Revised january 30, 2009 a tangled web

. Nechama Tec cites the case of Leon Berk (Berkowicz), a doctor from Baranowicze, as someone who “was refused entry into a Polish detachment.” See Tec, “Reflections on Resistance and Gender,” in Remembering for the Future, 569, n.59. However, that example is somewhat dubious. Berk’s memoir merely states that a Belorussian peasant who made inquiries on his behalf with some unidentified Polish “partisans,” at a time when there were still few regular Polish partisans in the forests, reported back that he would not be accepted, and would allegedly be finished off. See Berk, Destined to Live, 97. Gaining entry into partisan units was usually through trusted contacts and not casual inquiries.

79 Zbigniew S. Siemaszko, “Komentarze,” Zeszyty Historyczne (Paris), no. 86 (1988): 164.

80 Siemaszko, “Komentarze,” Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 86 (1988): 164; Pilch, Partyzanci trzech puszcz, 289.

81 Wertheim, “Żydowska partyzantka na Białorusi,” Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 86 (1988): 139. Anatol Wertheim, who hailed from Warsaw and joined up with two other Jews in Naliboki forest, describes a meeting with Lieutenant Miłaszewski at the Polish Legion’s base in Derewno (Derewna). They were received warmly and hospitably by everyone at the base, fed, and accommodated overnight, before leaving with a pass guaranteeing them safe passage. It was during this encounter that Miłaszewski informed Wertheim that he was quite willing to accept into his ranks Wertheim and other patriotically-mined Jews from central and western Poland, but not local Jews, whom they did not trust because of their support for the Soviets. Since some members of Wertheim’s forest group were local Jews, Wertheim did not accept Miłaszewski’s offer.

82 Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgody, 59. As Yitzhak Arad points out, the same practice was followed by Soviet partisans. In Rudniki forest, the “Yechiel’s Struggle Group” from the Wilno ghetto wanted to join Captain “Alko’s” Soviet partisan group, but the latter refused to accept them on the grounds that he was unable to accept unarmed men and women who lacked military experience and training. He was ready to enlist 20 armed men and suggested that the others establish a separate family camp. See Arad, Ghetto in Flames, 455.

83 This issue is discussed in Chodakiewicz, ed., Tajne oblicze GL-AL i PPR, vol. 2, 36–37; Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Narodowe Siły Zbrojne: “Ząb” przeciw dwu wrogom, Second revised and expanded edition (Warsaw: Fronda, 1999), 319–20 n.204.

84 Yitzhak Arad describes the situation thus: “Difficult food problems arose with the swelling of the ranks, necessitating the assignment of large forces to ‘economic operations,’ in the course of which casualties were sustained. … When partisan activity mounted, several villages organized self-defence groups, which were armed by the Germans. The Jewish partisans in Rudniki often encountered resistance from the farmers during their ‘economic’ raids.” See Arad, Ghetto in Flames, 457. Lieutenant Adolf Pilch (“Góra”) provides the following description of the activities of the Soviet (and Jewish) partisans in Naliboki forest:
As a rule the Soviet Partisans were well supplied. The large numbers of troops were kept in the region mainly for political reasons. Their tasks were as follows: first, political infiltration of towns and villages and the finding and liquidation of “enemies of the people”; second, the stripping of this “bourgeois country” of everything not possessed by Soviet citizens, and third and last, actions against the enemy.

The operations covered by the first two points were carried out very efficiently. … The country was stripped of everything …

But as to the third point of their programme, the Soviet Partisans showed a zeal of greatly diminished intensity. Their operations against the Germans did not go beyond trifles like tearing up the rails, a matter requiring no more than two hours to put right.
See Poland, Home Army, The Unseen and Silent, 151–52.

85 Account of Y.G. in Trunk, Jewish Responses to Nazi Persecution, 209–10.

86 Celia K. (Celia (Tsila) Kassow (Kasovsky) née Cymmer) Holocaust Testimony (HVT–36), interviewed February 25, 1980, Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimones, Yale University Library.

87 Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust, 127.

88 Viktar Khursik, Kroŭ i popel Drazhna: Historyia partyzanskaha zlachynstva, Second revised and expanded edition (Minsk: Radyela-plius, 2006). A member of Captain Nikitin’s detachment, which included many Jews who had escaped from the Minsk ghetto, provides the following typically overblown description of the assault: “Our detachment and detachment named after Suvorov took charge of crushing the Nazi garrison in the village of Drazhna. It was one of their biggest and strongest garrisons. The village guarded well enough that our scouts could not enter. When finally two partisans disguised as peasants entered the village, it was decided we would attack at dawm. Both detachments spent all night walking toward our meeting place. When ours reached a small forest near the village that was our arranged destination, we realized that the other detachment had not yet arrived. Their guide had lost his way in the dark. The surprise factor was lost. The battle was long and bloody. More than 100 Nazis were killed, but it wasn’t an easy victory. Both groups suffered serious losses.” See Albert Lapidus, My War Childhood: A Prisoner of the Ghetto and Partisan of World War II Remembers, Internet: Belarus Online Newsletter, no. 1/2006, January 2006, Internet: