Partisans of Vilna

1986 • Directed by

Joshua Waletzky

Documentary

This extraordinary film tells the story of the men and women who formed the Jewish partisan movement in Vilna, Lithuania, during World War II. Using rare archival film footage dating from 1939 to 1944 and contemporary interviews with 40 partisan survivors (including Abba Kovner, a founder of the partisan movement and one of Israel's leading poets) the film explores the difficulties of organizing under the anarchic conditions of the ghetto.