Post by Nictoshek on Oct 13, 2009 16:05:47 GMT -7
The freedom fighter
A member of the WWII Jewish resistance in Europe, Skokie man embodied real-life 'Defiance'
October 13, 2009
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
Leon Figa sat across from me Monday in his Niles apartment and casually talked sabotage: how to blow up a train, retrieve the explosives from an undetonated bomb or block a road for a proper ambush.
I had no doubt he could do it still, if needed, the way he did in the Belorussian forests all those many years ago -- a Jew fighting the Nazis on his own terms.
Figa, who turns 90 next month, says he didn't expect to become a partisan fighter when he fled the German occupation of Warsaw in 1939. He'd never held a gun, never spent a day in the woods. He was only seeking safety when he left his family to go east, crossing the Russian border.
But by war's end, he'd seen much death and dealt it himself, once memorably watching the steam escape from a man's chest as the bullets from Liga's machine-gun ripped through his coat on a frigid winter day.
"They used to say the Jewish don't fight, but they fight," said Figa in his heavily accented English as Sarah, his wife of almost 60 years, and son, Stewart, helped to keep his stories on track. "We don't want to kill, but if you want to kill me, I kill you first."
In recognition of this often-overlooked aspect of the Jewish war experience, Figa will be among the Holocaust survivors honored Nov. 2 at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum annual luncheon at the Sheraton Chicago.
This year's event is focused on the 2008 film "Defiance" about the Bielskis -- Jewish brothers who became resistance fighters in the forests of Eastern Europe during World War II. The luncheon will feature one of the movie's stars, Liev Schrieber, and its screenwriter, New Trier alum Clay Frohman.
Figa says he saw the movie, and more to the point, even spent a day in the Bielski encampment in 1943 when his own group of partisans, the Lenin Brigade, was temporarily flushed from its usual turf by a German offensive.
Unlike the Bielski band, the Lenin Brigade was an all-male fighting force, composed mostly of Russians with only a few Jews at first. In the Lenin Brigade, there were no "forest wives," said Figa, as the wartime pairings were called in "Defiance," and no permanent shelters.
"Every second night, we moved to another place eight to 10 miles away," he said.
Still, the movie depicts many truths common to the war experience of the partisans -- a war without tidy boundaries demarking friend from foe, where staying alive was more complicated than avoiding the guys in the wrong color uniforms. And where it could be doubly dangerous for a Jew, with anti-Semitism running strong among the Russians as well.
For a while, Figa's initial decision to escape to Russian territory served its purpose. When the Germans attacked Russia in 1941, however, he was conscripted into forced labor for the Nazis, who put him to work in a supply depot with a small group that would tow and then repair abandoned Russian armaments.
During that time, he was approached by the resistance and enlisted to smuggle guns and supplies.
Then, while carrying out his duties for the Germans, Figa's truck was ambushed by another small group of Russian partisans that took him prisoner. Pleading for his life, Figa told them of his smuggling efforts. They told Figa they would spare him while they checked out his story.
Soon, they put him on guard duty. He got lost in the woods. Eventually, though, he got the hang of it.
One morning his brigade held a meeting. Another of the partisans was called before the group and stripped of his weapon. The man had fallen asleep on guard duty. As the other men waited, he was taken into the forest. A shot rang out.
Figa's name was the next called. Fearing the worst, he stepped forward -- and received the Red Star for heroism. What did he do to earn it?
"Oh, we dynamited a train," he shrugged, as if that was beside the point.
On one occasion, the Lenin Brigade ambushed a German truck, killed the soldiers who didn't escape, and confiscated the contents. Finding a camera, they paused long enough to take the classic photo of themselves you see here.
The photo is also on display at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, where the normally reticent Figa has been known to proudly point himself out to other museum visitors.
Figa and Sarah came to Chicago together in 1949, got married the following year and raised two sons in Skokie. Figa held various jobs, eventually running a garden center on the Southwest Side.
His parents, two brothers and a sister all died during the war. Figa says he never thought about vengeance, only staying alive.
A member of the WWII Jewish resistance in Europe, Skokie man embodied real-life 'Defiance'
October 13, 2009
BY MARK BROWN Sun-Times Columnist
Leon Figa sat across from me Monday in his Niles apartment and casually talked sabotage: how to blow up a train, retrieve the explosives from an undetonated bomb or block a road for a proper ambush.
I had no doubt he could do it still, if needed, the way he did in the Belorussian forests all those many years ago -- a Jew fighting the Nazis on his own terms.
Figa, who turns 90 next month, says he didn't expect to become a partisan fighter when he fled the German occupation of Warsaw in 1939. He'd never held a gun, never spent a day in the woods. He was only seeking safety when he left his family to go east, crossing the Russian border.
But by war's end, he'd seen much death and dealt it himself, once memorably watching the steam escape from a man's chest as the bullets from Liga's machine-gun ripped through his coat on a frigid winter day.
"They used to say the Jewish don't fight, but they fight," said Figa in his heavily accented English as Sarah, his wife of almost 60 years, and son, Stewart, helped to keep his stories on track. "We don't want to kill, but if you want to kill me, I kill you first."
In recognition of this often-overlooked aspect of the Jewish war experience, Figa will be among the Holocaust survivors honored Nov. 2 at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum annual luncheon at the Sheraton Chicago.
This year's event is focused on the 2008 film "Defiance" about the Bielskis -- Jewish brothers who became resistance fighters in the forests of Eastern Europe during World War II. The luncheon will feature one of the movie's stars, Liev Schrieber, and its screenwriter, New Trier alum Clay Frohman.
Figa says he saw the movie, and more to the point, even spent a day in the Bielski encampment in 1943 when his own group of partisans, the Lenin Brigade, was temporarily flushed from its usual turf by a German offensive.
Unlike the Bielski band, the Lenin Brigade was an all-male fighting force, composed mostly of Russians with only a few Jews at first. In the Lenin Brigade, there were no "forest wives," said Figa, as the wartime pairings were called in "Defiance," and no permanent shelters.
"Every second night, we moved to another place eight to 10 miles away," he said.
Still, the movie depicts many truths common to the war experience of the partisans -- a war without tidy boundaries demarking friend from foe, where staying alive was more complicated than avoiding the guys in the wrong color uniforms. And where it could be doubly dangerous for a Jew, with anti-Semitism running strong among the Russians as well.
For a while, Figa's initial decision to escape to Russian territory served its purpose. When the Germans attacked Russia in 1941, however, he was conscripted into forced labor for the Nazis, who put him to work in a supply depot with a small group that would tow and then repair abandoned Russian armaments.
During that time, he was approached by the resistance and enlisted to smuggle guns and supplies.
Then, while carrying out his duties for the Germans, Figa's truck was ambushed by another small group of Russian partisans that took him prisoner. Pleading for his life, Figa told them of his smuggling efforts. They told Figa they would spare him while they checked out his story.
Soon, they put him on guard duty. He got lost in the woods. Eventually, though, he got the hang of it.
One morning his brigade held a meeting. Another of the partisans was called before the group and stripped of his weapon. The man had fallen asleep on guard duty. As the other men waited, he was taken into the forest. A shot rang out.
Figa's name was the next called. Fearing the worst, he stepped forward -- and received the Red Star for heroism. What did he do to earn it?
"Oh, we dynamited a train," he shrugged, as if that was beside the point.
On one occasion, the Lenin Brigade ambushed a German truck, killed the soldiers who didn't escape, and confiscated the contents. Finding a camera, they paused long enough to take the classic photo of themselves you see here.
The photo is also on display at the Illinois Holocaust Museum in Skokie, where the normally reticent Figa has been known to proudly point himself out to other museum visitors.
Figa and Sarah came to Chicago together in 1949, got married the following year and raised two sons in Skokie. Figa held various jobs, eventually running a garden center on the Southwest Side.
His parents, two brothers and a sister all died during the war. Figa says he never thought about vengeance, only staying alive.