In the modest Belarusian village of Stankevichi on the river bank there are the ruins of an old mill. Long ago, before wars and revolutions, it belonged to the Jewish family of Belskih. It was their 4 brothers and the will of fate and their own heroism, they turned out to be the central figures of an amazing story. Such that in Hollywood about them the film was shot, and the writer Nehama Teck wrote the book. But neither books nor films made these events widely known. In the post-war Soviet years in Belarus, the activities of Jewish partisans were hushed up. In particular, in the official handbook "Partisan Formations of Belarus in the Years of the Great Patriotic War (June 1941 - July 1944)," published by the Institute of History of the Communist Party in 1983, there is no mention of the Belsky brothers or their detachment.
The participation of Jews in the partisan movement was hidden behind the phrase "other nationalities". Although only 14 Jewish partisan detachments and groups of Byelorussia were fought by at least 1,650 fighters, and in all, partisan detachments of Byelorussia had from 15 to 30 thousand Jews. About the detachment of Belsky is also not mentioned in the encyclopaedic one-volume book "Belarus in the Great Patriotic War (1941-1945). ) ", Published in 1995. Therefore, I decided, following the journalists of the Belarusian edition of TUT. BY introduce my readers to this unique family.
Brief history is as follows. After the German invasion of Belarus in the summer of 1941, the town of Stankevichi was occupied by the Hitlerites. Immediately Massacre of the Jewish population begins. Stankevichi in this sense is a unique village. By winter 41 he was "completely cleaned". All residents regardless of nationality are simply driven into the forest. Apparently the steep bank was an important reference point in the seizure of the entire Western Belarus. Collective public executions then spread everywhere - and David Belsky's miller was killed along with his wife and two sons, Yakov and Abram, daughter-in-law and granddaughter. On the same day the town of Stankevichi ceases to exist, the fascists shoot 4,000 local Jews.
Their eldest sons were more fortunate. Zusyu and Asaelya, had already been drafted into the army, almost immediately they were surrounded, but could get out of the "cauldron" and make their way to the ruined house. Another brother, the youngest, Aaron is hiding in the cellar. Deep in the night, the brothers go into the woods, where they meet their elder brother, Tuvi. He was already hiding in the Pushcha from the NKVD, after being miraculously saved from being expelled to Siberia. Despite the grief, the four brothers become the core of the Jewish partisan detachment, created in the Novogrudok district of the inhabitants of the evicted townships. Tuvier was then 35 years old, and Aronus 12. At first there were 17 people in the detachment, and from the weapon - one pistol with an incomplete clip.
In August 1942, at the expense of the ghettos that came from Novogrudok, the detachment grew to 250 people. In the autumn of 1942 the detachment of the Belskih began to engage in combat activity and gained authority among partisans. Tuvya Belsky proved to be a resolute and experienced commander. All this played a big role in the official recognition of the Belsky detachment by the leaders of the Soviet partisan movement. In February 1943 the detachment of Belsky was included in the partisan detachment "October" of the Lenin Brigade.
Of the four Belski brothers, only one survived today - 88-year-old Aron. A long time ago he left Belarus, received US citizenship and lives in Palm Beach, Florida. And his family's history is carefully preserved and studied by a small provincial Museum of Jewish Resistance in Novogrudok. Actually, the staff of this museum Tamara Vershitskaya and Claudia Dukhovnik, told us the details of how the brothers Bielski fought against fascism.
Tamara Vershitskaya: "What is unique about the history of the Belsky? Judge for yourself: according to archival data, about 12 thousand Jews were shot at the war in Novogrudok, Little Vorobievich and Lyubch. In the detachment of Belsky there were 1,230 people, most of whom were women, children and the elderly. If it were not for the brothers who accepted all of them, these people would perish. After the war in 1946 in Palestine, Tuvalia gave an interview for the book, where he said that he did not want to kill even the Germans. He said: "It is better to save one Jewish woman than to kill 10 Germans".
With the family of Claudius the Belskie Spiritualist closely communicated even before the war. Already during the occupation, Father Claudia the Confessor, Paul, led the Jews from the ghetto into the forest, into the partisan detachment. According to her, he led to Belsky 56 people.
Klavdia Pavlovna conducts a tour of Little Izeva: the village was small, only about 30 houses. Pre-war buildings are almost gone, about the huts recalls only the old foundation. Claudia The confessor: "At this place stood a hut, where Aron Belsky once shot and killed the Bessortnik. There lived a real prodigal Grishka, who was called Besportnik, because he walked without pants. Once he was at the mill and says "Stupid Germans. They would give me a shovel, I would have cut off the Jews myself ". And the 14-year-old Aron came and shot him ".
For this, according to Claudia Dukhovnik, all the women of the surrounding villages were grateful to Aron Belsky. "Aron was a good man, because the women were afraid to walk through our village. The man who harassed many times caught and raped women. The women then said "To Aron never died, so that he can live up to 100 years" - continues Claudia.
The partisan detachment of Belsky was unique in that in the Nalibokskaya Pushcha the partisans built an entire settlement, their "Forest Jerusalem". There were workshops, a bakery, a sausage shop, a soap maker, a first aid post and a hospital, a school and even a rabbi - David Brook.
Tamara Vershitskaya: "They cut cows, sewed clothes, carpenters, seamstresses, carpenters worked there. I read a document in the National Archives where the commander of one of the partisan detachments wrote: "Comrade Belsky, I ask you to give me, on the occasion of the May Day holiday, 2 kilograms of your wonderful Bela sausage ... But, of course, it was not always so. Initially, the forest took 20 people, but very soon they realized that in order to survive, food is needed, and friends can not always help them.
Tuvia sent Kostya Kozlovsky to the Novogrudok ghetto with a note "Go to the forest. Here you can live ". And they immediately took 10 men. The next day one of them returns - after the other. And here begins such a shuttle ferry. Then he himself goes to Lida, where his wife and her family were. With the help of partisans from other non-Jewish detachments, people were led to the forest: only in May-June 1943 about 300 people came from the Lida ghetto to Belsky.
The detachment also replenished with fugitives from the ghettos in Baranovichi, Ivyanets, Ivye, Rubezhevichi, Palaces, Korelichi, Mira and Dyatlov. The number of the detachment increased rapidly. According to Tamara Vershitskaya, the Belsky understood that the more they are in the forest, the more people will be afraid of them, from whom they took food, clothing and everything necessary for living in the forest.
Tamara Vershitskaya: "Although Zus was against accepting women and children in the detachment. He said: what will we feed them? But Tuvia, as commander, insisted that any Jew who comes to them in the forest will be accepted. Itself Zus wanted to fight - Belsky and before the war were snooty guys. "In June 1943, on the orders of one of the leaders of the partisan movement in Belarus, Vasily Chernyshev (General Platon), the detachment of Belsky divided into two parts: the" family ". Kalinin and fighting in the composition of 140 people, who received the name of the detachment. Ordzhonikidze (deputy commander was Zus). The combatant received the assignment to operate in the Novogrudok region together with Victor Panchenkov's detachment and other detachments and at the same time provide food for the "family" in the Nalibokskaya Pushcha.
Tamara Vershitskaya: "In July 1943, the Germans began the operation" Herman ". 52 thousand punishers surrounded five partisan brigades in Nalibokskaya Pushcha. The detachment of Belsky had to leave his unfinished base and wait for the blockade on a small island in the middle of the marshes. This was the third time when they had to throw everything they had acquired and wander through the woods, fleeing from the persecution of the Germans and the police. And if it happened that someone was extraditing Jews to the Germans, the Belskies cruelly dealt not only with these people, but also with their families ".
Tamara Vershitskaya gives an example. Somehow the food group from the detachment spent the night in one of the villages of a man named Belous. While everyone was asleep, the owner sent his son to Novogrudok to tell the Germans that in his house the Jews. "The Germans came and destroyed everything. When the Belsky learned what had happened, they immediately sent a group together with Asael. They killed 10 people, the entire Belous family, letting go of only the daughter-in-law, because she was of another blood. Biblical "eye for eye".
Aaron recalls the war and says that in the detachment of Belsky was engaged in the same thing as everyone: went to the scouting and for food. "My brother Tuvi was amazing and could something that other people can not. But even he would not be able to create a detachment without Zusya and Asaelya. And they were like twins, - recalls Aron. - We led a normal life in Nalibokskaya Pushcha, if it can be called normal. People did absolutely ordinary things: they cooked, they got food, they worked. Everyone was busy with his own business ".
Thanks to the existence of the Belsky detachment, there was another unique case: the escape from the Novogrudok ghetto through the tunnel. Stories are known for trying to escape, but they all ended badly. In Novogrudok it was possible: in September 1943 250 people fled at night through the tunnel. People knew what would happen to them, where to hide afterwards - they found Belsky on an old base near the village of Kamenka in Novogrudok district.
Tamara Vershitskaya conducts a tour of the Museum of Jewish Resistance at Novogrudok.
"The exposition was created in a former barrack, where Jews lived. Here, after another shooting, they decided to dig a tunnel and escape. Its length is 200 meters. The work lasted about 4 months, and it involved all 250 people who were in the barracks ".
The Novogrudok ghetto was transferred to the Wehrmacht by the best specialists. Jews were sure: they will be left alive as valuable specialists. But in 1943, these workshops were brought to teach non-Jews - and it was a signal. Moreover, on May 7, half of the Jews were shot here, and the surviving prisoners decide to build a tunnel. One third perished during the escape. The rest were found in the forest of the Bielskiy camp.
Tamara Vershitskaya: "Two years ago 50 people came here: three former prisoners from those who fled and the rest - children and grandchildren. We spent a week digging out the tunnel to find out where it was leading and where it ends. He lay at a depth of 1 meter, was a height of 70 cm and a width of about 50? 70 cm ". Around the former tunnel, the Garden of Justice and Mercy is planted. And the staff of the museum work together with the architect Georgi Zaborsky on the project of the museumification of the tunnel.
Tamara Vershitskaya: "In many places thousands of Jews were shot, and usually no one resisted. There is a psychological explanation for this: when a person does not see a way out, he submits to destiny. But the Novogrudok Jews showed a completely different state of mind: apart from the Belsky detachment, they were the last survivors of the 6,000 Jews who lived here before the war. When I think about the feeling that moved them, I come to the conclusion that it was anger ".
As a result of the activity of the family partisan detachment of Belsky, 1,230 Jews were saved from destruction, 6 trains with manpower, 1 railway bridge and 18 bridges on the highway were blown up, 12 open battles and ambushes were carried out, 16 cars with live force were destroyed, 9 kilometers of telegraph and telephone Communications, 800 m railroad tracks. 261 people were killed, including German soldiers, officers, policemen, Vlasovites. Detachment of. Ordzhonikidze (Zusia's combat group) participated in 33 combat operations, which killed 120 enemies. Two locomotives and 23 cars were blown up, 32 telegraph poles and 4 bridges. The loss of the detachment during its entire existence amounted to about 50 people.
All the brothers survived the occupation. But the fate of the brothers after the war has developed in different ways. After the end of the war, Tuvia and Zus were persecuted by the NKVD and therefore fled to Poland. But the Poles were hostile to the Jews after the war, and the brothers moved to Palestine, lived in Ramat Gan and Holon. After the establishment of the State of Israel, Tuva and Zus took part in the War of Independence. Then, together with their families and Aron moved to the United States. They settled in Brooklyn (New York). Tuvia became a truck driver, and Zusya - the owner of several taxis. In 1944, after the liberation of Belarus, Asael joined the Red Army along with part of the detachment and was killed in the territory of Poland in the city of Malbork.
Aron went to Poland in the 1950s, then to Israel, from there to Canada, where he lived for two years. And in 1952 he went to his brothers in the US. No official awards have been received by the Bielskie brothers. Of the people saved by the people of Bielsk, 29 people are alive. The descendants of the saved are tens of thousands of people.
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