Fightin’ Jews—The Bielsky Brothers

The Bielsky brothers—Zus, Asael, and Tuvia, all Jewish—led a resistance movement after nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union, hiding in the forests of what is now Belarus. They organized a community of Jews, up to 1200 people, and led partisan campaigns of sabotage against the German invaders, seeking to protect as many people as possible, young and old included.

The Bielsky team cut down trees and made crude houses for its members and protected them from German forces and police. When nazi police found the camp, the guards fired at them, and the camp had to be evacuated, and the Bielsky group founded a new camp where craftsmen practiced their crafts and had a bakery, a mill, two medical centers, a school, a synagogue, a prison, a cemetery, and a communal bathhouse. The camp’s official historian Shmuel Amarant kept records of the camp’s history.

This challenges the narrative that Jews during the Nazi era just meekly stepped into the gas chambers, but instead fought back, with weapons, but also with the determination to live and defend themselves. With all the Jew-hate going on in the world, this is the spirit we need.

Digital art gif. The Star of David fashioned in 3D red and yellow with an S at the center, with a cerulean blue background, in apt resemblance of the Superman emblem.