Abraham Polonski

Abraham Polonski was born in 1906 in Kałuszyn

Abraham Polonski, also called Pol, was born in the Russian Empire to Lima and Tzipora Polonski. In 1909 he reached Jaffa with his mother, and his father joined them in 1911. In December 1914 the Turks expelled the family to Alexandria, and they later traveled through the Balkans to Slonim in Belarus.

As a youth he was a junior commander in an underground group in the Soviet Union. In March 1923 he left Russia and studied in Germany and Belgium. He then moved to the University of Toulouse in France and qualified as an engineer in 1927.

In 1931 he married Eugenie, whom he had met in Germany. After Hitler came to power he set up a radio factory to support a future underground. He worked at a gas plant, where he faced hostility as a Jew.

When World War II began he was drafted into the French army and released in October 1939. With his wife he founded the underground La Main Forte, and by 1942 he helped found the Armee Juive. The group helped hundreds of members escape to Spain and Palestine and fought in the liberation of France in 1944.