Defiance: the Bielski Partisans” by Nechama Tec
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The Bielski Brothers Jewish Resistance and the "Otriad"
The Bielski Brothers Jewish Resistance and the "Otriad" The Bielski partisans Prior to the onset of WWII, conditions throughout occupied Poland & Belarus varied greatly. In some areas, especially in eastern Poland, which the Soviet Union invaded in 1939, and subsequently "formally" annexed, the situation was particularly volatile. During the two year' occupation till the Soviet-German war outbreak in 1941, the Soviets carried out the ethnic cleansing of Poles considered as a potential threat to full annexation of these territories into Soviet Union. Hundred of thousands of Polish officials, officers, soldiers, policemen, teachers, churchmen, landowners, and civilians with their families were sent to Siberian concentration camps. Some Jews had welcomed the Soviets as liberators, believing that life under the communists might be preferable to that of the Poles. However time would soon disprove that theory. Charles Bedzow from Lida, a city northeast of Novgrudek said the following: "I remember we were very happy that the Russians liberated us from the anti-Semitic government of Poland, and we were happy that the Germans didn't occupy our area of Belarus, but when the Russians came in, right away they took away my father's business. I was forced to go to a Russian school, instead of the Tarbut. The Russians forced my father to work for them. He was sweeping the floors because he was a capitalist, a bourgeois. He worked in his own store as a laborer... Novogrudek Market Place 1941 Then came Operation Barbarossa In the village of Stankevich, Belarus, Tuvia Bielski was sound asleep when the sounds of gunfire woke him from his slumber. -
Teaching with Defiance
TEACHING with DEFIANCE HISTORY | ETHICS | LEADERSHIP | JEWISH VALUES WRITTEN BY MAYA BERNSTEIN , EDITED IN CONSULTATION W ITH MI C HAEL BERENBAU M CONTENTS 2 Who Are the Jewish Partisans? 3 Who Are the Bielskis? 4 Introduction to this Curriculum 5 Guide CURRICULUM 6 Set-up and Procedure 7 - 8 Introduction to Units 9 - 12 History Units 13 - 16 Ethics Units 17 - 20 Leadership Units 21 - 24 Jewish Values Units 25 - 29 Partisan Testimonials 30 JPEF Films on Educator Institute DVD 31 Public Performance Licensing of Defiance This study guide made possible by Elliott and Suzanne Felson, the JPEF Gevurah Society, the Hellman Family Foundation, and Diane and Howard Wohl. ©2010 JEWISH PARTISAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION T EA C HING W ITH D EFIANCE Who Are the Jewish Partisans? par·ti·san noun: a member of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an enemy, especially within occupied territory; a guerrilla During World War II, the majority of European Jews were deceived by a monstrous and meticulous disinformation campaign. The Germans and their collaborators detained mil- lions of Jews and forced them into camps, primarily by convincing them that they were going there to work. In reality, many of these so-called “work camps” were actually death camps where men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Yet approximately 20,000 to 30,000 Jews, many of whom were teenagers, escaped the Nazis to form or join organized resistance groups. These Jews are known as the Jewish partisans, and they joined hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish partisans who fought against the enemy throughout much of Europe. -
Borecki Files/Hans Kimmel Iliya Borecki.Pdf
HansKimmelHansKimmelHansKim melHansKimmelHansKimmelHans KimmelHansKimmelHansKimmel HANS KIMMEL HansKimmelHansKimmelHansKim melHansKimmelHansKimmelHansHow my family was affected by the events of World War II KimmelHansKimmelHansKimmel Iliya Borecki HansKimmelHansKimmelHansKim 2008 melHansKimmelHansKimmelHans KimmelHansKimmelHansKimmel HansKimmelHansKimmelHansKim melHansKimmelHansKimmelHans KimmelHansKimmelHansKimmel HansKimmelHansKimmelHansKim melHansKimmelHansKimmelHans KimmelHansKimmelHansKimmel HansKimmelHansKimmelHansKim mlHansKimmelHansKimmelHansK Introduction World War Two was a period of great disruption for people throughout the world. The War originally flowed from the political, economic and social problems of Germany after the First World War, which was a consequence of the harsh conditions of the Treaty of Versailles1. These problems which faced Germany were blamed on the unpopular and unstable Weimar Republic which replaced the old German autocratic government causing Germany to search for alternative leaders. Adolf Hitler, an Austrian born failed artist and soldier, attracted many German supporters through his concept of National Socialism, which would rescue the Fatherland and bring Germany many years of power and glory as he saw his Germans as the ‘master race’. Hitler brought forward many ideas for the German people in order for them to be a pure Aryan race. He would do this by conquering the land east of Germany in order for more lebensraum (living space) to live and work in. Hitler believed that the Jews, or Semites as he called them, were the greatest threat to the purity of the Germans. The Jews, as well as the political system of Russia (Communism) and also France needed to be destroyed as they were a threat to achieving ‘the master race’. All of these concepts were described in Hitler’s book Mein Kampf. Ultimately Hitler’s beliefs were integral to the cause of World War Two which resulted in the deaths of 72 million people in total. -
Study Guide Tuvia Bielski: Rescue Is Resistance
Study Guide Tuvia Bielski: Rescue is Resistance www.jewishpartisans.org Before his death in 1987, and the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Tuvia Bielski told his wife, In fact, their resistance was more successful Lilka, “I will be famous when then both the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and I am dead.” Bielski and Lilka the work of Schindler in both numbers of lives were living in Brooklyn, New saved and numbers of Germans killed. Tuvia York, where they seemed to Bielski was a deeply complex man: cruel and be a typical immigrant family. tender, charismatic and profane, hotheaded and Bielski, who spoke thickly composed. But he was above all passionate and accented English, worked utterly determined, possessing a connection to as a truck driver delivering the sufferings of the Jewish people that bordered plastic materials to companies on the mystical. Members of the partisan group throughout the New York remember him as super-human, riding atop a metropolitan area. Bielski was white horse in their forest enclave. “He was sent in reality the man who many by God to save Jews,” said Rabbi Beryl Chafetz, consider among the greatest who as a rabbinical student took refuge in the heroes of anti-German Bielski camp. “He wasn’t a man, he was an angel,” resistance in World War II—a said Isaac Mendelson. man who master-minded and During World War II, the majority of European led one of the most significant Jews were deceived by the German’s meticulous Jewish rescue and resistance “disinformation” campaign. The Nazis detained operations of the Holocaust. -
Ethics and the Film Defiance
Ethics and the Film Defiance partisan: n. a member of an organized body of fighters who attack or harass an enemy, especially within occupied territory; a guerrilla. www.jewishpartisans.org Daniel Craig as Tuvia Bielski and Alexa INTRODUCTION TO GUIDE The questions posed in this guide are meant to Davalos as Lilka from DEFIANCE. Copyright: ©2009 by PARAMOUNT provoke and facilitate discussion about difficult VANTAGE. All Rights Reserved. The movie Defiance (2009 ) depicts the ethical dilemmas, to help teens process and better incredible but true story of the Bielski brothers, understand the film, and to engage them in Tuvia, Zus, Asael, and Aron (played by Daniel critical thinking about the intricacies and nuances Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell, and George of some of the important issues that are raised in MacKay) who, against all odds during World War the film. II, survived in the forest, fought the Germans, and saved approximately 1,200 Jewish lives. CONTEXT The movie is rated R, mostly for violence. The Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation (JPEF) From a small village in what is now the Republic recommends that parents, guardians, or educators of Belarus, the Bielski brothers escaped the view this movie with their teens and engage them Germans, who murdered their family and most in a discussion of the film, using this guide. of the Jewish inhabits in their village. They escaped to a nearby forest and created a refuge The Bielskis faced ethical decisions that would for other local Jews there. But the Bielskis did be unfathomable to us. They were forced to more than hide and save lives; they emerged Teaching with ‘Defiance’ live in the forest at a time when the fabric of from the trees on horseback, sub-machine guns This guide can be used with JPEF’s society—with all of its morality, ethics, and multimedia curriculum for the film strapped to their shoulders, attacking German ‘Defiance’, starring Daniel Craig and laws—had crumbled around them. -
Nowogródek – the Story of Ashtetl
Nowogródek – The Story of aShtetl Yehuda Bauer racing the story of Jewish life and death in the small Jewish townships (shtetlach in Yiddish) in what is today’s west- ern Belarus and western Ukraine just prior to and during World War II is both challenging and complicated. As I have noted elsewhere, only very few monographic studies Texist on these shtetlach,1 other than those that I have published.2 The need for monographic studies on East European shtetlach, beyond the obvious historical, cultural, and social importance of these town- ships, lies in the fact that a high proportion of the Jewish population in pre-war Poland — possibly between 30 and 40 percent — lived in shtetlach. 1 Shimon Redlich, Together and Apart in Brzeżany: Poles, Jews and Ukrainians, 1919–1945 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002). Professor Omer Bartov is working on a detailed monograph on Buczacz in eastern Galicia. See also: Rose Lehman, Symbiosis and Ambivalence: Poles and Jews in a Small Galician Town (Ox- ford: Berghahn, 2001), on Jasliska in Western Galicia; Theo Richmond,Konin: A Quest (New York: Vintage, 1996); Jack Kagan, Novogrudok: The History of a Shtetl (London: Valentine Mitchell, 2006); Peter Duffy, The Bielski Brothers: The True Sto- ry of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1200 Jews, and Built a Village in the Forest (New York: HarperCollins, 2003), which also discusses Nowogródek; Daniel Mendelsohn, The Lost: A Search for Six of the Six Million (New York: HarperCollins, 2006) on Bolechow in Eastern Galicia; and Anatol Reignier, Damals in Bolechow (Munich: Btb bei Goldmann, 1997). -
Les Insurgés
Fiche pédagogique Les Insurgés Sortie prévue en salles 14 janvier 2009 Titre original : Defiance Résumé surtout sauver les rescapés. Le cadet prône la lutte armée et re- Film long métrage, Etats-Unis, Europe de l’Est, aux confins de joint même les troupes soviéti- 2009 l’Union Soviétique, 1941. Les ques, après avoir appris que sa troupes allemandes viennent de femme a été tuée par les nazis. Réalisation : Edward Zwick se lancer à l’attaque de l’URSS et Asael (Jamie Bell), encore ado- Interprètes : Daniel Craig (Tu- multiplient les massacres de juifs lescent au début des événements, via Bielski), Liev Schreiber sur leur passage. Les camps se transforme peu à peu en (Zus Bielski), Jamie Bell (Asael d’extermination ne sont pas en- homme, est déchiré entre ses Bielski), George MacKay (Aron core ouverts et la plupart des vic- deux frères, mais reste fidèle à Bielski), Alexa Davalos (Lilka) times sont fusillées et abandon- Tuvia et trouve même une nées dans des fosses. épouse. Scénario : Clayton Frohman, Edward Zwick, inspiré d’un Les frères Bielski vivent en Polo- Les difficultés s’accroissent en- livre de Nechama Tec, The Bielski Partisans gne orientale (aujourd’hui en Bié- core avec l’arrivée d’un hiver terri- lorussie) et voient leur famille ble, le manque de nourriture et Musique : James Newton Ho- massacrée par les Allemands. l’apparition du typhus. L’étau nazi ward Tuvia Bielski (Daniel Craig), l’aîné se resserre… et ses trois frères parviennent à Directeur de la photographie : s’enfuir dans les immenses forêts Eduardo Serra voisines qu’ils connaissent parfai- tement et emmènent avec eux Production : Bedford Falls, une douzaine d’habitants de leur Grosvenor Park village. -
Tuvia Bielski.Pub
MILITIE ZONDER G RENZEN FACT SHEET TUVIA B IELSKI INFORMATION S ERVICES T EAM JUNE 2018 SMALL BUSINESSMAN AND PARTISAN KEY F ACTS Tuvia Bielski is best known as the WW2 • Born: May 8, 1906, leader of a partisan group situated In 1941 when in Stankiewicze, Russian in the Naliboki forest in Poland Operation Barbarossa Empire (later Poland and (now Western Belarus) during the broke out, Tuvia, Belarus today). Second World War. Zus, and Asael were • called up by their Died: June 12, 1987 Early life army units to fight (aged 81), in the United Tuvia grew up in the only Polish against the Nazi States. Jewish family in Stankiewicze, a German occupiers. • Parents: David Bielski small village in Eastern Poland Tuvia recalls: and Beila Bielski. (now Western Belarus). He was “Suddenly about fifty • Siblings: Two sisters and the son of David and Beila Bielski, planes flew over the who had twelve children: ten boys town dropping nine brothers including and two girls. Tuvia was the third incendiary bombs. In Asael Bielski, Alexander eldest. His brothers Asael, a very few minutes Zeisal “Zus” Bielski and Alexander ('Zus') and Aron were the entire place was Aron Bielski. later to become members of his on fire. The • Spouses: Rifka (div.), partisan group. commander called us Sonia (div.) and Lilka. During the First World War, in, ordered us to leave Bielski served as an interpreter for the burning town and • Offspring: Michael, the Imperial German Army, regroup in a forest Robert and Ruth Bielski which were occupying the about five kilometers (with Lilka Bielski). -
1942 Jews in the Face of the Holocaust: Attitudes and Survival
JEWS IN THE FACE OF THE subject HOLOCAUST: attitudes and survival strategies Context7. This text addresses primarily the situa- over time, confinement in ghettos and tion of the Jewish population in occupied physical extermination varied greatly. Polish territories, where conditions for its Contrary to popular belief, Jews engaged survival significantly differed from those in in underground activity and adopted var- West European countries. By and large, de- ious forms of resistance, primarily of a civil spite legal restrictions, Jews lived in their own nature, already in the initial months of the war. homes in countries such as the Netherlands, Legal restrictions imposed by the Germans as Denmark, France or Belgium until deportation. well as difficult living conditions in ghettos led They were also considerably more assimilated to organisation of public self-help and healthcare within those societies than Jews in pre-war Polish at the start of the occupation. Clandestine edu- territories. In the General |Government, they were cation was also vital. Jewish political parties and confined to ghettos as of 1940 and subjected to their youth wings as well as scouting organisations various forms of repression. Their lives were sub- resumed their activities. Just like leaders of public ordinated to highly specific regulations limiting organisations, they provided aid to those in need movement, mandating forced labour, or visual dis- and expanded their civil resistance networks. This tinction from the rest of society. Similar limitations mainly occurred in larger cities. The fundamental also existed in other East European countries (oc- role of these networks was to seek and pass on in- cupied by the Germans as of 1941) and the Baltic formation on current events, also on the occupier’s states seized by Germany and also, over a certain actions, as well as on public needs. -
Study Guide Tuvia Bielski: Rescue Is Resistance
Study Guide Tuvia Bielski: Rescue is Resistance www.jewishpartisans.org Before his death in 1987, and the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Tuvia Bielski told his wife, In fact, their resistance was more successful Lilka, “I will be famous when then both the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and I am dead.” Bielski and Lilka the work of Schindler in both numbers of lives were living in Brooklyn, New saved and numbers of Germans killed. Tuvia York, where they seemed to Bielski was a deeply complex man: cruel and be a typical immigrant family. tender, charismatic and profane, hotheaded and Bielski, who spoke thickly composed. But he was above all passionate and accented English, worked utterly determined, possessing a connection to as a truck driver delivering the sufferings of the Jewish people that bordered plastic materials to companies on the mystical. Members of the partisan group throughout the New York remember him as super-human, riding atop a metropolitan area. Bielski was white horse in their forest enclave. “He was sent in reality the man who many by God to save Jews,” said Rabbi Beryl Chafetz, consider among the greatest who as a rabbinical student took refuge in the heroes of anti-German Bielski camp. “He wasn’t a man, he was an angel,” resistance in World War II—a said Isaac Mendelson. man who master-minded and During World War II, the majority of European led one of the most significant Jews were deceived by the German’s meticulous Jewish rescue and resistance “disinformation” campaign. The Nazis detained operations of the Holocaust.