The “Song of Jewish Partisans” was composed in the wake of World War Two. There is a verse, "Never say that this is our last path... Where a drop of our blood falls, there the source of our strength and courage blossoms."
This prophecy became the reality of my life.
In the 60’s when these partisans, an earlier wave of “Prisoners of Zion,” were released from the Gulag, they began to search for a way to counter the scourge of assimilation of Jewish youth.
One of the courses of action was to commemorate the places of mass extermination of Jews in the USSR. Half of the 6,000,000 murdered were butchered there.
The Soviet government did not recognize the Jewish Holocaust. Of course, they recognized the atrocities of German fascism. But here too, Jews were not mentioned separately and fell under the label of "Soviet citizens" - so as not to contribute to Jewish nationalism.
Therefore, the places marking the mass murder of Jews were not awarded the respect they deserved, nor given public attention, nor taken care of like other sites of historical importance.
In Riga in 1941 in Rumbuli Forest almost 30,000 Jews were brutally killed. The murderers were Latvians, while the Arajs, Cukurs, and the Germans "kept order."
There was a huge field there, dug up with ditches.
That's where fate brought me in 1963 at the age of 16. I was in high school. As an average Soviet schoolboy, I was far from Judaism in all its aspects.
When I arrived at Rumbuli from the city on bus 31, the final stop, the work of restoration had just begun. About fifteen middle-aged Jews were filling these ditches with sand by hand.
It was clear that all the work was being done without permission from the authorities. Other Jews drove up on that quiet Sunday. They studied the scene from afar. Afraid to take a part in the unauthorized work, they left.
And I, baruch Hashem, remained. The dead did not let me leave. Thus began my new Jewish life, a life of Jewish activism, a life where one’s own personal life becomes merged with the destiny of Clal Yisrael.
In 1966, a memorial rally was held in the Rumbuli Forest at the man-made memorial - on the Day of HaShoah and Gevura. During the three years from my first visit, hundreds of young Jewish boys and girls joined in the work of restoration. Rumbuli became a symbol of Jewish Eternity for us, a symbol of Jewish Victory, a symbol of Eretz Yisrael and the vow that we would fight with all of our strength to return to our own Jewish Homeland.
I spoke at the illegal rally and said that we came to help the dead. But it turned out that the dead helped us. They returned us to the Jewish People and to life in our Land.
When it came time to hijack a plane to uphold the banner of Jewish freedom to all of the world, I recruited my new friends who I met there in the forest, in the valley of death.
As the song of the Jewish partisans predicted - in the place where Jewish blood was spilled, Jewish courage and the love for life flourished.
It is impossible to destroy the Eternal People.
