History, Transforming Monuments

Black Women’s Activism and the Long History Behind #MeToo

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