Yitzhak Arad - Early Life and War Experiences

Early Life and War Experiences

Arad was born Itzhak Rudnicki on November 11, 1926 in what was then Święciany in the Second Polish Republic (now Švenčionys, Lithuania). In his youth, he belonged to the Zionist youth movement Ha-No'ar ha-Tsiyyoni. During the war – according to Arad's 1993 interview with Harry J. Cargas – he was active in the ghetto underground movement from 1942 to 1944. In February 1943, he joined the Soviet partisans of the Markov Brigade, a primarily non-Jewish unit in which he had to contend with antisemitism. Apart from a foray infiltrating the Vilna Ghetto in April 1943 to meet with underground leader Abba Kovner, he stayed with the Soviet partisans until the end of the war, fighting the Germans, taking part in mining trains and in ambushes around the Narocz Forest of Belarus. "The official attitude of the Soviet partisan movement was that there was no place for Jewish units" acting independently, said Arad.

Historian Mark Paul explains that Arad (then Rudnicki, aged 18), belonged to a partisan unit which was part of the Voroshilov Brigade based in Narocz forest, involved in punitive missions against other partisan groups whom they considered as enemies. The Voroshilov brigade partisans were representing Soviet interests in the region and followed the NKVD directives in numerous "Revenge" actions. Noah Shneidman estimates that there were at least 300 Jewish partisans in it, one-fifth of its numerical strength. Piotr Zychowicz (Rzeczpospolita), points out that according to evidence in possession of the Lithuanian court system, Arad joined the NKVD at the end of 1944, and became active in combatting the anti-Communist Lithuanian underground. He participated in the NKVD destruction of Tigras brigade of the Lithuanian Liberation Army. In his interview Arad insisted that he was not on the NKVD payroll, thus contradicting the documentary evidence presented by Rytas Narvydas from the Genocide and Resistance Research Center of Lithuania. He was allegedly dismissed from the NKVD ranks for his undisciplined behaviour. However in the same interview it is clearly stated that the documents allegedly demonstrating the participation of Arad to the criminal actions (that would have happened while the war was still ongoing) are being kept secret and are not available to the public. A number of actions of the partisan units that Arad belonged to and that could be considered war crimes are described in a book written by Arad himself The partisan (1979), like shooting Armia Krajowa officer (p. 162) or a Lithuanian policeman (p. 155), taken as prisoners of war, burning down of houses during a punitive action against a Lithuanian village that organized self-defence against partisans and was armed by Germans (p 158).

In December 1945, Yitzhak Arad immigrated illegally to Palestine, on the Ha'apala (Aliyah Bet) boat named after Hannah Szenes. In Arad's military career in the IDF, he reached the rank of brigadier general and was appointed to the post of Chief Education Officer. He retired in 1972.