MIDDLE EAST: Memorial commemorating Jewish partisans by Lithunian-born Jewish Holocaust survivor, will be built by military cemetery in Jerusalem

Mount Herzel in Jerusalem is preparing to get a new memorial, designed by a former partisan artist from Lithuania. Born in 1916 in Vilnus, Alexander Bogen graduated from the city's art academy but was captured by the Germans after the World War II broke out. Bogen escaped from the Vilnus Ghetto and joined the partisans fighting against the Nazis from the nearby countryside. He and other partisans were critical of Israel's lack of a significant monument in honour of thousands of Jewish partisans who fought and died under German occupation in World War II. Around 10,000 Jewish partisans are thought to have fought the Germans in World War II. But the struggle to erect a monument in Israel was not easily won, until salvation arrived under a strange guise. A 40-year-old Israeli online-gambling tycoon who read an autobiography of a Jewish partisan offered to fund the artwork, estimated to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars (U.S.). The memorial will be made of Jerusalem stone and depict an abstract representation of captives marching toward their death, alongside a towering lance symbolising the hope of the partisan fighters. "The monument is constructed of two elements, a vertical and a horizontal one. There is tension, the difference between these two elements creates tension," Bogen said, describing his work. In 1943, Bogen returned to the Vilnus ghetto and was instrumental in freeing members of the United Partisans Organization from within before the ghetto's inhabitants were killed by the Nazis. "It was full of tradition, Jewish culture, important, the most famous Jewish writers used to live there. I used to soak up this culture, this tradition," Bogen said of Vilnus. Bogen helped to train 150 partisan members, taking command of a 30-member squad of fighters that included his wife and mother-in-law. All successfully escaped from the ghetto and joined other partisan groups operating in forests. Unlike other units that escaped the Vilnus ghetto, Bogen's 30-member squad did not disband. Few partisans are still alive in Israel today. According to the Yad Vashem Holocaust Museum, the group named itself 'Vengeance', and was active in various operations that included mining railroad tracks and sabotaging German supplies on their way to the front. Many of Bogen's works on the subject of the partisans are exhibited at Yad Vashem, Israel's Holocaust museum.

ITN Source | August 11, 2007

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