We are here because the bielski partisans fought back

Asael bielski daughter

After their parents were killed by the Germans, they escaped the Nowogrodek Ghetto in December and formed a partisan group numbering about By assisting Jews from ghettos in nearby cities to escape, the group expanded to about over the subsequent eighteen months. Tuvia, the eldest of the brothers, was chosen to command the group.

In August , the group was forced to make camp deep in the Naliboki Forest, northeast of Nowogrodek. Tuvia was determined to accept any Jews who asked to join the group. By the end of the war, the Bielski Family Camp had diverse industries and institutions including a school, bakery, infirmary and laundry. Throughout their time in the forest, the Bielski group had to contend with other partisan groups, some of whose members were extremely antisemitic.

Tuvia Bielski came to an uneasy arrangement with the commander of the Soviet partisans, and the Bielski partisans participated in joint operations against German guards and Belorussian collaborators. Asael was killed in January after being conscripted into the Red Army. In the summer of , Belarus was liberated and the Bielski group, now numbering around people, emerged from the forests and went their separate ways.

The group was the subject of a film, Defiance, based on the work of historian Nechama Tec, starring Daniel Craig as Tuvia. Some estimates place the number of descendants of the Bielski group as high as 10,