Eight Jewish boys from Minsk, ranging in age from eleven to fifteen, returned to that city this week after spending nine months with a partisan band in the neighboring forests. A report of their exploits appears in the Moscow press today.
The boys fled the ghetto about a year ago after they had seen their parents and friends massacred. Slipping past sentinels and barbed wire, they reached the center of the city where they met a friendly Byelorussian who directed them to the woods where the guerrillas had their headquarters. After travelling for three days, they finally met up with a partisan sentry.
The boys performed various tasks during their stay with the guerrillas. The younger ones helped around the kitchen; the older youths tended horses, acted as scouts and even participated in some forays against the Germans.
The thing that hit the boys the hardest, the correspondent writes, was the necessity to part with their rifles and swords before entering the children’s home in which they are now being cared for.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
