Through Forests and Pathways
(With Kovpak's Division)

Translation of
Bi-shevilim uvi-ye'arot ba-hativat Kovpak

Author: Netan'el Rozenson

Reshafim 1978


 

Acknowledgments

Project Coordinator

Mary Jane Shubow

 


 

With special thanks to the author's niece, Basha Kotlar Wiener, for funding this translation,
and to her daughter, Audrey Amzalag, for coordinating the translation project. Thanks also to the
author's widow, Genia Rosenson of blessed memory, and to the author's two sons, Chaim and Zvi Rosenson,
for giving their permission that the book be translated from Hebrew into English by Mary Jane Shubow.

This is a translation of: Bi-shevilim uvi-ye'arot ba-hativat Kovpak (Through Forests and Pathways),
Author by Netan'el Rozenson, Reshafim 1978 (H 1148 pages)


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Through Forests and Pathways

(With Kovpak's Division)

Netan'el Rozenson

Hebrew: Yosef Crost

Translated from the Hebrew by

Mary Jane Shubow

Translation edited by Toby Bird

 

Copyright © 1978 by Netan'el Rozenson

Translation copyright © 2013 by Mary Jane Shubow

 


 

In memory of

My mother Golda, who passed away before the catastrophe
My father David, who was shot while running away from the pit
My sisters Hava, Hene and her husband Shmuel, who were murdered
in the forest after they were rescued from two massacres
My brother Chaim, the avenging fighter, who fell as a hero
after courageous battles against the Nazi murderers and their assistants
Zvi and Haya, my wife's parents
Manya and Meir, my wife's sister and her husband,
Mara, my wife's sister
and Yosef, her brother
who were killed in concentration camps

 


 

Summary
 
Airplanes in the Heart of the Forest 7
On the Airplane to the Hospital 19
My Village Kurów 31
As Refugees in Zofiovka 38
The First Massacre 56
Burned Wood Saved from the Fire 66
A Fateful Yom Kippur 74
In Battle with the Partisans 84
The End of the Town 98
The Forest was Mine 115
Meeting with Mundak 125
With the Family in the Forest 129
With the Jewish Group 162
Life Ends in the Forest 206
Return to Poland 224
Afterword  

 

[Back cover]

for900.jpg

 

The author was born in the town of Kurow, near Lublin in Poland. When he was 18, the Nazis invaded Poland. Upon entering the town, within half an hour, they burned all the town's houses. They starved, robbed, and raped the people, and they expelled all those who remained from their lands, sending them to an extermination camp. No one in the world came to their rescue. The author, who personally witnessed acts of torture and murder, with some other members of his family, managed to escape to the town of Zofiovka, which was in a part of Poland that had been occupied by the Russians. They settled there until the Nazis arrived on their conquering march eastward, in 1941. All the members of his family escaped to the forests and were murdered there. The author joins a Jewish partisan group and sees with a heavy heart the suffering of the Jews in the forests, abandoned alone, torn and tattered, hungry and frozen, with no hope. After a short time, he joined a partisan unit under the command of General Kovpak. He served in this unit for two years, wandering in the mountains and forests, taking part in battles and fighting the Nazis, until he was wounded in 1943 and transferred to a hospital in Kiev. He immigrated to Israel in 1946.

 


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