Abba Kovner and resistance in the Vilna ghetto

On June 24, 1941, two days after Germany launched its surprise attack against the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa), the Germans occupied Vilna. As the Germans were sweeping east toward Moscow, they instigated their ruthless oppression and murderous Aktionen in the communities they occupied.

Vilna, with a Jewish population of approximately 55,000, was known as the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" for its flourishing Jewish culture and history. The Nazis soon changed that. As Kovner and 16 other members of the Ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir hid in a convent of Dominican nuns a few miles outside of Vilna, the Nazis began to rid Vilna of its "Jewish problem." [...]

Kovner was responsible for writing a call to revolt. In front of the 150 attendees gathered together at 2 Straszuna Street in a public soup kitchen, Kovner read aloud:

"Jewish youth! Do not trust those who are trying to deceive you. Out of the eighty thousand Jews in the "Jerusalem of Lithuania" only twenty thousand are left. . . . Ponar [Ponary] is not a concentration camp. They have all been shot there. Hitler plans to destroy all the Jews of Europe, and the Jews of Lithuania have been chosen as the first in line. We will not be led like sheep to the slaughter!"

About.com: 20th Century History: Abba Kovner and Resistance in the Vilna Ghetto