Bielski partisans

Bielski partisans, organization of Jewish partisans who fought Nazi Germany and its collaborators between 1942 and 1944 in occupied Poland (now Belarus). Established by brothers Tuvia, Asael, and Zus Bielski, the group conducted guerrilla operations and provided shelter and protection to some 1,200 Jews.

Early years

Tuvia, Asael, and Zus Bielski were 3 of 12 children born to a family in Stankevichi, a village near Nowogródek, Poland (now Navahrudak, Belarus). They were the only Jews in that small community, and they quickly became self-sufficient. The brothers had distinctly different personalities: Tuvia—he was the oldest, at age 35 in 1941 when the Germans invaded Poland—was an intellectual with demonstrated leadership qualities; Asael, 33, was known for his steadfast work ethic; and Zus, 29, experienced brushes with the law because of his quick temper. Although the Bielski family had managed to survive the initial German attack, by December 1941 the brothers’ parents and two of their younger siblings had been killed. As Jews throughout the region were killed or forced into ghettos by the thousands, the brothers sought refuge in the woods that they had explored as children. Asael and Zus found homes for a dozen of their surviving relatives, including their younger brother, Aron. Tuvia moved another group of relatives to greater safety by integrating them with friendly non-Jews.

In spring 1942 the Bielskis decided to gather all of their relatives into a densely wooded area between Minsk and the Neman River. The brothers also began acquiring weapons. As the oppression of Jews continued in the Nowogródek ghetto, Tuvia, who had emerged as the leader of the Bielskis, argued that the time had come to expand the group beyond their family. After Tuvia overcame the initial objections of Asael and Zus (who argued that a smaller group would be easier to protect), the Bielskis attempted to recruit Jews from the ghettos. Despite the risks, many were willing to brave the uncertainty of the wilderness, and by autumn 1942 the Bielski group had swelled to nearly 100 members.

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The Bielskis assembled a capable fighting force from the escapees, and they joined the growing ranks of partisans who were engaging in guerrilla raids against the Nazi occupiers. In October 1942 a joint force of Bielski and Soviet partisans attacked a German supply convoy, killing at least one German soldier. The Bielskis’ reputation grew throughout 1942, although fighting men remained a minority of the group’s overall population. Indeed, many of the Bielskis’ fighters spent their nights procuring food, sometimes by theft, from the local populace.

As winter approached, the group constructed covered dugouts to stave off the cold. As temperatures dropped, enemy activity increased, with Germans and German-allied local officials engaging in a cat-and-mouse pursuit of the Bielskis. One attack by German military police left 10 Bielski partisans dead; Asael led a reprisal raid, killing the collaborators who had revealed the location of the group. Through early 1943 the group continued to grow, and the Bielski band soon numbered more than 800. While Tuvia repeatedly moved the camp, its location was difficult to conceal from local peasants, and security became an increasing source of concern.

In June 1943 the Bielski camp was again assaulted, and the brothers relocated the group to a dense forest near the town of Nalibaki (now in Belarus). The area was home to numerous Soviet partisan units, and the group suffered its biggest attack yet as part of a massive anti-insurgency campaign orchestrated by the Germans in August 1943. Over subsequent weeks the brothers established a new camp that came to be known as Jerusalem. It boasted a kitchen, a forge, a school, a gunsmith, and a mill. As the Bielskis were nominally subordinate to the larger Soviet partisan command structure, overt displays of Jewish or Zionist expression were generally avoided, but the camp’s tannery doubled as a synagogue.

The relative isolation of the Jerusalem camp allowed the Bielskis to engage in an expanded range of partisan activities. They attacked military outposts and convoys and placed improvised explosive devices on railroad tracks. They also clashed with other partisan groups in the area, especially those associated with the Polish Home Army and the London-based Polish government-in-exile. Although the Bielskis had enjoyed fairly good relations with Home Army partisans in the early years of the war, Soviet policy dictated the suppression of such groups within its sphere of influence.

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Liberation

In July 1944 the Red Army liberated the area where the Bielski camp was located. The Bielski brothers reported to Soviet authorities that their group included 1,140 Jews and that their partisan operations had killed a total of 381 enemy fighters. The surviving members of the group emerged from the woods to find the homes that they had left behind in ruins and their families missing or dead. Asael was drafted into the Red Army and killed during the siege of Königsberg (now Kaliningrad) in February 1945. After the war Tuvia and Zus immigrated to Israel and fought in the first Arab-Israeli war (1948–49). They both moved to the United States in the 1950s, living the rest of their lives out of the public eye. Zus ran a trucking and taxi company, while Tuvia drove a delivery truck for his eldest brother, Walter, who had moved to the United States before the war. Tuvia died in 1987 and was buried in Long Island, New York, but his body was exhumed a year later, and he was given a state funeral with military honours in Jerusalem.

The story of the Bielski partisans was dramatized in the film Defiance (2008), which cast Daniel Craig in the role of Tuvia Bielski.