Joseph Serchuk

Joseph (Yozhik) Serchuk (Hebrew: יוסף סרצ'וק) born Józef Serczuk or Josef Sierczuk (Chełm, 1919 – 6 November 1993, Tel Aviv) was the leader of a Jewish partisan unit in the Lublin area of occupied Poland during the Holocaust.

After his parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto in 1941, Joseph and his brother David were taken to Sobibor extermination camp.

After one day in the camp, he fled with his brother to the nearest forest, and together with other survivors founded the core of a partisan group.

People became afraid to get too close, and those whose path perforce took them in the vicinity, made a wide detour, rather than tempt providence.

Serchuk travelled to Europe several times to testify in the trials of former Nazis including that of Oberscharführer Hugo Raschendorfer.

[citation needed] Raschendorfer admitted to participating in several mass executions in Nazi-occupied Chełm, and was convicted of murdering an additional number of Jews on his own volition.