Haike Grossman, a leader of the Jewish resistance against the Nazis in occupied Poland and a member of the Knesset for 20 years, died this week after a long illness.
Grossman, who was 76, died Sunday and was buried at Kibbutz Evron in northern Israel, where she lived.
Grossman, who was born in Bialystock, Poland, chose to stay in Poland when the Germans invaded in 1939, event though she had an immigrant’s permit from British authorities in Palestine.
As a leader of the left-wing Zionist movement Hashomer Hatzair, she participated in the Jewish uprisings in the Vilna and Bialystock ghettos.
Along with other survivors of the uprisings, she escaped and joined Jewish partisans.
In 1948, she immigrated to Israel, where she settle in Kibbutz Evron.
In 1968, she was elected to the Knesset as a representative of the left-wing Mapam Party, with which Hashomer Hatzair became affiliated that year.
In her 20 years as a legislator, she headed various parliamentary committees and served as deputy speaker.
She fell down a steep flight of stairs in 1993 and was in a coma for three years. She died at the retirement home on the kibbutz.
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