Rozka Korczak

Rozka or Ruzka Korczak (1921, Płock – 1988) was a Jewish partisan leader during World War II. A Polish Jew, she served in the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye and, alongside Vitka Kempner and founder Abba Kovner, assumed a leadership role in its successor group, the Avengers (Nakam).

Rozka Korczak (standing, third from the right) with members of the FPO in the Vilna Ghetto. Abba Kovner is to her right, and Vitka Kempner is at far right.

Early life Korczak was born in April 1921 in Bielsko, to a cattle dealer. Her family moved to a small village in Płock where she attended public school. In eighth grade, she organized a Jewish student strike to protest Anti-Semitism in the school. Upon Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, she co-founded the Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (FPO) with Abba Kovner and Kempner in 1942. They smuggled weapons into the Vilna Ghetto and smuggled Jews out.