"Lakhva. Price of freedom",2022

​Before the war, Lakhva was a typical small place in Polesye: an Orthodox church, a Catholic church, and two synagogues... As was the case everywhere, Jews made up a significant portion of the population.

In the Nazi-occupied territory, they were all doomed to extermination. At first, they were humiliated and forced to perform grueling labor; then, they were herded into a ghetto where fifty people were crammed into a single house... And then came the time for the "Final Solution to the Jewish Question."

On the morning of September 3, punitive forces surrounded Lakhva. SS men and auxiliary police planned to carry out their task just as quickly as they had in the neighboring town of Kozhan-Horodok, where the ghetto had been liquidated in a mere two hours.

But suddenly, one of the houses caught fire, and others burst into flames. The residents of Lakhva charged at the punitive forces with axes, braving machine-gun fire.

It seemed there was no chance of success: the forces were too unequal. But the rebel leader, Yitzhak Rokhchin, said: yes, most of us will die, but at least some of us will be able to break through and survive. And in doing so, we will uphold our Jewish honor.

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