Season 2, Episode 2 of What I Learned on NPR Today: Holocaust Revenge Squad

During and after the Holocaust, Jews formed Nakam groups, or revenge squads. These groups attacked Germans to avenge their families and friends in concentration camps and mass graves. During the war, they would blow up supply trains, burn bridges, sabotage rail lines, and attack German soldiers. 

Paradoxically, after the war ended, their need for revenge got even stronger as they learned the true scope of the Holocaust. A plot to poison the water supply in major German cities (to kill Germans on the same scale on which Jews had been killed) was foiled, but the groups succeeded in poisoning the bread at an American prison for German POWs - Stalag 13. Nearly 2,000 prisoners fell ill, and while there are no official numbers on how many died, estimates range from a few hundred to a thousand.


Source: "Member of a Jewish Holocaust ‘Revenge Squad’ Tells Story," PRI's The World, May 3, 2013  http://www.theworld.org/2013/05/member-of-a-jewish-holocaust-revenge-squad-tells-story/