Bielski partisans
Encyclopedia
The Bielski partisans were an organisation of Jewish partisans
who rescued Jews
from extermination and fought against the Nazi German
occupiers and their collaborators
in the vicinity of Nowogródek (Navahrudak) and Lida
in German-occupied Poland
(now western Belarus). They are named after the Bielskis, a family of Polish Jews who led the organization.
Under their protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war, making it one of many remarkable rescue missions in the Holocaust. The group spent more than two years living in the forests and was initially organised by members of the Bielski family.
and was seized by the Soviet Union
in September 1939 (cf. Polish September Campaign and Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
) in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop
non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany
and Stalinist Soviet Union.
The Bielski family took part as low level administrators in the new government set up by the Soviets which strained their relations with the local Poles, to whom the Soviet Union was an occupier. Following the Germans' Operation Barbarossa
, the invasion of Soviet Union that began on June 22, 1941, Nowogródek became a Jewish ghetto, as Nazis took over those lands and implemented their genocidal policies (see Holocaust in Poland
and Holocaust in Belarus
).
(also known as "Zus"), Asael Bielski
and Aron Bielski
managed to flee to the nearby forest after their parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto in December 1941. Together with 13 neighbours from the ghetto, they formed the nucleus of their partisan combat group in the spring of 1942. Originally, the group consisted of around forty people, but grew quickly.
The group's commander was the oldest brother, Tuvia, who had served in the Polish Army from 1927 to 1929, rising to the rank of corporal
. He had been interested in the Zionist youth movement
. He sent emissaries to infiltrate the ghettos in the area, recruiting new members to join the group in the Naliboki Forest
. Hundreds of men, women, and children eventually found their way to the Bielski camp; at its peak, 1,236 people belonged to the group, and 70% were women, children, and the elderly; no one was turned away. About 150 engaged in armed operations.
s) or bunkers. In addition, several utility structures were built: a kitchen, a mill, a bakery, a bathhouse, a medical clinic for the sick and wounded, and a quarantine
hut for those who suffered from infectious diseases such as typhus
. Herds of cows supplied milk. Artisans made goods and carried out repairs, providing the combatants with logistical support that later served the Soviet partisan units in the vicinity as well. More than 125 workers toiled in the workshops, which became famous among partisans far beyond the Bielski base. Tailors patched up old clothing and stitched together new garments; shoemakers fixed old and made new footwear; leather-workers laboured on belts, bridles and saddles. A metalworking
shop established by Shmuel Oppenheim repaired damaged weapons and constructed new ones from spare parts. A tannery, constructed to produce the hide for cobblers and leather workers, became a de-facto synagogue because several tanners were devout Hasidic
Jew
s. Carpenters, hat-makers, barbers, watchmakers served their own community and guests. The camp's many children attended class in the dugout set up as a school. The camp even had its own jail and court of law.
Some accounts note the inequality between well-off partisans and poor inhabitants of the camp.
s, such as Belarus
ian volunteer policemen or local inhabitants who had betrayed or killed Jews. They also conducted sabotage
missions. The Nazi regime offered a reward of 100,000 Reichmarks for assistance in the capture of Tuvia Bielski, and in 1943, led major clearing operations against all partisan groups in the area. Some of these groups suffered major casualties, but the Bielski partisans fled safely to a more remote part of the forest, and continued to offer protection to the noncombatants among their band.
The Bielski group would raid nearby villages and forcibly seize food (much like other partisan groups in the area); on occasion, peasants who refused to share their food with the partisans were the subject of violence and even murder. This caused hostility towards the partisans from peasants in the villages, though some would help the Jewish partisans.
The Bielski partisans eventually became affiliated with Soviet organisations in the vicinity of the Naliboki Forest
under General Platon (Vasily Yefimovich Chernyshev). Several attempts by Soviet commanders to absorb Bielski fighters into their units were resisted, and the Jewish partisan group retained its integrity and remained under Tuvia Bielski's command. This allowed him to continue in his mission to protect Jewish lives along with engaging in combat activity, but would also prove a problem later on.
The Bielski Jews, fighting on the Soviet side, took part in clashes between Polish and Soviet forces
. Notably, they took part in a disarmament of a group of Polish partisans by the Soviets on 1 December 1943.
The Bielski partisan leaders split the group into two units, one named Ordzhonikidze, led by Zus, and the other Kalinin, commanded by Tuvia. According to partisan documentation, Bielski fighters from both units killed a total of 381 enemy fighters, sometimes during joint actions with Soviet groups. 50 members of the group were killed.
Despite their previous collaboration with the Soviets, relations quickly worsened. The NKVD
started interrogating the Bielski brothers about the rumours of loot they had reportedly collected during the war, and about their failure to "implement socialist ideals in the camp". Asael Bielski was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army and fell in the Battle of Königsberg
in 1945. The remaining brothers escaped Soviet-controlled lands, emigrating to the West. Tuvia's cousin, Yehuda Bielski, was sought by the NKVD for having been an officer in the pre-war Polish Army, but managed to escape with Tuvia's help and made his way to Hungary and then to Israel.
The last living Bielski brother, Aron Bielski
, emigrated to the US in 1951. He changed his name to "Aron Bell". The remainder of the Bell family now lives in upstate New York
and California
. When Tuvia died in 1987, he was buried in Long Island, New York, but a year later, at the urging of surviving partisans in Israel, he was exhumed and given a hero's funeral at Har Hamenuchot, the hillside graveyard in Jerusalem. His wife, Lilka, was buried beside him in 2001. Aron lives in Florida
. None of the Bielskis ever sought any recognition or reward for their actions.
Yehuda Bielski, their first cousin and fellow partisan, moved to present-day Israel to fight in the Irgun
.
of 129 people, committed by Soviet partisans. Though some witnesses and some historians do place members of the Bielskis' unit at the massacre, former members of the brigade and other historians dispute this, asserting that the partisans did not arrive in the area until several months later. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance
has been investigating the massacre since the early 2000s. As of April 2009, it has not issued official findings. Some historians working at the Institute have asserted in other publications, however, that the Bielski brothers had not been involved in the massacre.
and The Bielski Brothers (2004) by Peter Duffy. The group is also mentioned in numerous books about this period in history. A new book (January 2009) in Polish
by two reporters from Gazeta Wyborcza
, Odwet: Prawdziwa historia braci Bielskich (Revenge: The True Story of the Bielski Brothers) focuses on the larger political and historical context in which the partisans operated, specifically the fighting between Polish and Soviet resistance groups in the Kresy
(former Eastern Poland) region. Fugitives of the Forest: The Heroic Story of Jewish Resistance and Survival During the Second World War, by Allan Levine (first published 1998, 2008 reissue, by Lyons Press), tells the story of Jewish fighters and refugees in forests across Europe, including the Bielski partisans.
In 2006, the History Channel aired a documentary titled The Bielski Brothers: Jerusalem In The Woods, written and directed by filmmaker Dean Ward.
An episode of the BBC
series Who Do You Think You Are? featured UK television personality Natasha Kaplinsky
discovering that her great uncle Ytsak Kaplinski was a member of the Bielski partisans. He survived the war and emigrated to South Africa.
The BBC
series Ray Mears
's Extreme Survival featured an episode about the Bielski partisans.
The feature film Defiance
, co-written, produced and directed by Edward Zwick
, was released nationwide on January 16, 2009. It stars Daniel Craig
, Liev Schreiber
, Jamie Bell
and George MacKay
as Tuvia, Zus, Asael, and Aron Bielski respectively. It opened to mixed reviews and raised questions about the roles various groups played during the war.
The brothers also published a book in Israel.
from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
Jewish partisans
Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II....
who rescued Jews
Jews
The Jews , also known as the Jewish people, are a nation and ethnoreligious group originating in the Israelites or Hebrews of the Ancient Near East. The Jewish ethnicity, nationality, and religion are strongly interrelated, as Judaism is the traditional faith of the Jewish nation...
from extermination and fought against the Nazi German
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
occupiers and their collaborators
Collaboration during World War II
Within nations occupied by the Axis Powers, some citizens, driven by nationalism, ethnic hatred, anti-communism, anti-Semitism or opportunism, knowingly engaged in collaboration with the Axis Powers during World War II...
in the vicinity of Nowogródek (Navahrudak) and Lida
Lida
Lida is a city in western Belarus in Hrodna Voblast, situated 160 km west of Minsk. It is the fourteenth largest city in Belarus.- Etymology :...
in German-occupied Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
(now western Belarus). They are named after the Bielskis, a family of Polish Jews who led the organization.
Under their protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war, making it one of many remarkable rescue missions in the Holocaust. The group spent more than two years living in the forests and was initially organised by members of the Bielski family.
Background
The Bielski family were millers and grocers in Stankiewicze (Stankievichy) near Nowogródek, an area that at the beginning of the Second World War belonged to the Second Polish RepublicSecond Polish Republic
The Second Polish Republic, Second Commonwealth of Poland or interwar Poland refers to Poland between the two world wars; a period in Polish history in which Poland was restored as an independent state. Officially known as the Republic of Poland or the Commonwealth of Poland , the Polish state was...
and was seized by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
in September 1939 (cf. Polish September Campaign and Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)
The 1939 Soviet invasion of Poland was a Soviet military operation that started without a formal declaration of war on 17 September 1939, during the early stages of World War II. Sixteen days after Nazi Germany invaded Poland from the west, the Soviet Union did so from the east...
) in accordance with the Molotov-Ribbentrop
Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact
The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, named after the Soviet foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov and the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop, was an agreement officially titled the Treaty of Non-Aggression between Germany and the Soviet Union and signed in Moscow in the late hours of 23 August 1939...
non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany , also known as the Third Reich , but officially called German Reich from 1933 to 1943 and Greater German Reich from 26 June 1943 onward, is the name commonly used to refer to the state of Germany from 1933 to 1945, when it was a totalitarian dictatorship ruled by...
and Stalinist Soviet Union.
The Bielski family took part as low level administrators in the new government set up by the Soviets which strained their relations with the local Poles, to whom the Soviet Union was an occupier. Following the Germans' Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa
Operation Barbarossa was the code name for Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II that began on 22 June 1941. Over 4.5 million troops of the Axis powers invaded the USSR along a front., the largest invasion in the history of warfare...
, the invasion of Soviet Union that began on June 22, 1941, Nowogródek became a Jewish ghetto, as Nazis took over those lands and implemented their genocidal policies (see Holocaust in Poland
Holocaust in Poland
The Holocaust, also known as haShoah , was a genocide officially sanctioned and executed by the Third Reich during World War II. It took the lives of three million Polish Jews, destroying an entire civilization. Only a small percentage survived or managed to escape beyond the reach of the Nazis...
and Holocaust in Belarus
Holocaust in Belarus
The Holocaust in Belarus refers to the Nazi crimes during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany on the territory of contemporary Belarus, and against the ethnic Belarusians outside it. Belarus lost a quarter of its pre-war population, including most of its intellectual elite and 90% of the...
).
Formation
The four Bielski brothers, Tuvia Bielski, Alexander BielskiAlexander Zeisal Bielski
Alexander Zeisal 'Zus' Bielski was a leader of the Bielski partisans that rescued approximately 1,200 Jews from Nazi execution in Belarus during World War II.-Biography:...
(also known as "Zus"), Asael Bielski
Asael Bielski
Asael Bielski was the second-in-command of the Bielski partisans during World War II.-Early life:Asael was the third son of David and Beila Bielski, being about two years younger than his brother Tuvia who later commanded the Bielski Otriad...
and Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski, later changed to Aron Bell, is a Polish-American Jew and former member of the Bielski partisans group, the largest armed rescuers of Jews by Jews during World War II. He was also known as Arczyk Bielski...
managed to flee to the nearby forest after their parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto in December 1941. Together with 13 neighbours from the ghetto, they formed the nucleus of their partisan combat group in the spring of 1942. Originally, the group consisted of around forty people, but grew quickly.
The group's commander was the oldest brother, Tuvia, who had served in the Polish Army from 1927 to 1929, rising to the rank of corporal
Corporal
Corporal is a rank in use in some form by most militaries and by some police forces or other uniformed organizations. It is usually equivalent to NATO Rank Code OR-4....
. He had been interested in the Zionist youth movement
Zionist youth movement
A Zionist youth movement is an organization formed for Jewish children and adolescents for educational, social, and ideological development, including a belief in Jewish nationalism as represented in the State of Israel...
. He sent emissaries to infiltrate the ghettos in the area, recruiting new members to join the group in the Naliboki Forest
Naliboki forest
Naliboki Forest, the Naliboki Pushcha , is a large forest complex in the northwestern Belarus, on the right bank of the Neman River, on the Belarusian Ridge.Naliboki Pushcha is famous for its nature and rich, although tragic, history...
. Hundreds of men, women, and children eventually found their way to the Bielski camp; at its peak, 1,236 people belonged to the group, and 70% were women, children, and the elderly; no one was turned away. About 150 engaged in armed operations.
Organization
The partisans lived in underground dugouts (zemlyankaZemlyanka
Zemlyanka — is an Eastern Slavic name for a dugout or earth-house which was used to provide shelter for humans or domestic animals. Based on a hole or depression dug into the ground, these structures are one of the most ancient types of housing known...
s) or bunkers. In addition, several utility structures were built: a kitchen, a mill, a bakery, a bathhouse, a medical clinic for the sick and wounded, and a quarantine
Quarantine
Quarantine is compulsory isolation, typically to contain the spread of something considered dangerous, often but not always disease. The word comes from the Italian quarantena, meaning forty-day period....
hut for those who suffered from infectious diseases such as typhus
Typhus
Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...
. Herds of cows supplied milk. Artisans made goods and carried out repairs, providing the combatants with logistical support that later served the Soviet partisan units in the vicinity as well. More than 125 workers toiled in the workshops, which became famous among partisans far beyond the Bielski base. Tailors patched up old clothing and stitched together new garments; shoemakers fixed old and made new footwear; leather-workers laboured on belts, bridles and saddles. A metalworking
Metalworking
Metalworking is the process of working with metals to create individual parts, assemblies, or large scale structures. The term covers a wide range of work from large ships and bridges to precise engine parts and delicate jewelry. It therefore includes a correspondingly wide range of skills,...
shop established by Shmuel Oppenheim repaired damaged weapons and constructed new ones from spare parts. A tannery, constructed to produce the hide for cobblers and leather workers, became a de-facto synagogue because several tanners were devout Hasidic
Hasidic Judaism
Hasidic Judaism or Hasidism, from the Hebrew —Ḥasidut in Sephardi, Chasidus in Ashkenazi, meaning "piety" , is a branch of Orthodox Judaism that promotes spirituality and joy through the popularisation and internalisation of Jewish mysticism as the fundamental aspects of the Jewish faith...
Jew
Judaism
Judaism ) is the "religion, philosophy, and way of life" of the Jewish people...
s. Carpenters, hat-makers, barbers, watchmakers served their own community and guests. The camp's many children attended class in the dugout set up as a school. The camp even had its own jail and court of law.
Some accounts note the inequality between well-off partisans and poor inhabitants of the camp.
Activities
The Bielski group's partisan activities were aimed at the Nazis and their collaboratorCollaborationism
Collaborationism is cooperation with enemy forces against one's country. Legally, it may be considered as a form of treason. Collaborationism may be associated with criminal deeds in the service of the occupying power, which may include complicity with the occupying power in murder, persecutions,...
s, such as Belarus
Belarus
Belarus , officially the Republic of Belarus, is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe, bordered clockwise by Russia to the northeast, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the northwest. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno , Gomel ,...
ian volunteer policemen or local inhabitants who had betrayed or killed Jews. They also conducted sabotage
Sabotage
Sabotage is a deliberate action aimed at weakening another entity through subversion, obstruction, disruption, or destruction. In a workplace setting, sabotage is the conscious withdrawal of efficiency generally directed at causing some change in workplace conditions. One who engages in sabotage is...
missions. The Nazi regime offered a reward of 100,000 Reichmarks for assistance in the capture of Tuvia Bielski, and in 1943, led major clearing operations against all partisan groups in the area. Some of these groups suffered major casualties, but the Bielski partisans fled safely to a more remote part of the forest, and continued to offer protection to the noncombatants among their band.
The Bielski group would raid nearby villages and forcibly seize food (much like other partisan groups in the area); on occasion, peasants who refused to share their food with the partisans were the subject of violence and even murder. This caused hostility towards the partisans from peasants in the villages, though some would help the Jewish partisans.
The Bielski partisans eventually became affiliated with Soviet organisations in the vicinity of the Naliboki Forest
Naliboki forest
Naliboki Forest, the Naliboki Pushcha , is a large forest complex in the northwestern Belarus, on the right bank of the Neman River, on the Belarusian Ridge.Naliboki Pushcha is famous for its nature and rich, although tragic, history...
under General Platon (Vasily Yefimovich Chernyshev). Several attempts by Soviet commanders to absorb Bielski fighters into their units were resisted, and the Jewish partisan group retained its integrity and remained under Tuvia Bielski's command. This allowed him to continue in his mission to protect Jewish lives along with engaging in combat activity, but would also prove a problem later on.
The Bielski Jews, fighting on the Soviet side, took part in clashes between Polish and Soviet forces
Soviet partisans in Poland
Poland was annexed and partitioned by Germany and the Soviet Union in the aftermath of the invasion of Poland in 1939. In the pre-war Polish territories annexed by the Soviets the first Soviet partisan groups were formed in 1941, soon after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet...
. Notably, they took part in a disarmament of a group of Polish partisans by the Soviets on 1 December 1943.
The Bielski partisan leaders split the group into two units, one named Ordzhonikidze, led by Zus, and the other Kalinin, commanded by Tuvia. According to partisan documentation, Bielski fighters from both units killed a total of 381 enemy fighters, sometimes during joint actions with Soviet groups. 50 members of the group were killed.
Disbandment
In the summer of 1944, when the Soviet counteroffensive began in Belarus and the area was taken over by the Soviets, the Kalinin unit, numbering 1,230 men, women and children, emerged from the forest and marched into Nowogrodek.Despite their previous collaboration with the Soviets, relations quickly worsened. The NKVD
NKVD
The People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs was the public and secret police organization of the Soviet Union that directly executed the rule of power of the Soviets, including political repression, during the era of Joseph Stalin....
started interrogating the Bielski brothers about the rumours of loot they had reportedly collected during the war, and about their failure to "implement socialist ideals in the camp". Asael Bielski was conscripted into the Soviet Red Army and fell in the Battle of Königsberg
Battle of Königsberg
The Battle of Königsberg , was one of the last operations of the East Prussian Offensive during World War II. In four days of violent urban warfare, Soviet forces of the 1st Baltic Front and the 3rd Belorussian Front captured the city of Königsberg...
in 1945. The remaining brothers escaped Soviet-controlled lands, emigrating to the West. Tuvia's cousin, Yehuda Bielski, was sought by the NKVD for having been an officer in the pre-war Polish Army, but managed to escape with Tuvia's help and made his way to Hungary and then to Israel.
Post-war
After the war, Tuvia Bielski returned to Poland, then emigrated to present-day Israel in 1945. Tuvia and Zus eventually settled in New York. They operated a successful trucking business.The last living Bielski brother, Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski
Aron Bielski, later changed to Aron Bell, is a Polish-American Jew and former member of the Bielski partisans group, the largest armed rescuers of Jews by Jews during World War II. He was also known as Arczyk Bielski...
, emigrated to the US in 1951. He changed his name to "Aron Bell". The remainder of the Bell family now lives in upstate New York
Upstate New York
Upstate New York is the region of the U.S. state of New York that is located north of the core of the New York metropolitan area.-Definition:There is no clear or official boundary between Upstate New York and Downstate New York...
and California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
. When Tuvia died in 1987, he was buried in Long Island, New York, but a year later, at the urging of surviving partisans in Israel, he was exhumed and given a hero's funeral at Har Hamenuchot, the hillside graveyard in Jerusalem. His wife, Lilka, was buried beside him in 2001. Aron lives in Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
. None of the Bielskis ever sought any recognition or reward for their actions.
Yehuda Bielski, their first cousin and fellow partisan, moved to present-day Israel to fight in the Irgun
Irgun
The Irgun , or Irgun Zevai Leumi to give it its full title , was a Zionist paramilitary group that operated in Mandate Palestine between 1931 and 1948. It was an offshoot of the earlier and larger Jewish paramilitary organization haHaganah...
.
Allegations of war crimes
Some of the members of the Bielski partisans (but not the Bielski brothers themselves) have been accused of war crimes on the neighbouring population, particularly for alleged involvement in the 1943 Naliboki massacreNaliboki massacre
The Naliboki massacre was the mass killing of about 128 Poles by Soviet partisans at the village of Naliboki in Nazi-occupied Poland on May 8, 1943....
of 129 people, committed by Soviet partisans. Though some witnesses and some historians do place members of the Bielskis' unit at the massacre, former members of the brigade and other historians dispute this, asserting that the partisans did not arrive in the area until several months later. The Polish Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance
Institute of National Remembrance — Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation is a Polish government-affiliated research institute with lustration prerogatives and prosecution powers founded by specific legislation. It specialises in the legal and historical sciences and...
has been investigating the massacre since the early 2000s. As of April 2009, it has not issued official findings. Some historians working at the Institute have asserted in other publications, however, that the Bielski brothers had not been involved in the massacre.
Books and film
Two recent English language books have focused on the Bielski story: Defiance (1993) by Nechama TecNechama Tec
Nechama Tec is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, where she studied and worked with the highly-regarded sociologist Daniel Bell, and is a noted Holocaust scholar...
and The Bielski Brothers (2004) by Peter Duffy. The group is also mentioned in numerous books about this period in history. A new book (January 2009) in Polish
Polish language
Polish is a language of the Lechitic subgroup of West Slavic languages, used throughout Poland and by Polish minorities in other countries...
by two reporters from Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza
Gazeta Wyborcza is a leading Polish newspaper. It covers the gamut of political, international and general news. Like all the Polish newspapers, it is printed on compact-sized paper, and is published by the multimedia corporation Agora SA...
, Odwet: Prawdziwa historia braci Bielskich (Revenge: The True Story of the Bielski Brothers) focuses on the larger political and historical context in which the partisans operated, specifically the fighting between Polish and Soviet resistance groups in the Kresy
Kresy
The Polish term Kresy refers to a land considered by Poles as historical eastern provinces of their country. Today, it makes western Ukraine, western Belarus, as well as eastern Lithuania, with such major cities, as Lviv, Vilnius, and Hrodna. This territory belonged to the Polish-Lithuanian...
(former Eastern Poland) region. Fugitives of the Forest: The Heroic Story of Jewish Resistance and Survival During the Second World War, by Allan Levine (first published 1998, 2008 reissue, by Lyons Press), tells the story of Jewish fighters and refugees in forests across Europe, including the Bielski partisans.
In 2006, the History Channel aired a documentary titled The Bielski Brothers: Jerusalem In The Woods, written and directed by filmmaker Dean Ward.
An episode of the BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
series Who Do You Think You Are? featured UK television personality Natasha Kaplinsky
Natasha Kaplinsky
Natasha Margaret Kaplinsky is a British newsreader and television presenter, currently employed by ITV having previously worked for Channel 5, Sky News and the BBC...
discovering that her great uncle Ytsak Kaplinski was a member of the Bielski partisans. He survived the war and emigrated to South Africa.
The BBC
BBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
series Ray Mears
Ray Mears
Raymond Paul "Ray" Mears is an English woodsman, instructor, author and TV presenter. His TV appearances cover bushcraft and survival techniques, and he is best known for the TV series Ray Mears' Bushcraft, Ray Mears' World of Survival, Extreme Survival, Survival with Ray Mears, Wild Britain with...
's Extreme Survival featured an episode about the Bielski partisans.
The feature film Defiance
Defiance (2008 film)
Defiance is a 2008 World War II era film written, produced, and directed by Edward Zwick, set during the occupation of Belarus by Nazi Germany. The film is an account of the Bielski partisans, a group led by three Jewish brothers who saved and recruited Jews in Poland during the Second World War...
, co-written, produced and directed by Edward Zwick
Edward Zwick
Edward M. Zwick is an American filmmaker and film producer noted for his epic films about social and racial issues. He has been described as a "throwback to an earlier era, an extremely cerebral director whose movies consistently feature fully rounded characters, difficult moral issues, and plots...
, was released nationwide on January 16, 2009. It stars Daniel Craig
Daniel Craig
Daniel Wroughton Craig is an English actor. His early film roles include Elizabeth, The Power of One, A Kid in King Arthur's Court and the television episodes Sharpe's Eagle, Zorro and The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles: Daredevils of the Desert...
, Liev Schreiber
Liev Schreiber
Isaac Liev Schreiber , commonly known as Liev Schreiber, is an American actor, producer, director, and screenwriter. He became known during the late 1990s and early 2000s, having initially appeared in several independent films, and later mainstream Hollywood films, including the Scream trilogy of...
, Jamie Bell
Jamie Bell
Andrew James Matfin "Jamie" Bell is an English actor. He is best known for his roles in the films Billy Elliot , King Kong , Hallam Foe , Jumper , Defiance , The Eagle and The Adventures of Tintin: Secret of the Unicorn .- Early life :Bell was born in Billingham, in the Borough of...
and George MacKay
George MacKay (actor)
-Biography:MacKay was born in London, England. At the age of five, he produced, directed and created his very own production of the play Peter and the Wolf with his friends playing the characters...
as Tuvia, Zus, Asael, and Aron Bielski respectively. It opened to mixed reviews and raised questions about the roles various groups played during the war.
The brothers also published a book in Israel.
See also
- Abba KovnerAbba KovnerAbba Kovner was a Lithuanian Jewish Hebrew poet, writer, and partisan leader. He became one of the great poets of modern Israel. He was a cousin of the Israeli Communist Party leader Meir Vilner.-Biography:...
- NakamNakamThe Nokmim, also referred to as The Avengers or the Jewish Avengers, were alleged groups of Jewish assassins that targeted Nazi war criminals with the aim of avenging the Holocaust....
- Rescue of Jews by Poles during the HolocaustRescue of Jews by Poles during the HolocaustPolish Jews were the primary victims of the German Nazi-organized Holocaust. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, many Polish Gentiles risked their own lives—and the lives of their families—to rescue Jews from the Nazis. Grouped by nationality, Poles represent the biggest number of people...
- Kastner's TrainKastner trainThe Kastner train was a trainload of almost 1,684 Jews who, on June 30, 1944, escaped from Nazi-controlled Hungary, eventually arrived in Switzerland, while some 450,000 members of the Hungarian Jewish community were deported to the gas chambers at Auschwitz....
- Schindler's ListSchindler's ListSchindler's List is a 1993 American film about Oskar Schindler, a German businessman who saved the lives of more than a thousand mostly Polish-Jewish refugees during the Holocaust by employing them in his factories. The film was directed by Steven Spielberg, and based on the novel Schindler's Ark...
- The Pianist (2002 film)The Pianist (2002 film)The Pianist is a 2002 biographical war film directed by Roman Polanski, starring Adrien Brody. It is an adaptation of the autobiography of the same name by Jewish-Polish musician Władysław Szpilman...
- ŻegotaZegota"Żegota" , also known as the "Konrad Żegota Committee", was a codename for the Polish Council to Aid Jews , an underground organization of Polish resistance in German-occupied Poland from 1942 to 1945....
- World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the WestWorld War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the WestWWII Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West is a BBC / PBS documentary film on the role of Joseph Stalin during World War II. The 2008 film combines narrative-led documentary segments, interwoven by dramatic re-enactments, with actors representing main political figures of the period....
Further reading
- Duffy, Peter, The Bielski BrothersThe Bielski BrothersThe Bielski Brothers is a non-fiction book by Peter Duffy published in 2003. It tells the story of Tuvia Bielski, Alexander "Zus" Bielski, and Asael Bielski, three Jewish brothers who established a large partisan camp in the forests of Belarus during World War II, and so saved 1,200 Jews from the...
. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. ISBN 0-06-621074-7. - Eckman, Lester and Lazar, Chaim, The Jewish Resistance: The History of the Jewish Partisans in Lithuania and White Russia During the Nazi Occupation 1940–1945. Shengold Publishers, 1977. ISBN 0-88400-050-8.
- Levine, Allan, Fugitives of the Forest: The Heroic Story of Jewish Resistance and Survival During the Second World War. Stoddart, 1998. Reissued with a new introduction by The Lyons Press, 2008. ISBN 978-1-59921-496-2.
- Nechama TecNechama TecNechama Tec is a Professor Emerita of Sociology at the University of Connecticut. She received her Ph.D. in sociology at Columbia University, where she studied and worked with the highly-regarded sociologist Daniel Bell, and is a noted Holocaust scholar...
, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-509390-9.
External links
- The Bielski Partisans Holocaust Encyclopedia United States Holocaust Memorial MuseumUnited States Holocaust Memorial MuseumThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum is the United States' official memorial to the Holocaust. Adjacent to the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the USHMM provides for the documentation, study, and interpretation of Holocaust history...
- Jewish partisans directory (searchable) (partisans.org.il)
- Tuvia Bielski, Commander of a Jewish Partisan Unit in Belarus, Novogrudok, Poland Film and Photo Archive, Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
- Naliboki, Poland, May 1944, Jews in the Tuvia Bielski Partisan Family Camp in the Naliboki Forest Film and Photo Archive, Yad VashemYad VashemYad Vashem is Israel's official memorial to the Jewish victims of the Holocaust, established in 1953 through the Yad Vashem Law passed by the Knesset, Israel's parliament....
- Bielski partisans in the Naliboki forest Simon Wiesenthal CenterSimon Wiesenthal CenterThe Simon Wiesenthal Center , with headquarters in Los Angeles, California, was established in 1977 and named for Simon Wiesenthal, the Nazi hunter. According to its mission statement, it is "an international Jewish human rights organization dedicated to repairing the world one step at a time...
Photo album - The Stories of Those Rescued by the Bielski Partisans from Lida Lida Memorial Society Homepage First and Second Hand Accounts
- Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Daniel Craig
from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum