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The
Vilna Proclamation of January 1, 1942, in Historical Perspective
The
proclamation, composed and read by Abba Kovner at the underground
meeting in Vilna on January 1, 1942, was the first to assess the
mass executions of the city’s Jews in 1941 not as a local
phenomenon or as Nazi revenge on the “communist Jews,” but as
part of the Nazis’ general plan to exterminate all the Jews. It
was also the first Jewish document of the Holocaust that concluded
that resistance was the only option. Only a minority in the
underground believed Kovner’s dire prognosis; however, all the
groups, including the communists, saw the need for a unified Jewish
resistance.
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