Webinar | Possible identification of ŻZW Commander Pawel Frenkiel

The character of Pawel Frenkiel, the military commander of the ŻZW underground, was almost unknown until today. No documents have been found attesting to his existence, as well as no photo of him. The main testimony provided about him by Adam Halperin, a Betar member from Warsaw, left difficult and unanswered questions.

Following the research activities of the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem on the revisionist movement during the Holocaust, an unknown testimony was found, indicating the identity of Pawel Frenkiel. Apparently, from the testimony of Jeremiah Halperin, the commander-in-chief of the training of the Betar movement in Israel and the Diaspora, Pawel’s original name was – Jacob Frenkiel, born in 1911 in Bialystok, an outstanding officer in the Polish army. With the help of the Historical Jewish Institute in Warsaw and the Polish Army Archives, many important details about Jacob Frenkiel were found. It seems that today, this identification is the closest and most likely to the character of the ŻZW commander.

Lecturer: Yossi Suede, director of content development at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem, Israel. Doctoral student on the history of Israel at Bar-Ilan University. A lecture of 30 minutes, accompanied by a photo presentation full of interest and content, includes a photo of Jacob Frenkiel as an officer in the Polish army.