Rozka Korczak


Rozka or Ruzka Korczak was a Polish Jewish partisan leader during World War II. She served in the United Partisan Organization and, alongside Vitka Kempner and founder Abba Kovner, assumed a leadership role in its successor group, the Avengers --the only known undefeated ghetto uprising in the history of the Holocaust.
. Abba Kovner is to her right, and Vitka Kempner is at far right.

Early life

Korczak was born in April 1921 in Bieslko, to a cattle dealer. Her family moved to a small village in Plosk where she attended public school. In eighth grade, she organized a Jewish student strike to protest Anti-Semetism in the school. As a teenager, she joined a Zionist organization called HaShomer HaTzair.

Career

In 1939, Korczak met Vitka Kempner in Vilna and the two joined The Young Guard, a Jewish rebellion group. Upon Germany's invasion of Poland, she co-founded the United Partisan Organization in 1942. They smuggled weapons into the Vilna Ghetto and smuggled Jews out.