Mary Jane Shubow (asker) Nov 16, 2012:

Russian background The author has a Polish background but a Polish and Ukrainian unit of partisans has met up with a group of Russians, and the person speaking here is one of the Russians. I will use Hitlerists, as it is in quotes within the quote. The author could have said Nazis if he wanted to.

Colin Rowe Nov 16, 2012:

Would I be correct in assuming... ...that the author of the text has a Russian background?
Obviously in Hebrew, "Hitler" is usually rendered as "היטלר", while the Russian transliteration is "Гитлер", i.e. with a "G" as the first letter, hence the unusual rendering here as "גיטלר".