My name is Diana Wittenber, I am one of the thousands of holocaust rescuers. I was born in Vilna, Lithuania and I am an only child, my parents died when I was very young. When I was seventeen years old World War Two had already begun . Slowly the war came to us(the Jewish people). It started slowly but in 1940 we couldn’t do many things : the closing of Jewish owned businesses, the wearing of the Star of David, and finally we were forced into the ghettos. I was able to pass as a Christian, because I had blond hair and blue eyes, that made life a little easier for me.

When I was not in the ghetto I worked as a farm hand for a kind Christian family, and lived on their farm. It worked perfectly until I got too sick to work. I moved back into the ghetto in 1942. In the time I was gone some Jews had formed Foreynegte Partzaner Organizatsye (United Partisan Organization, FPO)(Jewish). As soon I was well enough I joined too. Their leader, or commander, was Irek Pogonowski. Part of the reason I joined the FPO was that I wanted to get nearer to Irek. But most of the reason was that I knew and had experienced the discrimination against the Jews, so I wanted to help at least a little. In my first year we smuggled weapons, ammunition, and medicine into the ghetto.

In 1943, the Germans stated emptying the ghettos, in September of that year, the final liquidation had begun in the ghetto(Jewish).We (the FPO) decided to rescue as many Jews as we could. There was a plan to this rescue mission : we first found an entrance into the ghetto from


the sewers, then we would try to pass the word around the ghetto about the escape, and finally we would smuggle the Jews out of the ghetto and into the Rudniki forest. We would have to dismantle our weapons (just in case) and carry them over are heads so they would not get wet (Underground). Other FPO members and I will lead the Jews out of the sewers and hide them in the back of some manure wagons. The smell of the manure hid the Jews because nobody wants to search a wagon full of poop. After they are hidden in the wagons we will drive each one out (at separate times) of the city and into the Rudniki forest. We rescued around seventy Jews that night.

The FPO’s new headquarters is now in the forest so the members of the United Partisan Organization and most of the Jews we had rescued, lived there too. Because of my looks I was sent for ammunition, medicine, and supplies. I had to walk threw swamps and bogs to avoid the patrols. I was caught many times, fortunately I escaped every time, I risked death with each step (Jewish).

In 1944, after almost a year of living in the forest, our numbers had gone down (from illness or capture), the FPO had decided to take volunteers on the long journey to Palestine. Naturally I volunteered, almost everyone did, and so we began the long journey. In the spring of 1945 we arrived. Palestine needed teachers and since before the war I was studying to become a teacher I applied for the job. Today, I am a kindergarten teacher and happily married to Irek Pogonowski, the former leader of the Foreynegte Partzaner Organizatsye (United Partisan Organization, FPO). It had seemed my plan to get close to Irek had worked, for we were married in 1944 just before we had left for Palestine.