What You Should Know About The Holocaust Avengers

While war is always filled with trauma and pain, one of the largest atrocities ever committed during wartime was the Holocaust. When Adolf Hitler and his Nazi regime rose to power in 1933, government legislation and decrees were put into place purely for the systematic persecution of the Jews, according to British Library. Starting with burning books by Jewish authors and ending with the creation of the Department of Racial Hygiene, this government implemented a barbaric plan to exterminate an entire group of people. The lives of at least 6 million Jews were taken in the name of racial purity, per the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Though Hitler and his Nazis ultimately fell to Allied forces in 1945, the chaos and grief they left in their wake resulted in a desire for revenge from many, especially surviving Jews.

Soon, the hunger for vengeance became too strong for many who experienced the horrors of the Holocaust up close. As a result, a group of around 50 men and women decided to take justice into their own hands and formed what became known as Nakam, meaning "The Avengers." According to Jewish News, this group of survivors came up with a diabolical plan to inflict suffering and ultimately death on those who had done the same to them and their loved ones.

You may be wondering how The Avengers planned to go about getting their retribution on 6 million Germans and members of Hitler's SS. Per Jewish News, their idea was simple yet brilliant: poison the water supply to major German cities such as Munich and the bread supply that was meant for 50,000 SS prisoners being held at POW camps. Their leader was Abba Kovner, who had been a part of the Jewish resistance movement since 1941, per Britannica. The initial poisoning of the water supply hinged on Kovner getting the poison to his other members, but that plan was unintentionally foiled by the British when he was detained trying to re-enter Germany, as stated in Haaretz.

The Nakam's second attempt to poison the SS was slightly more successful, depending on how you look at it. They managed to poison the bread this time, and some of the SS did eat it. But much to The Avengers' chagrin, all they managed to do was give about 2,000 of them a bad stomach ache, and not one of them died. While their plans were ultimately either foiled or just simply didn't pan out, it may have been a bit of a blessing in disguise. Historian Dina Porat states that the revenge was intended to be "an overt and nationalist response by a nation that was murdered against a nation that murdered, a revenge that would be publicized all over the world, which would harm millions."