Remembering Frank Blaichman, a Jewish Partisan Hero

Jan. 31 2019

Born in the Polish town of Kamionka in 1922, Frank Blaichman died last month in his Manhattan home. In 1942, three years after the start of the Nazi occupation, Blaichman fled Kamionka for the forests, where he found fellow Jews eager to fight back against the Third Reich. Neil Genzlinger writes:

[Blaichman soon] organized a defense force, though at first its main weapon was illusion created with pitchforks. “We broke off all the teeth, left one tooth on, and put a strap on the shoulder,” he said in [his] oral history. “From far away it looked like a rifle.”

Illusion of a sort also helped them acquire real weapons in the winter of 1942-43. His group learned of a farmer who had a stash of guns. He and another man went to see the farmer and convinced him that they were Russian paratroopers under orders to establish a resistance unit to battle the Germans. The ruse worked. “When we headed back to the forest, we had eight weapons,” Mr. Blaichman wrote. “Finally we could defend ourselves.”

The group grew more sophisticated and better 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 [Polish] 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.

After the war Blaichman was assigned to the Polish Security Police, a unit of Poland’s new government, and given the job of tracking down Nazi collaborators. [In his memoir], Blaichman [depicted] certain other resistance groups as being severely anti-Semitic. That anti-Semitism . . . continued in postwar Poland. “As part of my job, I had interviewed many Poles who, unaware that I was a Jew, made no attempt to conceal their feelings about Jews,” he wrote. “As a result, I had come to realize the depth of Polish anti-Semitism.”

Blaichman and his wife, also a partisan veteran, quickly decided Poland was no place for Jews and emigrated to the U.S. Besides writing a book about his experiences, he was also active in efforts to commemorate Jewish resistance, and was instrumental in the creation of Jerusalem’s memorial to the partisans.

Read more at New York Times

More about: Anti-Semitism, History & Ideas, Holocaust, Resistance

After Taking Steps toward Reconciliation, Turkey Has Again Turned on Israel

“The Israeli government, blinded by Zionist delusions, seizes not only the UN Security Council but all structures whose mission is to protect peace, human rights, freedom of the press, and democracy,” declared the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan in a speech on Wednesday. Such over-the-top anti-Israel rhetoric has become par for the course from the Turkish head of state since Hamas’s attack on Israel last year, after which relations between Jerusalem and Ankara have been in what Hay Eytan Cohen Yanarocak describes as “free fall.”

While Erdogan has always treated Israel with a measure of hostility, the past few years had seen steps to reconciliation. Yanarocak explains this sharp change of direction, which is about much more than the situation in Gaza:

The losses at the March 31, 2024 Turkish municipal elections were an unbearable blow for Erdoğan. . . . In retrospect it appears that Erdoğan’s previous willingness to continue trade relations with Israel pushed some of his once-loyal supporters toward other Islamist political parties, such as the New Welfare Party. To counter this trend, Erdoğan halted trade relations, aiming to neutralize one of the key political tools available to his Islamist rivals.

Unsurprisingly, this decision had a negative impact on Turkish [companies] engaged in trade with Israel. To maintain their long-standing trade relationships, these companies found alternative ways to conduct business through intermediary Mediterranean ports.

The government in Ankara also appears to be concerned about the changing balance of power in the region. The weakening of Iran and Hizballah could create an unfavorable situation for the Assad regime in Syria, [empowering Turkish separatists there]. While Ankara is not fond of the mullahs, its core concern remains Iran’s territorial integrity. From Turkey’s perspective, the disintegration of Iran could set a dangerous precedent for secessionists within its own borders.

Read more at Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security

More about: Iran, Israel diplomacy, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey