Abba Kovner Abba Kovner ( 1918 - 1987 ) ( was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet , writer , and partisan leader . He became one of the great poets of modern Israel . He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner . Biography . Abba Kovner was born in the Crimean Black Sea port city of Sevastopol but soon moved with his family to Vilnius , Lithuania ) where he grew up and was educated at the secondary Hebrew academy and the school of the arts . While pursuing his studies , he joined and became an active member in the socialist Zionist youth movement HaShomer HaTzair . World War II . In June 1941 , Nazi Germany attacked Vilnius , which was by that time in Lithuanian SSR , after the illegal annexation / occupation of Lithuania 21 July 1940 ( and the other Baltic States ) into the Soviet Union in 1940 . After occupation established the Vilna Ghetto . Kovner managed to escape with several friends to a Dominican convent headed by Anna Borkowska in the city ' s suburbs , but he soon returned to the ghetto . He concluded that in order for any revolt to be successful , a Jewish resistance fighting force needed to be assembled . At the start of 1942 , Kovner released a manifesto in the Vilna ghetto , twice repeating the phrase " Let us not go like lambs to the slaughter ! " that later became famous . The manifesto declared that Hitler had decided to kill all the Jews of Europe and that it was best to die fighting . It was the first time such a notion had been declared in Europe — nobody at that time knew for certain of more than local killings — and many received it with skepticism , however for many this proclamation represented a turning point in an understanding of the situation and how to respond to it . The idea of resistance was disseminated from Vilna by youth movement couriers , mainly women , to the ghettos of Poland , Lithuania and Belorussia . Kovner and others formed the United Partisan Organization , one of the first armed underground organizations in the Jewish ghettos under Nazi occupation . Kovner became its leader in July 1943 , after Yitzhak Wittenberg was named by a tortured comrade and turned himself in to prevent an attack on the ghetto . The FPO planned to fight the Germans when the end of the ghetto came , but circumstances and the opposition of the ghetto leaders made this impossible and they escaped to the forests . From September 1943 until the arrival of the Soviet army in July 1944 , Kovner commanded a partisan group called The Avenger in the forests near Vilna and engaged in sabotage and guerrilla attacks against the Germans and their local collaborators . His was one of four predominantly Jewish groups that operated under the command of the Soviet - led partisans . After the occupation of Vilna by the Soviet Red Army in July 1944 , Kovner became one of the founders of the Berihah movement , helping Jews escape Eastern Europe after the war . Nakam . At the end of the war , Kovner was one of the founders of a secret organization Nakam ( revenge ) , also known as " Dam Yisrael Noter " ( " the blood of Israel avenges " , with the acronym DIN meaning " judgement " ) whose purpose was to seek revenge for the Holocaust . Two plans were formulated . Plan A was to kill a large number of German citizens by poisoning the water supplies of Hamburg , Frankfurt , Munich , and Nuremberg . Plan B was to kill SS prisoners held in Allied POW camps . In pursuit of Plan A , members of the group were infiltrated into water and sewage plants in several cities , while Kovner went to Palestine in search of a suitable poison . Kovner discussed Nakam with Yishuv leaders , though it is not clear how much he told them and he doesn ' t seem to have received much support . According to Kovner ' s own account , Chaim Weizmann approved the idea and put him in touch with the scientist Ernst Bergmann , who gave the job of preparing poison to Ephraim Katzir ( later president of Israel ) and his brother Aharon . Historians have expressed doubt over Weizmann ' s involvement , since he was overseas at the time Kovner specified . The Katzir brothers confirmed that they gave poison to Kovner , but said that he only mentioned Plan B and they denied that Weizmann could be involved . As Kovner and an accomplice were returning to Europe on a British ship , they threw the poison overboard when Kovner was arrested . He was imprisoned for a few months in Cairo and Plan A was abandoned . In April 1946 , members of Nakam broke into a bakery used to supply bread for the Langwasser internment camp near Nuremberg , where many German POWs were being held . They coated many of the loaves with arsenic but were disturbed and fled before finishing their work . More than 2 , 200 of the German prisoners fell ill and 207 were hospitalized , but no deaths were reported . Israel . Kovner joined the Haganah in December 1947 , and soon after Israel declared independence in May 1948 he became a captain in the Givati Brigade of the IDF . During the Israeli War of Independence he became known for his " battle pages " , headed " Death to the invaders ! " , that contained news from the Egyptian front and essays designed to keep up morale . However , the tone of the pages , which called for revenge for the Holocaust and referred to the Egyptian enemy as vipers and dogs , upset many Israeli political and military leaders . His first battle page started a controversy that still continues today when it accused the Nitzanim garrison of cowardice for surrendering to an overwhelming Egyptian force . From 1946 to his death , Kovner was a resident of Kibbutz Ein HaHoresh . He was active in Mapam as well as in HaShomer HaTzair , but never took on a formal political role . He played a major part in the design and construction of several Holocaust museums , including the Diaspora Museum in Tel Aviv . He died in 1987 of cancer that had started in his vocal chords , perhaps due to his lifelong heavy smoking . His wife Vitka Kempner , who had also been a partisan in the forests of Lithuania , survived him . Kovner ' s book of poetry " Ad Lo - Or " , ( " Until No - Light " ) , 1947 , describes in lyric - dramatic narrative the struggle of the Resistance partisans in the swamps and forests of Eastern Europe . " Ha - Mafteach Tzalal " , ( " The Key Drowned " ) , 1951 , is also about this struggle . " Pridah Me - ha - darom " ( " Departure from the South " ) , 1949 , and " Panim el Panim " ( " Face to Face " ) , 1953 , continue the story with the Israeli War of Independence . Kovner ' s story is the basis for the song " Six Million Germans / Nakam " , by Daniel Kahn & The Painted Bird . Kovner testified about his experiences during the war at the trial of Adolf Eichmann .