Militaryויטקה קובנר

Vitka Kempner

Vitka Kempner was a Polish-born Jewish partisan leader in the Vilna ghetto underground during World War II, who later worked as a psychologist in Israel.

1920 to 2012Vilna ghetto resistanceThe FPO's first train sabotageLeadership in the Nakam group

Born: 14 March 1920, Kalisz
Died: 15 February 2012, Ein HaHoresh
Occupation: psychologist, partisan, resistance fighter
Education: University of Warsaw
Wars: Eastern Front

Vitka Kempner was born in 1920 in Kalisz

Vitka Kempner was born in 1920 in Kalisz, Poland, to Hayah and Zevi Kempner, who ran a retail business. She was the first girl to join Betar in Kalisz, and later moved to Hashomer Hatzair and the Avukah student group. After high school she studied in Warsaw.

When the Germans took Kalisz in September 1939, she fled to Vilna. After the Germans occupied the city in 1941, she became a courier between the ghetto and the city and joined the FPO underground. With Itzke Matzkevich she carried out the group's first sabotage act, blowing up a German train.

In 1943 she helped lead fighters, including Abba Kovner, out of the ghetto to the Rudninkai Forest, where she commanded the patrol unit. In July 1944 she joined the Red Army that freed Vilna. Her whole family died in the Holocaust.

After the war she was a member of the Nakam group and served as its contact with the Jewish Brigade in Paris. She immigrated in 1946 and settled at Ein HaHoresh with Abba Kovner, with whom she had 2 children. She worked as a psychologist on the kibbutz and died in 2012.