Bielski partisans
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The Bielski partisans was a group of Jews initially organized by members of the Bielski family to fight against the Nazi German occupiers in Belorussia during World War II.
The Bielski family were farmers in Stankiewicze near Novogrudok, an area that at the beginning of WWII was under Soviet control. Following the Germans' "Operation Barbarossa" invasion of the Soviet Union beginning on June 22, 1941, Novogrudok became a ghetto. When in December of that year the Bielski parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto, sons Tuvia, Zusya, Asael, and Aharon, the so-called Bielski brothers, fled to the nearby forest. Together with 13 neighbors from the ghetto, they formed the nucleus of a partisan combat group.
The group's commander was Tuvia Bielski (1906-1987), a Polish army veteran and graduate of a 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 found their way to the Bielski camp, which ultimately numbered over a thousand inhabitants. 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. The camp was organized as a Jewish community, with a synagogue, school, infirmary, and court of law.
The Bielski group's partisan activity was aimed at Nazi collaborators in the area, such as Belorussian volunteer policemen or local inhabitants who had betrayed or killed Jews. They also performed sabotage against the occupying forces. 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, still offering protection to the noncombatants among their band.
The Bielski partisans were affiliated with Soviet partisans in the vicinity of the Naliborki Forest under General Platon (Vasily Yehimovich Chernyshev). Several attempts by Soviet partisan commanders to absorb Bielski fighters into their units were resisted, so that the Jewish partisan group retained its integrity and remained under Tuvia Bielski's command. This allowed him to continue in his dedication to protect Jewish lives along with engaging in combat activity.
In the summer of 1944, when the Soviet counteroffensive began in Belorussia and the area was liberated, the "Kalinin" unit comprising the Bielski partisans, numbering 1,230 men, women and children, emerged from the forest and marched into Novogrudok.
Asael Bielski served in the Soviet Red Army and fell in battle at Königsberg in 1944. After the war, Tuvia Bielski returned to Poland, then emigrated to Mandatory Palestine in 1945. The surviving Bielski brothers eventually settled in the USA.
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[edit] Allegations of war crimes
Bielski partisans are accused of war crimes (mostly armed robbery) on the neighbouring population; particularly for involvement in the massacre of 128 people in the Polish village of Naliboki.[citation needed] The postwar testimonies of Jewish partisans indicate that Bielski was ordered to assign 50 armed partisans. The investigation into the Naliboki case is being carried out by the Polish IPN institute. [1]
[edit] See also
[edit] References
- ^ The report (in Polish) about the IPN investigation of Naliboki massacre and other crimes commited by Soviet partisans from Naliboki forest
- Alperowitz, Yitzchak. "Tuvia Bielski", in Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust vol. 1, p. 215-216. 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 0-78671-640-1.
- Announcement of the start of the IPN investigation (unofficial English-language translation).
- Review of Sowjetische Partisanen in Weißrußland, by Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, in Sarmatian Review, April 2006
[edit] Further reading
- Duffy, Peter, The Bielski Brothers. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. ISBN 0-06-621074-7.
- Tec, Nechama, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-509390-9
[edit] External links
- Jewish partisans directory (searchable) (partisans.org.il)
