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.
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