THE YOUNG JEWISH WOMAN WHO BLEW UP NAZIS By Dan Peleschuk
THE YOUNG JEWISH WOMAN WHO BLEW UP NAZIS By Dan Peleschuk In theory, the plan was simple: Sneak into the bakery, where thousands of loaves of bread were being prepared for German prisoners of war, and lace them all with arsenic. For the rest of the world, the war had ended. But for steely Jewish 20-something Vitka Kempner and her co-conspirators, it wouldn’t end until every last Nazi was dead. Ultimately, the scheme failed. Sort of. Despite the fact that some 2,280 inmates fell ill, none of them died. Together, with wartime partisan leader Abba Kovner, her future husband, Kempner quickly ditched Europe for then-British Palestine, where they’d spend the rest of their lives in relative peace. And though morally questionable, the 1946 poisoning episode in Nuremberg — the final in a short but storied career packed with brazen resistance — highlighted her dedication to fighting for an oppressed people. But how did a young woman from provincial Poland morph into one of the war’s ...