The Last Jewish Partisan: Avraham Aviel’s Incredible Story of Survival and Faith

In a special project published by Yedioth Ahronoth for Holocaust Remembrance Day, the extraordinary life story of Avraham Aviel Lipkonski, the last surviving partisan fighter, was shared. 

Childhood in Poland and the Radun Ghetto

Avraham was born in Dogalishok, Poland (today Belarus) and lived in the Radun Ghetto. He was forced to a killing pit where he saw his mother and younger brother murdered before his eyes. Avraham managed to escape, hiding in pits and bunkers in the forest. After witnessing the murder of his older brother as well, he joined the partisans in the Puszcza forests, who fought against the Nazi occupation during World War II.

Despite all the horrors he endured, he clung to his Jewish identity — he continued to pray, and even kept kosher.

The Mass Execution: “Say Shema Yisrael and We Will Die as Jews”

Avraham begins his testimony with the day that changed everything: “It happened on May 10, 1942. Crowds of people, and I was among them. They forced all of us to sit, row after row. Anyone who tried to raise his head was beaten or shot. They took one row at a time, family after family, led them to the pit, and then machine guns opened fire. I was in the last rows, kneeling. My mother held my right hand and my little brother Yekutiel — who we called Kushka — in her left. She said: ‘Children, say Shema Yisrael, and we will die as Jews.’

But her words… they didn’t stick to me. They just wouldn’t stick.” At that moment, Avraham recalls, everything in him shut down:

“I wasn’t thinking. I was only focused on the next moment, on survival. No feelings. No logic. Everything was automatic. Even my escape wasn’t from thought. I was pulled away because I saw my older brother Pinchas — Pinka. I screamed to my mother: ‘Pinka is alive!’ and I ran. I didn’t say goodbye. To this day, I still say goodbye to her. After crawling, stumbling, getting up and falling again — I escaped. Not by my own merit, but because of my brother who pulled me. As I fled, I heard the rattle of machine guns. On whom were they firing? On human beings.”

Holding on to Faith: Tefillin in the Forest

“I ran to the road and joined my brother. We returned to the ghetto. Death’s shadow everywhere. We went home and took our tefillin and prayer books, and a few crusts of bread. I always kept my tefillin on me, even with the partisans. I would sit among tall bushes, pretending to relieve myself, quickly put them on and pray.

I remembered: whoever doesn’t put on tefillin has no life in the World to Come. I didn’t want to lose the World to Come.”

Searching for Their Father

Avraham and his older brother decided not to remain in the ghetto but to search for their father, hoping he was still alive.

“It took two weeks before we found him. A farmer told us, ‘Your father is alive.’ How was the reunion? Silent. It was two weeks after the slaughter. My father knew what had happened. No words were needed. He taught us how to survive in the forest, how to ask for food. We asked for bread, some milk, or a potato — but never meat because we kept kosher.”

Later, when Avraham asked his father to join the partisans, he refused. “Three or four weeks later, I returned. He was gone. The White Poles, the Armia Krajowa, killed him. I knew then that I was alone.”

Learning About Israel in the Midst of Horror

In May 1945, Avraham decided to make his way to the Land of Israel: “I wasn’t a Zionist. I didn’t know what Zionism was. The Germans taught me. In the pit, with my father, I learned that Jews lived in the Land of Israel. A non-Jew brought us a Polish newspaper written in the German spirit. It said the British supported the Jews. That was the first time I knew of Israel’s existence. It connected with my mother’s words: ‘If we are to die as Jews, then all the more so, we must live as Jews.’”

Journey to Israel and the Palmach

After the war, Avraham stayed in a Youth Aliyah home in Slawino. The ship of illegal immigrants he boarded was intercepted, and he was deported to Cyprus. There he met his late wife, Ayala. In 1946, he immigrated to Israel, joined the Sixth Battalion of the Palmach, and fought on the road to Jerusalem.

Testifying at the Eichmann Trial

Years later, Avraham testified in the trial of Adolf Eichmann in Israel.

“I didn’t pity him, and I didn’t hate him. During my testimony, I only remembered how my mother held me in her right hand and my little brother in her left, telling us to say Shema Yisrael.

It wasn’t the man in the cage who spoke to me. It was my mother’s words, and the pit — the children, babies, old men, being beaten, shot, thrown. Toward Eichmann I felt nothing. He wasn’t even alive to me.

I understood one thing: many witnesses before me had collapsed or burst into tears. My testimony needed to be heard clearly. When I wanted to cry, I bit my lips. I held back, so I could tell the story.”

A Son’s Promise to His Mother

To this day, Avraham still keeps the tefillin his mother gave him: “The tefillin went with me through everything — the pits, fire, and water. Since arriving in Israel, I hardly put them on. Twelve years ago, when I traveled back to Dogalishok and Radun, I put them on, maybe for the first time, above the mass grave of my mother and Kushka. And I said: ‘Mother, it’s your son, Avrameleh. I never parted from you. I came to tell you I live as a Jew, I live as a Jew in the Land of Israel. I have children, grandchildren. I remain as a remnant of the family.’”