Jews saving Jews: The story of the Bielski partisans

The pros and cons of various hostage deals continue to be debated and rejected while our hostages are languishing, dying, and being murdered. Just this week, three elderly gentlemen were found dead. As a Holocaust researcher and daughter of a Bielski partisan, in recent days I find the words of Tuvia Bielski echoing in my ears: “I would rather save the life of one old Jewish woman than kill 10 Nazis…. It is more important to save Jews than to kill Germans.”

For those who are not familiar with the Bielski partisans, the Bielski partisan leaders were three of the 12 children of David and Beila Bielski, mill owners, farmers, and the sole Jewish family living in the tiny village of Stankiewicze between Lida and Novogrudok in pre-war Poland, present-day Belarus.

Following their escape from German-occupied Stankiewicze in early 1942, the Bielski family began wandering through the nearby forests. By spring and summer, as they were joined by small groups of friends and relatives who escaped from the nearby Novogrudok ghetto, the core of the makeshift partisan detachment headed by Tuvia Bielski was established.

Over time, the group obtained arms and began to carry out missions against antisemitic peasants and Nazi collaborators. When plagued by heightened dangers and difficulties in supplying the camp over the winter of 1942-1943, the unit was forced to divide into five groups in the Novogrudok area. While some tried to abandon the unarmed groups of partisans, Tuvia issued an order forbidding anyone to desert another Jew.

Throughout the years of Tuvia’s partisan leadership, danger and shortage of supplies often spawned resistance among the fighters in having to care for the malbushim, or unarmed partisans. Only due to Tuvia’s insistence was no Jew ever turned away. An effort was made to save every Jew.

Prioritizing life

Tuvia Bielski admitted any Jew to his detachment without exception: the young, the old, men, women, and children, the sick and weak, those with weapons and those unarmed. Historian and Bielski partisan Shmuel Amarant recalls Tuvia saying repeatedly, “I wish that thousands of Jews would join us; we will absorb them all.”

One man who made his way to the detachment in May 1943 along with a group of escapees from Lida recalls being saluted by Tuvia as he greeted the newcomers in a tear-choked voice: “Comrades, this is the most beautiful day of my life because I lived to see such a big group come out of the ghetto! I don’t promise you anything. We may be killed while we try to live, but we will do all we can to save more lives.”

With saving lives its ultimate priority, Tuvia’s clandestine enclave in the Naliboki forest became known as “Jerusalem.” Tuvia created a sphere in which every individual became the guarantor of the lives of everyone else. There, in the forest, collective responsibility for life itself was exercised to the ultimate degree.

In this unique, miraculous partisan detachment, Tuvia Bielski utilized the skills of the escapees in a range of makeshift workshops that were created deep in the woods. They had everything they needed to sustain life because life was to be cherished and saved at all cost.

Most of the workshops were situated in a large hut and separated by wood partitions, with others located throughout the camps. The shoemakers were constantly occupied repairing the tattered shoes of escapees; the tailors were in demand to patch the threadbare clothing of the partisans, as well as to fill orders from other partisan units. The tanner supplied leather to the shoemakers, and the saddlers fashioned belts for the partisans and harnesses and saddles for the horses. The carpenters made barrels for the tanners, lasts for the shoemakers, and wooden soles for sandals. The barbershop, adjacent to the workshops, was staffed by three barbers and served as a meeting place for partisans. 

Nearby was the smithy, where blacksmiths serviced the horses of the detachment, as well as those of neighboring partisan units. The sausage factory, the watch repair and metal workshops were also in high demand among the other partisans in the area who often brought gifts of cattle and arms to be cleaned, repaired, and rebuilt in the metal workshop.

Other services which the Bielski partisans provided for one another were a bakery, mill, communal kitchen, and a communal bathhouse consisting of a bathing room next to a Turkish bath. With bathing compulsory for public health, a bathing schedule was organized. When Tuvia learned that one partisan could make soap from ashes and animal fat, a small soap factory was created. 

By the end of 1943, even a school was established for about 20 children. Although this school was bereft of books, pencils, paper, and any semblance of formal instruction, the children are reported to have been delighted to play, sing, and exercise together.

Even the old and the sick were valued in the Bielski partisans, and Tuvia made every effort to save their lives as well.

There was a “clinic” housed in one of the underground bunkers; another such bunker housed the “hospital” located in an isolated area one and a half miles from camp, where typhoid fever patients could quarantine. With no medicine available for the dreaded disease, all that could be done by the doctor and nurses working in the “hospital” was to try to keep the miserable patients comfortable. One of these nurses, with no previous nursing training, was my mother, who ultimately contracted the fever from one of her “patients.” 

With food for the wounded and sick prepared in a separate kitchen under the supervision of a nurse and a doctor, the recovering and often ravenously hungry typhoid patients would often have their meals ordered by Tuvia Bielski himself.

These meals were especially nourishing and included such hard-to-come-by delicacies as milk, chicken, chicken soup, and meat. Perhaps due to the loving care of their fellow partisans as exemplified by their commander, all but one of the estimated 60 to 140 victims of the typhoid epidemic are reported to have almost miraculously fully recovered. They were among the 1,200 Bielski partisans who proudly marched out of the Naliboki forest on July 10, 1944, led by their Moses, Tuvia Bielski, together with his brothers Zus and Asael. They, as all the other partisans, were proud that against all odds, they remained alive. The Bielskis were proud that they did all they could to keep them alive and to save them from almost certain death.

The Bielski brothers were the epitome of Jews saving Jews. What about us? ■

Dr. Betty Brodsky Cohen is the author of Tunnel of Hope: Escape from the Novogrudok Forced Labor Camp, which is currently in press (Gefen Publishing House). It tells the story of what was likely the most successful prisoner escape of the Holocaust.