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Teaching with Defiance Video Information/Questions HAND-OUT T EAC HING W ITH D EFIANCE History: Excerpt 1 Opening: Germans Come / Hiding in the Forest (2:11) Defiance DVD Start 0:00:24 MC: Violence Scene Context During World War II, the majority of European Jews were deceived by a monstrous and meticulous disinformation campaign. The Nazis detained millions of Jews and forced them into camps, primarily under the pretense that they were going to work. In reality, many of these so-called “work camps” were actually death camps, where Photo courtesy of © Paramount-Vantage, a division of Paramount Pictures. men, women, and children were systematically murdered. Scene Description Yet approximately 30,000 Jews, many of whom were teenagers, This scene, which opens the movie, shows actual historical footage, escaped the Nazis to form or join organized resistance groups. filmed by the Germans, of Jews being rounded up and killed. This These Jews are known as Jewish partisans, and they joined is blended with footage from the film, fading from black and white hundreds of thousands of non-Jewish partisans fighting against to color. As people are killed and taken away, the camera moves the enemy throughout much of Europe. to the forest outside of the town where we see Zus and Asael Wolozyn watching from the safety of the trees. ZYNA RIVER RE E B MINSK NALIBOCKA FOREST Iwieniec Lida BYSIRA RIVER Naliboki Questions for Scene Wsielub Novogrodek ESTONIA R E IV Korelicze Stolpce Suggested Technique: Discussion R EN M Zdzieciol IE N LITHUANIAIAA 1. As mentioned above, the black and white footage at the 939 Horodyszcze 1 - beginning of this scene was actually filmed by the Germans. 1929 H-SOVIET BORDER S Why do you think they filmed these disturbing scenes? Baranovichi POLAND Slonim POLI USSRUSSRR LIPICZANSKA FOREST 2. Contrast the opening black and white footage in this scene with UKRAINE CZECHOSLOVAKIA Approximate activity of Bielski partisans in the short film “Introduction to the Partisans” from the Teaching Eastern Poland (now Belarus) during war. HUNGARY with Defiance DVD (also online at www.jewishpartisans.org/ ROMANIA Source: Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, by films). In what ways are the two film selections different? Does Nechama Tec. Oxford University Press, 1993. hearing the story of the Jewish partisans change your view of Jews during the Holocaust? Why? When the Germans broke the non-aggression pact with the Soviets 3. Why do you think the Bielski brothers hide in the woods? What in 1941 and arrived near the town of Novogrodek in Eastern does the forest offer them? What does the forest lack that they Poland (now Belarus), the three oldest brothers from the Bielski may need? family of twelve, Tuvia, Zus, and Asael, were 35, 33, and 29. In the first months of the occupation, Bielski family members avoided 4. Discuss what you know about the German occupation of Eastern the German onslaught against the Jewish population, but by Europe. Did watching this scene bring up any new questions or December 1941 the invaders had captured and killed the brothers’ thoughts for you? parents and two of their younger siblings. Thousands of other 5. What factors or circumstances might have made it possible for Jews from the region were either killed by the Germans and their some Jews to escape the Nazis as the Bielski brothers did? What collaborators, or forced to live in the nearest ghetto. Tuvia, Zus, factors might have prevented many other Jews from escaping? Asael and the youngest brother, Aron (age 12) sought refuge in the woods they knew since childhood. ©2010 - 2014 JEWISH PARTISAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION www.jewishpartisans.org 9 - RESIST CURRICULUM HAND-OUT T EAC HING W ITH D EFIANCE History: Excerpt 2 Meeting the Russian Partisans (2:25) Defiance DVD Start 0:49:13 Scene Context Jewish partisans blew up thousands of German supply trains, convoys, and bridges, making it harder for the Germans to fight the war. Partisans also destroyed German power plants and factories, focusing their attention on military and strategic targets, not on civilians. Jewish partisans often allied with non-Jewish partisan units. In the area where the Bielskis were, it was impossible to survive in the forest without finding a way to work together with these extremely powerful fighters who literally controlled the forests Photo courtesy of © Paramount-Vantage, a division of Paramount Pictures. Questions for Scene and numbered in the hundreds of thousands. Most Jews joined non-Jewish groups, and many had to hide their identity because of Suggested Technique: Discussion fierce antisemitism. All-Jewish groups like the Bielskis were rare. 1. What were the similarities between the goals of the Bielskis and The Bielskis’ unit was different from other partisan units in that it those of the Soviet partisans? What were the differences in their was composed not only of fighters, but also of women, children, goals? and the elderly. Most other partisan units would not allow women, 2. How is Pachenko’s camp different from the Bielski camp? How is children, or the elderly, as these units were focused exclusively on it similar? combat and sabotage, and admitted only those whom they felt could carry out those dangerous missions. Thus the Bielskis had a 3. Compare and contrast the partisans to a national army. Make a double barrier to overcome in order to be accepted as legitimate list of their similarities and differences in these three categories: fighters—antisemitism, and the perception by other partisans that location, resources, and ideology. their group was weak, that Jews would not fight. 4. When the Soviet commander learns about the Bielski unit, he In order to stay in the forest and share their meager food supplies claims, “But Jews don’t fight!” Tuvia responds, “These Jews with the Soviet partisans (frequently referred to as Russians), the fight.” The stereotype of Jews was that they were bookish Bielski partisans made themselves indispensable to the Soviet scholars, rather than fighters. How were the Bielskis different units. The Bielskis supplied them with tailors, locksmiths, bakers, from the stereotype of Jews at the time? How could this shoemakers and other much needed artisans—services which the particular stereotype be dangerous to Jews? How could it have Soviet partisans did not otherwise have access to. become a self-fulfilling prophecy? It is important to note that Communists championed the cause 5. Have you ever been stereotyped? How did you react? Were you of socialism above all else. Their ideal was a society of equal successful in changing the perception that others had of you proletarian workers. Officially, antisemitism was forbidden in the based on the stereotype? How? Soviet Union, but Jews faced ‘unofficial’ antisemitism even in this system. Jews were constantly blacklisted by the regime for suspicious “anti-communist” behavior, and Jewish leaders in the Recommended Testimonial / Resources higher echelons of the Communist leadership hit a ‘glass ceiling’, above which they could not rise. 1. Partisan Testimonial A: Aron Bell - Thwarting the Nazi Effort (p. 25) Scene Description Tuvia and Zus meet the Soviet partisans, and Tuvia convinces their leader Victor Pachenko to allow some of the Bielski fighters to join the Soviet unit’s forces. ©2010 - 2014 JEWISH PARTISAN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION www.jewishpartisans.org 10 - RESIST CURRICULUM HAND-OUT T EAC HING W ITH D EFIANCE History: Excerpt 3 Antisemitism in the Russian Partisans (2:16) Defiance DVD Start 1:27:13 MC: Language Scene Context During the Middle Ages, Jews were accused of being Christ- killers, child murderers, well-poisoners, devil’s helpers, or devils themselves. Reviled and disdained, Jews in many countries were confined to ghettos and forced to wear specially marked clothes— patterns of oppression the Nazis would build on centuries later. Jews had even been excluded from certain professions and expelled from the countries simply for being Jewish. In pre-Soviet Russia and other countries during the 19th and early 20th centuries, pogroms Photo courtesy of © Paramount-Vantage, a division of Paramount Pictures. (mob violence against Jews) were responsible for thousands of Questions for Scene Jews being killed. Suggested Technique: Discussion Despite this history, the antisemitism introduced by the Nazis was radically different. In Nazi antisemitism, being Jewish was 1. How could antisemitism affect the Soviet partisan group’s ability considered a genetic defect, rather than simply a set of beliefs to fight the Germans? or practices. This allowed no possible escape for Jews. Hitler 2. Though antisemitism was officially “a violation of party and many of his followers considered Jews subhuman, and their discipline”, such violations were rarely punished. In fact, Soviet destruction was not only desirable, but necessary for the health policy was often highly antisemitic. How do you think this of the German nation. These beliefs and attitudes spread beyond contradiction affected the Soviet soldiers and the decisions they Germany to other German-occupied countries where antisemitic made? What contradictions between stated and actual policy do information and laws were propagated. German propaganda you see in the world today? What do you think individuals can validated the anti-Jewish sentiments of many Europeans, and do about them? encouraged them toward antisemitic activities. 3. What was Zus putting at risk when he stood up for his friend? Many villages harbored Nazi sympathizers and were fiercely What would he have risked by saying nothing? antisemitic. Turning in a Jew to the Germans could earn a villager a bag of sugar or a bottle of vodka. Some collaborators hated Jews 4. What does Zus’s choice tell you about his hierarchy of values? so much they did not bother to collect their bonuses, shooting Make a list of three values that Zus probably held, based on his Jewish refugees on sight.
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