Bielski partisans

Bielski partisans

The Bielski partisans were a unit of Jewish partisans who rescued Jews from extermination and fought the German occupiers and their collaborators around Nowogródek (Navahrudak) and Lida (now in western Belarus) in German-occupied Poland. The partisan unit was named after the Bielskis, a family of Polish Jews who organized and led the organization.

The Bielski partisans spent more than two years living in the forests. Under their protection, 1,236 Jews survived the war.

Background

Before World War II, the Bielski family had been millers and grocers in Stankiewicze (Stankievichy), near Nowogródek, an area that at the outbreak of the war belonged to Poland and in September 1939 was occupied by the Soviet Union (cf. Polish September Campaign and Soviet invasion of Poland (1939)) in accord with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union.

Before the war, Tuvia Bielski had received training in the Polish Army. After performing reserve duty, he engaged in trade, eventually becoming a smuggler.

Under the Soviet occupation of eastern Poland, the remainder of the Bielski family served as low-level administrators for the Soviets, with Tuvia Bielski becoming a Soviet commissar. This strained the Bielskis' relations with local Poles, who were subjected to Soviet repressions.

During Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union beginning 22 June 1941, Nowogródek became a Jewish ghetto, as the Germans took over the area and implemented their genocidal policies (see Holocaust in Poland and Holocaust in Belarus).

Partisans

Formation

The four Bielski brothers, Tuvia, Alexander (also known as "Zus"), Asael, and Aron, managed to flee into the nearby forests after their parents and other family members had been killed in the ghetto on 8 December 1941. In the spring of 1942, together with thirteen ghetto neighbors, they formed the nucleus of a partisan combat unit. The unit originally numbered some forty people, but quickly grew.

The unit'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 area's ghettos, recruiting new members to the unit, which was sheltering in the Naliboki Forest. Hundreds of men, women, and children eventually found their way to the Bielski encampment; at its peak, the unit hosted 1,236 people, 70% of them women, children, and elderly; no one was turned away. About 150 persons engaged in armed operations.

Organization

The partisans lived in underground dugouts (zemlyankas) 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 Jews. Carpenters, hat-makers, barbers and 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. Other witness statements by Jewish members of the camp report that women were forced to strip naked upon entry and give up their underwear as a form of "entry ticket".

Internal conflict

Tuvia Bielski was known for his authoritarian leadership style and was constantly involved in power struggles with other members of the unit. Several members, such as Israel Kesrel, were executed by Bielski after they questioned his leadership. According to witness Estera Gorodejska, a drunk Bielski personally executed Kesrel with three shots. Later Bielski ordered the destruction of Kesrel's grave.

The Soviet command, concerned about the unit's leadership, began an internal investigation into an alleged protection racket conducted by Bielski. A unit member, Stepan Szupien, suggested to the Soviets that they arrest and execute Bielski, accusing him of confiscating money under the pretext of buying weapons (Soviet units did not purchase weapons but received weapons supplied by air drops) and of hoarding gold.

Activities

The Bielski unit's partisans were primarily concerned with survival. Due to their poor equipment and training, they were not assigned main combat roles. Instead, its members operated field kitchens, hospitals, and bakeries and provided tailoring and cobbling services for Soviet soldiers. Their main task, though, was forced requisitioning of food and other supplies from the local population.

The Bielski partisans' targets also included the Germans and their collaborators, such as Belarusian volunteer policemen and local inhabitants who had betrayed or killed Jews. They also conducted sabotage. According to historian Kazimierz Krajewski, their record was not substantial, as in two years of operations their group of 1,000 partisans managed to kill only 17 Germans, 17 policemen, and 33 collaborators. The Germans offered a reward of 100,000 Reichsmarks for assistance in the capture of Tuvia Bielski, and in 1943 conducted major clearing operations against all partisan groups in the area. Some of the groups suffered major casualties, but the Bielski partisans fled safely to a more remote part of the forest, and continued to protect their noncombatants.

Like some other Soviet-affiliated partisan groups in the area, the Bielski partisans raided nearby villages and forcibly seized food; on occasion, peasants who refused to share their food with the partisans were subjected to violence, even murder. This caused hostility for the partisans on the part of peasants, though some willingly helped the Jewish partisans. As the region had already been completely pacified by the Germans, and many villages had been burned down, the local population was in an especially dire situation. Bielski's partisans became infamous among locals for their ruthlessness during raids, so much so that stopping their depredations became a chief point in negotiations between the Soviet command and the Polish Home Army. The Polish resistance officially complained to the Soviets about alleged rapes and murders, including murders of young children, committed by Bielski's partisans, and asked the Soviet command to stop their food-requisitioning expeditions. Some of the partisans expressed regret about robbing the impoverished farmers, who generally were not pro-German.

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 the 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 his mission of protecting Jewish lives and engaging in combat activity, but it would prove a problem later on.

The Bielski partisan leaders split the group into two units, one named Ordzhonikidze, led by Zus, and the other Kalinin, commanded by Tuvia. Fighting on the Soviet side, they took part in clashes between Polish and Soviet forces. Notably, they took part in the disarmament of a group of Polish partisans by the Soviets on 1 December 1943. According to partisan documentation, the Bielski fighters of the two units claimed to have killed a total of 381 enemy fighters, sometimes in joint operations with Soviet groups.

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 Novogrodek.

Despite their previous collaboration with the Soviets, relations quickly worsened. A Soviet envoy sent in June 1943 already reported that local population and Soviet partisans had hostile relationship with Jewish partisans in the region and noted cases where both engaged in fights against them with the slogan "Beat the Jews-Save Russia". 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 died 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.

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 where they operated a successful trucking business. 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.

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. 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 Israel to fight in the Irgun.

Stankiewicze (Stankevichi) no longer exists. It was at 53°39′15″N 25°39′2″E, just off Route P11, approximately halfway between Biarozauka and Navahrudak.

Allegations of war crimes

Some Bielski partisans (but not the Bielski brothers themselves) have been accused of war crimes against the neighboring population, particularly of involvement in the 1943 Naliboki massacre of 129 persons, committed by Soviet partisans. Though some witnesses and historians place Bielski partisans at the massacre, former brigade members and other historians such as Bogdan Musiał dispute this, stating that the partisans did not arrive in the area until several months later.

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance has been investigating the massacre since the early 2000s. As of April 2009, it had not issued an official finding. But some historians working at the Institute have asserted in other publications that the Bielski brothers were not involved in the massacre.

Historian Kazimierz Krajewski lists other incidents in which Bielski partisans were involved, including a surprise attack against a Home Army unit after it had signed an agreement of cooperation with Soviet partisans, in which over a dozen Home Army soldiers were murdered, and in following days fifty more were killed. In May 1944 the village of Kamień, in Stolpce, was attacked by a force involving Bielski partisans; 20 Home Army soldiers and 20 civilians were killed. In May 1944 a unit of Bielski partisans together with Soviets murdered 47 Poles in the Lidzkie region, in Filonowiec and Dokudowa, mainly civilian families accused of supporting the Polish Home Army. Musiał notes that some Bielski partisans stole food from the massacre's survivors.

Books and film

Two recent English language books have focused on the Bielski story: Defiance (1993) by Nechama Tec and The Bielski Brothers (2004) by Peter Duffy. The group is also mentioned in numerous books about this period in history. A book (January 2009) in Polish by two reporters from Gazeta Wyborcza, Odwet: Prawdziwa historia braci Bielskich (Revenge: The True Story of the Bielski Brothers) was accused of consisting of plagiarism and withdrawn. It focused 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. With Courage Shall We Fight: The Memoirs and Poetry of Holocaust Resistance Fighters Frances "Fruma" Gulkowich Berger and Murray “Motke” Berger tells the story of two Bielski Brigade fighters before, during and after the war.

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 internationally in January 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.

See also

• Abba Kovner
• Nakam
• Kastner's Train
• The Pianist
• World War II Behind Closed Doors: Stalin, the Nazis and the West
• List of Holocaust films

References

• Alperowitz, Yitzchak. "Tuvia Bielski", in Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust vol. 1, p. 215–16. Illustrations.
• Arad, Yitzhak. "Family Camps in the Forest", in Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust vol. 2, p. 467–469. Illustrations, map.
• Smith, Lyn. Remembering: Voices of the Holocaust. Ebury Press, Great Britain, 2005, Carroll & Graf Publishers, New York, 2006. ISBN 0-7867-1640-1.
• Announcement of the start of the IPN investigation (unofficial English-language translation).

Further reading

• Berger, Ralph S. and Albert S. Berger, editors "With Courage Shall We Fight: The Memoirs and Poetry of Frances "Fruma" Gulkowich Berger and Murray "Motke" Berger". Comteq Publishing, 2010. ISBN 978-1-935232-20-9.
• Duffy, Peter, The Bielski Brothers. 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.
• Tec, Nechama, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-509390-9.

External links

• Bielski partisans on National Public Radio
• The Bielski Partisans Holocaust Encyclopedia United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
• Jewish partisans directory (searchable) (partisans.org.il)
• Voices on Antisemitism Interview with Daniel Craig from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum