Lisa Nussbaum Derman was born in Raczki, Poland, a small town near the German border. It had a small but active and religious Jewish community. In 1939, when Germany invaded Poland, Rackzi was occupied immediately. Soviet soldiers encouraged people to leave with them, eventually going to Slonim. Aron Derman was born to Merke and Chaim Derman on May 5, 1922, in Slonim, Poland. Slonim had a large Jewish population making up the majority of the town. 10,000 out of 12,000 residents were Jewish. Aron attended a private Jewish day school and was part of a Zionist youth organization. At 15, Aron was accepted into a school in Palestine, his lifelong dream. Before he could leave Poland, World War II broke out halting his plans. Both Aron and Lisa lived and met in the Slonim ghetto after occupation. In November 1941, 15-year-old Lisa and her sister were sent to live in the home of a Christian friend outside the ghetto, but the woman became afraid and told the girls to leave. Not knowing where to go, they hid in the forest but soon hear and saw a massacre of Jews by the Einsatzgruppen. Lisa and her sister were captured and brought to the massacre site but managed to run away. They eventually came to a barn, where a kind Christian woman took them in, fed them, and hid them in her sofa bed. Eventually, Lisa and her sister returned to the ghetto and hid there with the remaining members of their family. Aron, who had been tasked by the Germans to help clear the ghetto, found the family and made arrangements for them to go to Grodno, a nearby city. When the ghetto in Grodno was sealed and deportations began, Aron, Lisa, and her family hid. Aron and Lisa eventually escaped the ghetto and joined a group of partisans in the forests of Belarus. Lisa, Aron, and Lisa’s father, who was able to join them in the partisan group. As part of the partisans, Aron and Lisa blew up bridges, derailed trains, sabotaged shipments of German supplies, cut phone lines, and destroyed roads. In addition to their missions, the partisans also protected Jews who were hiding in the forest, such as young children who had escaped their respective ghettos. Life as a partisan was difficult, much of it spent in the forest and moving around at nightfall. While they supplied arms to the weaponless Jews, the Russians also made life difficult for them due to anti-Semitism. During the day the partisans would go on their missions. In the evening, the Jewish members of the partisans would sit around a fire and discuss their dreams of Palestine and sing songs.