Shalom Yoran (1925–2013)

Shalom Yoran was born Selim Sznycer to a Jewish family in Raciąż, Poland, and grew up in Warsaw. When he was 14 years old, he and his family fled eastwards to Soviet territory to escape German invasion of their homeland in World War II. In June 1941, Germany attacked the USSR, and the family soon found their village of Kurzeniec (in present-day Belarus), occupied by Nazis. The following year, when the Nazis murdered the Jewish inhabitants of Kurzeniec, Shalom escaped, having received a prior warning. He spent the frigid winter of 1942 in the forest near the river Sang with his brother Maurice and three friends. In the spring of 1943, they burned down a factory in Kurzeniec that made rifle parts for German weapons. After being refused permission by Russian partisans to join their unit, Shalom helped to form an all-Jewish resistance group with more than 200 Jews. They harassed German troops, blew up bridges and destroyed roads and rail lines, while scrounging and stealing to survive. When Belarus was liberated by the Red Army in 1944, Shalom and his comrades were drafted. He eventually deserted and made his way to Italy, where he worked for the British Army until the end of the war. In 1946, he illegally entered the British Mandate of Palestine on a fake British military passport, and changed his name to that of a dead cousin, Shalom Yoran. There he joined the newly-formed Israeli Army. After spending time in the USA to attend university, he returned to Israel to become an officer in the Air Force. He married Varda Granevsky in 1954. He later became an executive with Israel Aerospace Industries. In 1996, he published his World War II memoir, The Defiant: A True Story of Vengeance and Survival. He helped found the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York City.