#polish resistance fighter

[stillunusual]

A zoomer historian speaks…. Having already written extensively about the mis-use of this well known photo from the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, and explained that the three young men who appear in it are neither German nor Jewish, my main reaction after seeing this particular abomination was something like….WTAF?

The photo actually shows three young Polish resistance fighters from the Miotła battalion of the Armia Krajowa and was taken on 2nd September 1944, after they'd just spent five hours crawling through the sewers from the besieged Old Town district of Warsaw to the city centre.

From left to right: Tadeusz Rajszczak (code name "Maszynka") - 15 years old, Kazimierz Gabara (code name "Łuk") - 17 years old, Mieczysław (Ryszard) Lach (code name "Pestka") - 15 years old.

I can't be bothered to comment on Zoomer Historian's batshit crazy take on history. It's pretty obvious where he's coming from….

[nickysfacts]

Israel doesn’t represent the Jewish people, nor is it antisemitism to criticize israel or be anti zionist!

🇵🇱✡️🇵🇱

[higherentity]

[theworldatwar]

Polish resistance fighters manage to grab a bite to eat during the Warsaw Uprising - Poland, Aug 1944

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Niuta Teitelbaum

Niuta Teitelbaum was a Jewish resistance fighter in Poland who despite her innocent, youthful appearance was a deadly assassin who shot dead four Nazi officers.

Born in Warsaw in 1917, Niuta was raised in a religious Jewish family. When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939, Niuta was one of the first volunteers to join the underground resistance movement. She said, “I am a Jew. My place is in the struggle against the Nazis for the honor of my people and for a free Poland!” Niuta was 22 but petite and baby-faced, she looked much younger. Wearing her blonde hair in two long braids, she resembled a Polish farm girl, which enabled her to move around Warsaw without arousing suspicion among the Nazi guards stationed around the city. Niuta transported weapons and helped Jews find safe havens even as she put herself in danger repeatedly.

With audacious bravery, sometime around 1942 Niuta approached the Nazi headquarters in Warsaw. Questioned by the officer guarding the front door, Niuta, acting shy and embarrassed, said she needed to see a certain high-ranking German officer. She said it was a “personal matter” implying that she was pregnant out of wedlock. The guard at the door snickered as he told her the officer’s room number and gave her a special pass to enter her supposed paramour’s private office. She thanked him shyly, and walked through the building to her “lover’s” office. Niuta entered the room to find the officer sitting at his desk. Before he could say a word she pulled out a pistol with a silencer and shot him in the head. He died instantly. Calm and collected, Niuta made her way back through the building to the front door and thanked the guard sweetly.

Because her resistance activities were so secretive, information is incomplete. What is known is that in another startlingly courageous episode, Niuta shot three Gestapo agents, killing two of them and wounding a third. Then she obtained a white lab coat and pretended to be a doctor to gain entry into the agent’s hospital room, and shot him again, killing him this time. Niuta landed a spot on the Nazis’ Most Wanted list, and was given the nickname “Little Wanda with the Braids.”

For three years, Niuta evaded her German pursuers and continued her resistance activities, until she was captured in 1943 and imprisoned with thousands of other Polish Jews in the Warsaw ghetto, where she participated in the famous uprising of April 1943. For most of the ghetto fighters it was a suicide mission; they knew they were likely to die but wanted to go down fighting. Niuta was one of the few who survived the ghetto battles and managed to escape. However, in July 1943, her hiding place in Warsaw was discovered and she was arrested by the Gestapo. Niuta was beaten and tortured for several weeks, but she refused to give information about any other resistance fighters or activities. Niuta was executed by the Germans later that year at age 25.

For her heroic resistance activities, including killing four Nazi officers, we honor Niuta Teitelbaum as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[dragoneyes618]

The expression "like lambs to the slaughter" is taken from a verse in Psalms (44:23; see also Isaiah 53:7) in which the psalmist describes Jews dying for God's sake, and beseeches God not to hide His face from the Jews' affliction. These very words had been cited years earlier, when poet Abba Kovner called on his fellow Vilna Jews to revolt: "We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter....Brothers! It is better to die fighting like free men than to live at the mercy of the murderers. Arise! Arise [and fight] with your last breath!" (January 1, 1942).

While a significant number of Jews did rebel, there are several reasons why the overwhelming majority did not. The most important reason is that almost no Jews had weapons, and arms and legs are of little utility against machine guns and an organized army. (Indeed, while most American Jews support gun-control laws, the few Jews I know who oppose them invariably argue that had European Jewry been armed, many more Jews might have survived.) Few people realize that because of their lack of arms, almost none of the several million prisoners taken by the Germans fought back, including several million Russian soldiers, a large percentage of whom died in Nazi camps.

There was also a moral reason for the relatively low number of revolts: The Jews knew that other Jews would be the ultimate victims of any act of rebellion, even a successful one: The Germans would murder them in retaliation. A prominent Jewish philosopher has articulated the moral dilemma that would-be resisters confronted:

"Was it morally right to kill an SS officer if, as a consequence, hundreds and even thousands of men, women, and children would perish immediately?" - Eliezer Berkovitz (1910-1993), Faith After the Holocaust, page 30

In one notable case, Jewish fighters attacked a German police detachment in the old Jewish quarter of Amsterdam; the German response was terrible:

"Four hundred and thirty Jews were arrested in reprisal and they were literally tortured to death, first in Buchenwald and then in the Austrian camp of Mauthausen. For months on end they died a thousand deaths, and every single one of them would have envied his brethren in Auschwitz, and even in Riga and Minsk. There exist many things considerably worse than death, and the SS saw to it that none of them was ever very far from their victims' minds and imagination."

- K Shabbetai, As Sheep to the Slaughter? The Myth of Cowardice. The survivors' sensitivity to charges of cowardice is underscored by the fact that Shabbetai's book was published by the World Federation of Bergen-Belsen Survivors' Association.

Yet many instances of Jewish resistance did still occur, the most famous in the Warsaw Ghetto:

"The dream of my life has become true. Jewish self-defense in the Warsaw Ghetto has become a fact. Jewish armed resistance and retaliation have become a reality. I have been witness to the magnificent heroic struggle of the Jewish fighters."

- Mordechai Anielewicz, April 23, 1943, four days after the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, in a note to Yitzchak Zuckerman, a unit commander in the revolt

Only twenty-four years old when he helped organize the Warsaw Ghetto revolt, Anielewicz realized that the Germans intended to deport and murder every remaining Jew in Warsaw. The revilt was triggered by word that yet another Nazi deportation was imminent.

The Warsaw Ghetto fighters held out for about a month, longer than the Polish army withstood the 1939 Nazi invasion.

Yitzchak Zuckerman, the heroic unit commander to whom Anielewicz addressed the above note, was among the few Warsaw Ghetto fighters who survived the war. Some forty years later, he was interviewed by Claude Lanzmann for the movie Shoah:

"I began drinking after the war. It was very difficult....You asked my impression. If you could lick my heart, it would poison you."

Despite the Warsaw Ghetto revolt and other acts of resistance, during the 1961 Eichmann trial it became fashionable among some Jews and non-Jews alike to express shock and a certain contempt for those Jews who "failed to resist." Elie Wiesel responded:

"The Talmud teaches man never to judge his friend until he has been in his place. But, for the world, the Jews are not friends. They have never been. Because they had no friends they are dead. So learn to be silent."

- Elie Wiesel, "A Plea for the Dead"

- Jewish Wisdom, Rabbi Joseph Telushkin, pages 532-535

[belleandre-belle]

Gerald Kaufman (1930-2017🙏🏼🌹🕊️), British MP, speaking from the rostrum of Parliament in 2009.

Gerald Kaufman was the son of Polish Jewish immigrants. Born in the UK, Kaufman was one of the country's most famous Jewish politicians. He was also a fervent critic of Israel, calling for sanctions against the Jewish state for its policies towards the Palestinians, and comparing Israeli soldiers to Nazis.

For years, Kaufman has been one of Britain's most outspoken critics of Israel.

In April 2002, at the start of Israel's Operation Rampart to halt the wave of suicide bombings in the country's cities, Kaufman declared Israel an "international pariah" and accused then-Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of ordering "his troops to use barbaric methods against the Palestinians", according to the BBC.

Kaufman, who was Foreign Secretary between 1987 and 1992, told the House of Commons in 2002 that it was "time to remind Sharon that the Star of David belongs to all Jews and not to his repulsive government. His actions sully the Star of David with blood."

In 2004, in an editorial published in the Guardian, he called for economic sanctions against Israel similar to those used against South Africa.

In 2009, during the war between Israel and Hamas, Operation Cast Lead, he accused Israel of exploiting Holocaust guilt to justify its actions in the Gaza Strip.

"The current Israeli government ruthlessly and cynically exploits the guilt of gentiles [non-Jews] after the murder of Jews during the Holocaust as justification for its murders of Palestinians," Kaufman had declared before Parliament.

Speaking of his personal history as the son of Jewish refugees from Poland, he had said that "my grandmother was in bed, sick, when the Nazis came to her town. A German soldier shot her in her bed. My grandmother did not die to provide cover for Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinian grandmothers in Gaza."

Kaufman had compared Hamas fighters to Jewish resistance fighters in the Second World War, claiming that "Israeli army spokesman Major Leibovich was asked about Israeli murders of, at the time, 800 Palestinians. The total is now 1,000. She replied instantly that '500 of them were militants'. That's the response of a Nazi. I suppose the Jews fighting for their lives in the Warsaw ghetto could have been considered militants."

His opposition to Israel has persisted with age. In 2012, he had written an editorial published by the Huffington Post claiming that Israel was a "rogue state", and that the fact that Israel is a democracy "means that the Israeli electorate is complicit in its government's war crimes."

In 2015, he had told the Palestine Return Centre, a Hamas-affiliated association, that "Jewish money" was the reason why British Conservatives were pro-Israel.

[captain-price-unofficially]

Polish resistance fighters in the Naliboki forest, near Novogrudok, July 1944

[prythiansfavoritefox]

For @teddyhoneybear

Elain’s breath came shallow in her throat. She had controlled her queasiness well up till that point but saving Cassian’s life had been the final straw. So much blood. Her new High Fae body made it so much worse, overwhelming her nostrils with the stench of salt and iron. Finally alone, she heaved into a bucket. Her throat burned with acid as she threw up again and again, the smell of digested food mixing with the blood’s odor to torment Elain’s nose. Those Night Court folk did not warn Elain about the drawbacks of having so much sensation.

She sighed both in relief at the vomiting ending and the frustration at being so squeamish. But she had grown up in ballrooms, not battlefields. Her sister too; to Nesta, the ballroom was a battlefield. She plucked the flower that had grown on her hand while she was distracted with annoyance.

Elain was prepared to dispose of this afternoon’s lunch and wash up when she felt breath against the nape of her neck. She gasped in shock, but she already knew who it was somehow, whether it was through her Seer powers or her mating bond.

Lucien.

She relaxed into him as his hand wrapped around her waist. She bit her lip to control her emotions as Lucien dragged his nose up the side of her throat. “I’m back, Elain,” he whispered almost like a purr, and Elain couldn’t resist turning in his arms to look at his face.

He was as heartbreakingly beautiful as ever and yet not. His stunning russet eye and his gold eye paired with that wicked scar held most of Elain’s attention, but she scanned the rest of him. Elain had only ever seen him in exquisite attire fit for a prince- or a High Lord’s son. Trenchcoats in rich colors such as emerald green, ruby red, and sapphire blue. White shirts with lacy embroidery and billowy sleeves. Doublets with threading that Elain suspected was made out of real gold. Pants, typically beige, that showed off his powerful thighs. Tall black boots polished as finely as his weapons. Hair typically tied up in ribbon.

The Lucien before her was…different. His black Illyrian leathers clung to his skin, showing off his toned and muscular body. He wasn’t bulky like Cassian or even the other Illyrians. He was tall and lean, built for endurance rather than strength. A skilled fighter rather than one that relied on brawn. His legs, well, there was another story there. His lower body strength was, if the size of his thighs was any indication, incredible. His hair hung loose around his shoulders, and blood still coated his face. He looked dangerous, feral, faerie.

While Elain adored that Lucien put such care into his appearance, she had to admit that the Lucien before her held a different kind of appeal to her- to the girl who wanted to be more than this, who wanted to step out of her sisters’ shadow and become greater than the garden girl who foolishly, in some’s eyes, held onto hope.

Elain reached up with one hand and wiped some blood away from Lucien’s face before planting a chaste kiss on his lips. “Are you ok?”

Lucien laughed softly, and Elain felt it against her forehead. “I never wish to fight in a battle again- but I am in one piece.”

Elain smiled back at him, a rush of fondess overwhelming her for Lucien. In a world of bloody, brutal warriors, Lucien was a man of peace. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight when he had to. Just like Elain who killed the King of Hybern.

“I heard you made the killing blow,” Lucien added in that quiet voice. Elain waved him off. “Nesta did. I just stabbed him.”

Lucien seemed to fumble for a response before he shook his head slightly. “You don’t need to pretend it didn’t happen, you know.”

“What do you mean?” Elain asked sharply, her defenses kicking in. Lucien shook his head. “I know you don’t like it any more than I do. But you did it to protect your sister. That’s what matters. You killed him, Elain. Nesta just beheaded him.”

Elain’s lips trembled. She didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to think about the fact that she had taken life, even if it was someone so malicious who was trying to kill her sister. She despised violence, hated that her sister had to kill animals every day so that they could eat. “I don’t want to think about that right now,” Elain muttered. Lucien shrugged. “As you wish, my lady,” he murmured. Elain got on her tip-toes and kissed Lucien’s forehead. Then his nose. Then both cheeks. “Let’s focus on the fact that we’re both still well,” Elain breathed. Lucien stared into her eyes, asking for permission. Impatiently, Elain grabbed Lucien by the back of his head and pulled him to her.

His tongue brushed the seam of her mouth, asking once more for permission, and Elain opened for him. Elain couldn’t hold on hard enough, couldn’t breathe fast enough. Her Fae senses threatened to drown her as they both sunk to the small bunk bed against the tent wall, Elain’s legs wrapped around his waist.

She had never wanted anyone this badly, never needed anyone this badly. It had never been like this with Graysen; the experience wasn’t even comparable. Elain’s dress was unbuttoned, and Lucien was sliding it gently off of her body. “Sit up, sweetheart,” he whispered, and Elain obeyed; she turned around, expecting him to unlace her corset when she heard him laugh.

Elain turned around, demanding, “What is so funny?”  Then Lucien placed his hands on her corset. “This.” Without breaking eye contact with her, Lucien ripped it in half.

Elain’s jaw dropped as she stared at Lucien. “I-you-you just-“

“Unlacing takes too long, and I’m too needy for you to wait,” Lucien crooned, and Elain was certain she was blushing scarlet. She clawed at his leathers, desperate to feel him too, and he laughed again.

“It seems you are needy for me too, Elain,” he murmured, and Elain huffed, feeling irritated and flustered and horny. “Are you going to take it off or not?” Lucien only flashed her a smirk, standing up and walking away from her. Elain made a whining sound at the distance he had put between them. “Where are you going?” She complained as he showed his back to her. He looked at her over one shoulder and winked. “Giving you a show.”

“I-“

There was a crackling sound from downstairs, which was an obvious sign: someone had burned the cake.

Someone. Yeah, right. Who else in this house baked? Elain smacked her forehead as she got up from the chair she had set up to watch over the cake as it baked, where she had dozed off. So annoying. Couldn’t the dream have finished before she got up?

You were having a sexual dream with Lucien!

Recalling that, Elain cringed in embarrassment. Oh, god, would Lucien be able to tell through the mating bond? Elain wasn’t certain how much he knew and how much he didn’t, but he always saw too much of her than she wanted anyone else to know. It was why she avoided him so, even when her mind screamed at her to, well…not avoid him.

Ugh. It was going to be a long day.

[pixxyofice]

Mirabelle - not chosen in this au, just a wanderer who liked the style and is a strong believer (but how can she be, when she doesn't really change, when she's disconnected from anybody? How can they change when they're nobody?)

Siffrin - still washes up young and travels, but instead of polishing their rogue skills, he polished up the remaining knowledge of the stars he still had and pursued that instead. Nobody believes in his chosen research path- who would research the stars, they're just up there!- so there's a bet going on with Bonnie and Odile as to what he's really studying.

Pyxis - A fighter for hire who found a tired Bonnie as they ran away from the House and immediately took on a non-paying job of keeping them safe. They seem strangely confused by some events, but also strangely knowledgable... their Body Craft secrets are also tightly locked up! Either way, they are fiercely protective. (Are they attached to versions of people that truly aren't theirs? What is happening in this world...)

The Babies. Odile is a runaway from Ka Bue for reasons she won't say and Boniface is a runaway from the House of Dormont when the King took over. They have a rivalry relationship, but everyone agrees to keep them safe. (Bonnie was blessed to be safe by whoever is at the top... so they insist on fighting. Pyxis seems very resistant to the idea, but being immune to time freezing and also rock type has come in handy before...)

Baby odile, meanwhile, refuses to fight because she's young, even though she's still older than Bonnie.

This is a very balanced party (all of the adults are scissors type.)

[maaruin]

A recent poll by YouGov showed that ~20% of adults under 30 in America believe that the Holocaust didn't happen. This is rather worrying (to put it mildly), so one has to wonder why. The direkt reason is probably that those people end up reading stuff by Holocaust deniers on the internat. But I suspect that is only convincing because history education generally only teaches that the Nazis murdered ~6 million Jews but doesn't teach how we know that Nazis murdered ~6 million Jews. If people have only accepted a claim based on authority, even weak arguments may convince them that it isn't true. Education about the Holocaust needs to get into the weeds of the methods historians use to establish what happens: census data shows that there are ~6 million fewer Jews in the world in 1945 than in 1933; we have reports about what was happening at the death camps by people who encountered them from many different perspectives (prisoners, guards, soldiers when they liberated the camps, Polish resistence fighters during the was - the earliest reports afaik); we have pictures and documents that conform to these reports. Refuting the arguments by Holocaust deniers is important, but that on its own will do little. People need to know the evidence for something to believe it, not just the evidence against the supposed evidence against it.

(By the way, I think it is a mistake to assume that everyone who goes down the Holocaust denial path already has an antisemitic worldview before that. Holocaust denial can be a gateway drug to antisemitism.)

[wilcze-kudly]

As much as I adore tlok, B4 being my favourite book, it does kill me inside how... painfully US centric it is. It feels like a very convoluted, fantasy-esque, US idolising retelling of the events of WW2. The Earth Empire, of course, has a lot in common with the Nazi Party (also with the USSR but we barely talk about that). Republic City of course carries a lot of similarity to New York and it feels like the centre of tlok's weaternisation of the Avatar world.

But it just. The obvious crimes and ethical violations Kuvira was committing in the vulnerable Earth Kingdom going unchecked until Republic City was affected.

The complete lack of any rebellion towards Kuvira's rule, or any inklings of said rebellion being severely critisised (it just reminds me of the erasure of freedom fighters under the occupied countries) The Beifongs being admonished for defending their home, but applauded when defending RC. Varrick, Bolin and Zhu Li straight up getting Operation Paperclipped back into the city.

Idk. It makes me uncomfortably disappointed. It would've been wonderful to have B4 happen less from Republic City's perspective, but more that of Earth Kingdom inhabitants. It would show a less popularised perspective and it would be really cool. The Beifong family would be perfect vessels for a storyline like that.

Anyway have my insane ramblings. Maybe I'm just an oversensitive Pole who got way too invested in the Polish resistance against the Nazis and wish more people knew about it. Especially after what the Soviets did to said rebels after the war.

[sasslett]

B A S I C S

Name: Jess Varlineau

Nicknames: None, actually.

Age: 28

Nameday: 22nd Sun of the 11th Umbral Moon, I think.

Race: Hyur (Highlander)

Gender: Female

Orientation: Varrus

Profession: the Warrior of Light's shadow

P H Y S I C A L   A S P E C T S

Hair: Straight, long, dark brown. Typically partially pulled back or left loose.

Eyes: Brown

Skin: Fairly pale, all things considered

Tattoos/scars: No tattoos, but a scar across her abdomen from when Zenos caught her unaware in Rhalgr's Reach

F A M I L Y

Parents: Roric and Gisela, freedom fighters for the Ala Mhigan Resistance, deceased

Siblings: None that she knows of (though in some alternate non-WoL universe she's become @scholarlostintime's Eolyn's long lost older sister lol)

Grandparents: All I can say is they lived in Gyr Abania and they're deceased

In-laws and Other: Her husband, Varrus Varlineau, and his family: His mother, Marienne, his sister, Valissa, and his cousin, Estinien

Pets: None at the moment

S K I L L S

Abilities: Dragoon/lance combat, as the Azure Dragoon she's able to push her limits and harness the power of the Eye, though she draws her power from Hraesvelgr rather than Nidhogg after the Steps of Faith, and also she's damn good at cooking

Hobbies: Reading, particularly history tomes and stories of adventure, exploring, helping others (genuinely), sparring, and sleeping in the arms of the man she loves

T R A I T S

Most Positive Trait: Determination. She never lets anything stop her, and once she decides on something, she damn well follows it through

Most Negative Trait: Impatience. She often prefers to act first, think later, and much dislikes waiting around for the other boot to drop, even when it's the correct thing to do

L I K E S

Colors: Red, gold, silver, purple by association

Smells: Worn leather, fresh bread, a crackling fire, the smell of the forest after a rain

Textures: Worn wood, polished steel, creased leather, the smooth skin of her husband's chest

Drinks: Hot cocoa, warm tea, pineapple juice on the beach (soon)

O T H E R    D E T A I L S

Smokes: No

Drinks: No, despite being a bartender for ten years - or perhaps because of it

Drugs: Never

Mount Issuance: Due to her frequently helping out around Bentbranch, the breeders offered her one of their runtier birds, who she thusly dubbed Helios

Been Arrested: No, not until it happens in the MSQ, inevitably. She may be chaotic in theory but she's fully lawful good

tagged by both @paintedscales and @ubejamjar, thank you! And I'll leave this as an open tag, as I was late to do this (sorry this week has been hell) and so most everyone I know has done it already!

[girlactionfigure]

THURSDAY HERO: Faye Schulman

Faye Schulman was a young Jewish photographer in Poland who became a resistance fighter after her family was slaughtered by the Germans. For the next two years, she took pictures of what she witnessed, leaving an extensive photographic record for posterity.

Born Faigel Lazebnik in 1919, she was one of seven children in an Orthodox Jewish family in Lenin, a small village in Poland. Known as Faye, she learned four languages: Yiddish at home, Polish at school, Hebrew in religious school, and Russian among the non-Jewish townspeople. Her brother Moshe was a professional photographer and she worked as his assistant, developing a keen eye and a talent for photography. When Moshe moved to another town, Faigel took over his business.

After the Germans invaded Lenin in 1941, they forced the town’s Jews into a squalid ghetto. On August 14, 1942, the Nazis “liquidated” the Lenin ghetto by brutally murdering 1,850 Jews, including Faye’s parents, sisters, and brother. Only 26 Jews were spared because the Nazis could make use of their skills. Faye was ordered to develop photographs of the massacre that claimed the lives of her family as well as almost everyone she knew. She secretly made extra copies of the pictures and kept them to bear testimony to Nazi crimes against humanity.

Soon after, Faye escaped from the Nazis and joined the Molotava Brigade, a group of Russian resistance fighters in the forest of Belarus. She said, “This was the only way I could fight back and avenge my family.” They were known as “partisans” – an insurgent militia group opposing an occupation army. Despite rampant antisemitism in the group, she was allowed to join because she had some basic medical skills learned from her late brother-in-law, who had been a doctor in Lenin. Faye became the group’s nurse, serving alongside the resident doctor, a veterinarian. For almost two years, Faye dressed fighters’ wounds and did whatever she could for sick and injured fighters, despite a lack of medical equipment. She participated in armed raids, later remembering “When it was time to be hugging a boyfriend, I was hugging a rifle. Now I said to myself, my life is changed. I learned how to look after the wounded, I even learned how to make operations.”

Faye’s partisan brigade raided her hometown of Lenin, during which the resistance fighters acquired food, weapons and supplies. As they passed her childhood home, Faye urged her fellow partisans to burn it to the ground, which they did. “I won’t be living here. The family’s killed. To leave it for the enemy? I said right away: Burn it!”

Faye found her old photographic equipment, and brought it back to their forest encampment. For the next two years, Faye documented the dangerous existence of anti-Nazi partisans. It was vitally important to her because as she later said, “I want people to know that there was resistance. Jews did not go like sheep to the slaughter. I was a photographer. I have pictures. I have proof.”

Faye’s resistance group was liberated by the Soviets in July 1944. After the war ended, she was overjoyed to find that her brother Moshe had also survived and had been part of another resistance group. Faye and Moshe were the only survivors of their family of nine. Soon after Faye married Morris Schulman, who’d fought alongside Moshe. They decided to make a new life in Palestine, then occupied by the British, who made it difficult if not impossible for war-scarred Holocaust survivors to enter the land. For two years the Schulmans were stuck in a displaced persons camp in Germany, waiting for the opportunity to immigrate. They helped smuggle arms into Palestine to support the Jews fighting for independence. In 1947 Faye became pregnant, and they needed someplace safe to live. They were able to get visas to Canada, and settled in Toronto, where they ran a family business and raised two children. In 1995, Faye published a book about her experience as an anti-Nazi resistance fighter: “A Partisan’s Memoir: Woman of the Holocaust.”

Faye died on April 24, 2021, surrounded by her family, at age 101. Sadly, the last few years of her life saw an upsurge of antisemitism worldwide. Faye left an inspiring message for young people today: “To Jewish kids I would like to say – be proud to be Jewish. To non-Jewish kids I would like to say – if there is a war and you have to fight, fight for freedom and don’t be ashamed to be in the army.”

For saving lives, battling Nazis, and leaving a photographic record so the horrors of the Holocaust would not be forgotten, we honor Faye Lazebnik Schulman as this week’s Thursday Hero.

[magz]

Lets Talk Palestine, summary. March 31 to April 5, 2024. Quote:

March 31. Day 177 - Easter

✝️ Israel denied Palestinian Christians — the oldest in the world — access to the old city in Jerusalem

🇫🇷 France to prosecute its citizens serving in IOF for implicated war crimes after video showed French citizen assaulting Palestinian hostages

• 77 Palestinians killed, 108 injured in last 24 hours

🇮🇶 Iraqi group’s drone strikes & damages Israeli naval base in Eilat in southern Palestine, bypassing Jordanian & Israeli air defense to do so (📸 above)

• Another massacre of aid seekers at Kuwaiti roundabout killed 17 & wounded 30. This major aid distribution point now dubbed a “deathtrap”

🏥 Israeli bombing of tents housing displaced Palestinians at al-Aqsa Hospital kills 4, wounds 17 incl. journalist

• IOF abducts 14 in overnight raids in West Bank

🏥 26 patients killed in Israel’s siege of Shifa Hospital. The remaining 107 patients face mass disease spread

🐀 Palestinian Authority President Abbas swears in new unelected gov’t

April 1. Day 178

🏥 IOF withdraws from Shifa Hospital after 2-week siege that completely destroyed the hospital as they set fire to buildings (📸 above). 400+ bodies of Palestinians executed by IOF found, many missing body parts, showing signs of torture

•⁠ 63 killed, 94 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours

•⁠ ⁠Israeli army report admits that IOF executed Palestinians for crossing arbitrary invisible “kill zones” determined by IOF

🇸🇾🇮🇷 Israel strikes & destroys Iranian consulate in Syria, killing 7 in a dangerous regional escalation

•⁠ ⁠4 foreign @ wckitchen aid workers (incl. Australian, British & Polish) & their Palestinian translator killed by Israeli targeted bombing of their car while distributing food

•⁠ Hamas says the Palestinian Authority & Egyptian officials coordinated w/ Israel to infiltrate Gaza via Rafah crossing as an "intelligence plan" disguised as "distributing aid". PA denies the accusation; 6 PA officers were arrested by Hamas. The PA seeks to administer Gaza post-genocide

April 2. Day 179

• 71 Palestinians killed, 102 injured in Gaza in last 24 hours

•⁠ ⁠Netanyahu claims yesterday’s attack killing 7 foreign aid workers (🇦🇺, 🇨🇦, 🇬🇧, 🇺🇸, 🇵🇱) was “unintended”. But the workers were in a deconflicted zone, coordinated movement w/ Israel, & were in clearly marked @ wckitchen cars

👆UK & Australia summon Israeli ambassadors, demanding accountability; but US & Canada accept Israel’s excuse that the killing was unintended

🇺🇸⁠ Alarming level of US intelligence sharing w/ Israel since Oct 7 from Gaza surveillance. US unsure of its intel’s contribution to civilian deaths

• Knesset (Israel Parliament) pass bill paving way to ban Al Jazeera, claims it poses threat to international media & freedom of the press

• Multiple aid orgs incl. @ aneraorg & @ wckitchen halt Gaza operations after yesterday’s attack + aid shipment returns to Cyprus w/ 240 tons of undelivered aid. Due to Israel targeting humanitarian workers

• World Bank: Gaza infrastructure damage estimated at $18.5bn

April 3. Day 180

• After 6 months of genocide, Israel has killed 32,975 Palestinians, not including thousands buried under rubble; incl. 14,500 kids, 140 journalists & 484 medical staff. Starvation & disease are expected to kill even more as Israel prevents aid

🇺🇳 UN Human Rights Council to consider draft motion for arms embargo on Israel to halt arms sales

• 30% of children under 2 in Gaza are ‘acutely malnourished’

🇺🇳 UN suspends night aid deliveries in last 48 hours after Israel’s killing of 7 @ wckitchen aid workers

⚖️ The PA attempted to arrest a Palestinian resistance fighter in Tulkarem (West Bank), and later PA forces killed Motassim Al-Arif of Tulkarem Brigades (local resistance group), making him the 7th Palestinian resistance fighter killed by the PA since Oct 7. This sparked Tulkarem brigades to initiate a state of “civil disobedience” in Tulkarem. The attempted arrest of the Hamas leader occurred in Jenin (West Bank) and is another escalation of clashes between the PA and Palestinian resistance groups in the West Bank

🇬🇧 YouGov Poll: 56% UK voters support ban of arms export to Israel

April 4. Day 181

‼️ Gaza death toll surpasses 33,000 not including thousands under rubble

•⁠ ⁠Israel’s bombing of Gaza is driven by flawed AI software with little human review of the thousands of Palestinians placed on its ‘kill list’. The AI accounts for 5-10 ‘acceptable civilian deaths’ per targeted resistance fighter

[Magz note: This is a part of Israel's various efforts to kill Palestinians / "Hamas" with more efficiency and ease for the IOF. Other examples being robot dogs and high-tech missile launchers and dropping specialized bombs on highly-concentrated "concentration camp" of Gaza. In this case, the machine-learning database is called "Lavender", and 'identifies' targets that 'might' have any connection to Hamas at all, so the IOF directs "dumb bombs" on the targets. The unspoken implications is that the targets' identifications would include potential family members and friends - thus having as many as 37000 target list total for "Hamas", as the dehumanization of Palestinians is to idenitfy them all as inherently "terrorist". ("‘The machine did it coldly’: Israel used AI to identify 37,000 Hamas targets", The Gaurdian article. Article date: April 4, 2024)]

🇮🇷 Israel evacuated several of its embassies abroad, halted deploying combat units & called reservists in response to Iran’s threats of retaliation after Israel killed 7 Iranian personnel in strike on its consulate in Syria. Israel taking Iran’s threat seriously

• Israeli doctor reveals catastrophic conditions for Palestinian captives incl. requiring amputations from being shackled for 24 hours, regularly blindfolded, denied toilet access & surgeries without proper medical care

• IOF strikes homes in ‘safe zone’ Rafah, killing 8+ Palestinians

🇱🇧 2000 acres of Lebanese farmland destroyed by Israeli bombardment

• IOF shot & killed 28-year-old Asad Amr in Jenin in West Bank

April 5. Day 182

•⁠ ⁠On Palestinian Children’s Day, Israel has killed 14,000+ children in Gaza, 117 in West Bank since Oct 7. 31 kids killed by starvation while 50,000+ are acutely malnourished, 200 kids held captive by Israel & 17,000+ unaccompanied or separated from immediate family

⚖️ Colombia follows Nicaragua in requesting to join South Africa in ICJ genocide case against Israel

🇺🇳 UN Human Rights Council passes non-binding motion urging states to halt arms sales to Israel, citing ICJ ruling; US voted against. First time UNHRC takes a position since Oct 7

•⁠ Israel to open Beit Hanoon crossing to north Gaza & Ashdod port temporarily; analysts say it’s inadequate as Gaza subject to ‘catastrophic starvation’ by Israel’s blockade

•⁠ After international outrage, Israel dismisses 2 officers & reprimands 3 for attack killing 6 foreign aid workers, but no criminal trials or real accountability

•⁠ Israeli sniper kills Palestinian while filming an Israeli raid from his rooftop in West Bank