September 3, 2021 marks 79 years since the Lakhva Ghetto Uprising, widely considered to be one of the first ghetto uprisings against the Nazis during the Holocaust.
The Lakhva ghetto was in the town of the same name, also known as Łachwa, a Polish town in what is now Belarus.
Jewish settlement there likely started in the 1600s and by the 1920s, its population numbered around 1,100 Jews — a third of the total population.
But after 1939, its population would grow by around 40% as Jews fled from German-occupied Poland and headed east, which was under Soviet occupation.
In July 1941, however, the Germans took the town, and rumors of their atrocities had already reached the Jewish community at the time, one survivor recounted in the memorial book Rishonim la-mered; Lachwa (First ghetto to revolt, Lachwa).
A Judenrat was swiftly established. In August 1941, many Jews were forced to began digging ditches. Rumors began to spread that this was the prelude to a planned slaughter of the Jews. Whether this is true or not is unknown, but supposedly, Judenrat chairman Dov Lopatin, a former Zionist leader, averted this with bribery of gold, according to Yad Vashem.
As had happened in several other places in Eastern Europe, the Nazis went about ordering the construction of a ghetto around the spring of 1942.
"We were forced to put up barbed wire around the ghetto ourselves," one survivor noted in Rishonim la-mered; Lachwa. "The division of the meager living space was accompanied by contention. The intercession of the heads of the Judenrat with the authorities did not help nor did bribery ease our situation.
"We were allowed only two hours to leave our homes and property and move into the ghetto. We had to carry our possessions on our backs after undergoing a careful check by the men of the SS who robbed from us anything they desired and left the rest for looting."
Food was always incredibly scarce for the Jews in the ghetto, especially when the population of Jews grew even larger when Jews from Dawidgrodek and Sienkiewicz were brought to the ghetto. Survivors noted that the Judenrat risked their lives multiple times to try and help alleviate the suffering of those in the ghetto and avoid starvation.
Thoughts of resistance first began to truly form after an incident in late July 1942, when local Nazi-backed police killed a group of five children.
Some of the town's youth had Zionist education, and were even members of Betar, and had experience fighting rioters and burglars, they soon began trying to obtain weapons for self-defense.
Already, the Jewish police, including members of the ghetto's underground, began ordering the Jews to get weapons and prepare.
"You could see people walking around with knives and axes under the cover of darkness," recounted Kopel Kolpanitsky, a survivor of the Lakhva uprising.
But come September, that revolt would happen.
Lopatin was told by the Nazis that the ghetto was going to be liquidated, and much of the inhabitants "resettled," something the ghetto inhabitants understood to mean murdered.
The Nazis had reportedly promised to spare the Judenrat and their families, the ghetto doctor and 30 laborers of Lopatin's choosing, according to the Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. However, Lopatin refused this offer, reportedly saying "Either we all live, or we all die."
And on September 3, the uprising broke out. Organized by Lopatin and Betar member Yitzhak Rochzyn, the Jews set much of the ghetto on fire as the Germans surrounded it alongside Nazi-aligned Ukrainian and Belarussian police.
When the fire was lit, it was the sign for a mass escape, the Jews breaching through the gates of the ghetto and fleeing as the flames spread.
Members of the ghetto's underground, led by Rochczyn, attacked German troops as the fires spread and other Jews escaped.
Testimony regarding the escape was given by Kolpanitsky.
"Lopatin entered the Judenrat building, set it alight, and the building began to burn," he said. "Then the signal was given. Rochczyn came out, axe in hand, brought it down on the head of the Gestapo officer who was shooting... The rabbis stood to the side, beginning to recite 'Shema Yisrael,' and everyone repeated loudly after them, crying out 'Shema Yisrael!' and began to run for the fence."
But not everyone would make it.
"The three machine guns across the river opened fire on all the people running," Kolanitsky said. "As I ran, I saw on my right my brother Moshe leaning over a German and hitting him with an axe. I signaled to him to run away, and he gestured to me to run. I never saw my family again."
Ultimately, many of the Jews were caught and murdered over the following days. Out of the over 1,000 escapees, only around 120-300 Jews escaped (accounts vary), making it to the forests.
Rochczyn was not among them, having been shot while jumping into the Smierc River.
Lopatin had made it out and ended up joining forest partisans fighting against the Nazis. However, he died a few years later during the war, killed by a landmine.
Only 90 escapees survived the entire war, and their names and eventual whereabouts were recorded in the memorial book. Kolpanitsky was one of them. He joined partisans and later the Soviet Red Army, fighting against the Wehrmacht as it retreated.
After the war, Kolpanitsky would desert the Red Army and began a long and difficult journey to reach Mandatory Palestine. He finally arrived in 1948 and joined the IDF, being discharged years later at the rank of major.
The Lakhva uprising is considered to be one of, if not the very first Jewish ghetto uprisings against the Nazis. Several more would take place over the course of the Holocaust, most famously the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
As for Jewish life in Lakhva today, it is nonexistent. The town itself is merely a small settlement in Luninets, Belarus.