Nahum Kohn
(1918 - ?)



Polish Jew and resistance fighter, he was born in Sieradz in western Poland. When WWII broke out he was in Warsaw and served briefly until the surrender in the Polish Army. A watchmaker by profession, he returned to Sieradz to be with his family after the Polish surrender. After a month of seeing how the Nazi occupiers treated Jews, Kohn decided to escape over the lines into then Russian-occupied Poland, where Jews were safe. He settled down in what is now western Ukraine, in the Lutsk area. After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, Kohn tried to retreat with the Soviet troops but failed and returned to the Lutsk area. He began inciting young Jews to arm themselves and escape to the forests, for he knew the fate reversed for the Jews under Nazi occupation from the letters he received from his relatives in Poland. It wasn't long before he went to the forest and began to organize a Jewish partisan group to fight the Nazis and Ukrainian fascists. In 1942 he and his group joined a large Soviet partisan group under the leadership of Aleksander Felyuk. Then after a serious injury and convalescence, Kohn joined an even larger Soviet partisan group led by Dmitry Medvedev and specializing in espionage and externally supporting the activities of famous Soviet spy Nikolai Kuznetsov or as he was known to the Nazis "Paul Siebert." Kohn left the forest for a short time and worked as a watchmaker in Rivne, acting as an information drop point for Kuznetsov and other Soviet agents working in Rivne. Kohn later returned to the armed partisan activity in the forest and fought till the end of the war with passion. Stayed and worked in Ukraine after the war. He wrote a book, A Voice from the Forest [244 pages], about his experiences during the war and his close work with Kuznetsov. This book is especially relevant now as an attack on Ukrainian revisionism which has sought to rehabilitate the Ukrainian fascists who worked hand in hand with the Nazis.