Abba Kovner led the United Partisan Organization, known by its Yiddish initials FPO, which coordinated resistance in the Vilna Ghetto.
Kovner was a Jewish poet and resistance leader from Vilna, then in German-occupied Poland and now Vilnius, Lithuania. In January 1942, he and other activists formed the FPO after learning that German authorities intended to murder the ghetto’s Jewish population. Kovner became one of its principal commanders and issued a famous appeal urging Jews not to go like sheep to the slaughter.
The FPO initially planned an armed uprising inside the ghetto, but changing German actions and disagreements with other Jewish leaders affected its strategy. When the ghetto was liquidated in September 1943, FPO fighters escaped through sewers and joined partisan groups in the forests, where they continued armed resistance.
After the war, Kovner helped organize Jewish revenge and escape efforts before emigrating to Palestine. He later served in the Haganah during Israel’s War of Independence and became a prominent Hebrew poet. His wartime leadership is distinct from Mordechai Anielewicz’s command of the Warsaw Ghetto resistance.