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For more than 1,200 Jews hunted in the forests of Belarus, life - extraordinarily difficult and dangerous - was possible, thanks to the ingenuity and perseverance of three defiant men.
Defiance
Edward Zwick
Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, Alexa Davalos, Iben Hjejle, Mia Wasikowska, George MacKay
(Paramount Vantage; US theatrical: 31 Dec 2008 (Limited release); UK theatrical: 9 Jan 2009 (General release); 2008)
If the Bielski brothers long ago earned a nearly mythic status in Holocaust literature, their triumph in saving so many souls has been largely unknown to the broader public.
That is changing with the release of “Defiance,” a film starring Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski, who with brothers Zus and Asael - and many other relatives and aides - eluded Germans, Ukrainians, Poles and others pursuing them.
For nearly three years, from late 1941 to mid-1944 (when the Soviets liberated Eastern Europe), the Bielski partisans defied the staggering circumstances marshaled against them.
Though the forests teemed with bands of partisans sabotaging the Nazis, the Bielski group was different in at least one extraordinary regard: Tuvia Bielski vowed to take in any and all Jews, no matter how sick, old, young or defenseless. More remarkably still, Bielski and his associates routinely sneaked into Nazi-guarded ghettos and slave-labor camps to find Jews willing to return with him and risk a life in the wild.
In the process, the Bielski brothers built a roving society of fugitives, its encampments eventually including two kitchens, a makeshift hospital, a bakery and workshops for tailors, shoemakers, tanners and weaponsmakers.
Based on Nechama Tec’s book “Defiance,” the film captures the sweep and audacity of the endeavor, even as it takes cinematic liberties with precisely what happened. The literal truth of the tale comes from those who were there.
“I’ll tell you the way this thing started,” says Aron Bell, who in the war was known as Arczyk Bielski and, at 81, is the last of the surviving Bielski brothers.
When Germany in late 1941 invaded the area surrounding Stankiewicze, the tiny Belarusian village where the Bielski family had operated a mill for generations, “My father and mother told us, ‘Run to the woods - war is not forever,’” says Bell.
The younger Bielskis took this advice, and soon their parents - along with thousands of other Jews in the Novogrudok ghetto - were executed in a single day, their bodies disposed in massive pits.
The Bielski brothers - strong, clever and intimately acquainted with the woods - could simply have saved themselves by waiting out the war on their own.
“For the family Bielski to survive was not difficult,” says 79-year-old Jack Kagan, who joined the Bielski group in 1943. “But for Tuvia to make the decision to take in any wandering Jew and send out to the camps to bring Jews (to the forest), that was something abnormal. It was risking their life.”
More than that, Tuvia Bielski’s notion that the group would be safer with more people, rather than less, defied conventional assumptions on guerrilla warfare. So did his unyielding philosophy that the frail would be as welcome as the strong, the unarmed received as warmly as those with weapons.
Why did Tuvia Bielski hold to these beliefs?
“So few of us are left, we have to save lives,” he told his inner circle, according to Tec’s book “Defiance.” “To save a Jew is much more important than to kill Germans.”
That was Tuvia Bielski’s mission - his profound response, perhaps, to the execution of his parents and so many others. He and his colleagues performed it with remarkable cunning.
Conditions were harsh.
“It was so cold, it was freezing,” recalls Essie Shor, 83, a cousin of the Bielski brothers who joined the group in December 1942. “We had to constantly change places, because we were hunted.”
But like all charismatic leaders, Tuvia Bielski - tall, striking and fiercely determined - seemed to inspire those who were suffering, notwithstanding the peril they faced.
“He was very authoritative, and he ruled over everyone,” says Shor. “He was good as gold, and handsome. When you saw him on that horse, with the gun and the rifle, he drew respect from everyone.”
Meaning not just the Jews whose lives he was trying to save.
“In those days,” says his brother Aron Bell, “he could sit down with Nazi officers - not soldiers, officers! - and he would act like and feel like a Pole! At another time, he would appear like a Russian. You have to be a really unique person to do that.
“My other brothers, who actually built the whole thing, they could not do that. ... On the other hand, (Tuvia) could never run it without them.”
Word spread quickly in the ghettos and camps of Belarus - which was bordered by Poland on the west and Russia on the east - that a group of Jewish partisans led by the Bielskis was accepting anyone who would come.
Hundreds risked their lives to escape the Nazis and walk miles through snow and swamp to try to find the Bielskis.
“The reason we escaped was because we would have been killed anyway,” says Lea Estreich, 83. She fled the Koldichevo concentration camp in March 1944, and walked a week to reach the Bielskis.
“We were used to being scared all the time. But of course we felt a lot better here.”
Says Mira Shelub, who joined the Bielski camp in 1943, “Our bed was under a tree. Under the sky was our summer home. Under the ground was our winter home.”
And at least they were no longer caged.
“You didn’t have barbed wire or a machine gun watching you from the top,” says Kagan. “You were always ready to fight. And so long as you can walk, you can run.”
The years in the forest were arduous. Though no one in the Bielski camp died of starvation, they often came close, particularly in August 1943, when the Germans planned a massive attack on the partisans in the Nalibocka forest of western Belarus. To get away, the Bielski group walked more than a week through swamp - water and mud often waist high - one person tied to another.
By the time the Russians drove out the Nazis, in 1944, the Bielskis had saved well over 1,000 Jews, according to historians. Asael Bielski, who was taken into the Red Army, was killed in battle in ‘44. Tuvia and Zus Bielski emigrated to what would become Israel, then to the United States, where Tuvia drove a truck and Zus ran a trucking firm.
After the war, survivor Estreich was close to Tuvia Bielski, but she says he did not speak much of the war or his heroics.
“This was something that we were very happy to actually forget,” she says. “You can’t forget it, actually, but I don’t think we talked about it.”
Yet Tuvia Bielski always believed the world would learn of his story.
“Believe it or not, he made remarks when he was already in his 80s that he will be famous after he dies,” says his brother Bell.
“Certain times make a person great,” adds Bell. “And that, somehow, was his time.”
Tuvia died in 1987; Zus in ‘95. Whether the film does justice to what the Bielskis achieved will be up to each viewer to decide. Regardless, the survivors say they’re glad the story will become better known.
“The movie itself ... some is correct, some not correct,” says Kagan.
“But it becomes a basis of interest. ... It gives people something to speak about.
“And people didn’t know it.”
Now they will.
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INSTITUTIONS OFFER EXHIBITS, RECORDS ON THEIR STRUGGLE
Where to find more about the Bielski brothers and the Jewish partisans: “Courage and Compassion: The Legacy of the Bielski Brothers.” The multimedia exhibition features artifacts and photographs of the Bielskis’ triumph; at the Florida Holocaust Museum, 55 Fifth Street South, St. Petersburg, Fla.; 727-8200100; flhm2.org.
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation. The San Francisco-based institution is a repository of information on the Bielskis and other partisans, with extensive video on its Web site: jewish partisans.org.
