Revised january 30, 2009 a tangled web

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473 Duffy, The Bielski Brothers, 37, 41, 52, 61, 64. Lola Kline, the infant daughter of Abraham Dzienciolski and Taube Bielski, was sheltered by a Polish couple and returned to her parents, who were part of the Bielski forest group, after the war. See Clare Marie Celano,” A Story of Courage, Hope,” Examiner (New Jersey), December 24, 2008.

474 Tec, Defiance, 124.

475 Duffy, The Bielski Brothers, 116–18.

476 Gutman and Bender, eds., The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vol. 4: Poland, Part 1, 302–3.

477 Tec, Defiance, 57–61.

478 Gutman and Bender, eds., The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vol. 5: Poland, Part 2, 677.

479 Gutman and Bender, eds., The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vol. 4: Poland, Part 1, 447.

480 Gutman and Bender, eds., The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vol. 4: Poland, Part 1, 481.

481 Wertheim, “Żydowska partyzantka na Białorusi,” Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 86 (1988): 134.

482 Account of Miriam Swirnowski-Lieder in Blumenthal, ed., Sefer Mir, columns 52–55.

483 Sutin, Jack and Rochelle, 61, 76–77, 83, 84–85, 86, 133, 156.

484 Boris Kozinitz, “A Partisan’s Story,” in Shtokfish, Book in Memory of Dokshitz-Parafianow, Chapter 4.

485 Tec, In the Lion’s Den, 186.

486 Riwash, Resistance and Revenge, 40, 46, 47, 139–44.

487 See testimony of Anna K. [Kovitzka] in Donald L. Niewyk, ed., Fresh Wounds: Early Narratives of Holocaust Survival (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1998), 207–208.

488 Alexandre Blumstein, A Little House on Mount Carmel (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2002), 330–35.

489 Alpert, The Destruction of Slonim Jewry, 364, 313.

490 Cholawski, Soldiers from the Ghetto, 84.

491 See, for example, the account of Rut Leisner from Mejszagoła near Wilno, whose family received extensive assistance from many Poles, often total strangers, in Marian Turski, ed., Losy żydowskie: Świadectwo żywych, vol. 2 (Warsaw: Stowarzyszenie Żydów Kombatantów i Poszkodowanych w II Wojnie Światowej, 1999), 204–25. There is also the account of Soszana Raczyńska of Wilno, who was one of many Jews assisted by Poles in the vicinity of Niemenczyn. See Elżbieta Isakiewicz, Harmonica: Jews Relate How Poles Saved Them from the Holocaust (Warsaw: Polska Agencja Informacyjna, 2001), 87–105. Pola Wawer, a doctor from Wilno, recalled the help she and her parents received from numerous Poles in various localities, among them the hamlet of Zameczek which was inhabited by five families of cousins. See Wawer, Poza gettem i obozem, passim, especially 71. Meir Stoler, who escaped the German massacre of Jews in Raduń on May 10, 1942, managed to reach the tiny Polish hamlet of Mieżańce, where the villagers took him in and gave him food. See Martin Gilbert, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (Toronto: Key Porter, 2003), 19. Murray Berger of Wsielub near Nowogródek attests to receiving extensive help from numerous villagers from December 1941, when he left the ghetto, until he joined up with the Bielski unit the following year. (His account is in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.) Sarah Fishkin of Rubieżewicze left a diary attesting to repeated acts of kindness by villagers in that area. See Anna Eilenberg-Eibeshitz, Remember! A Collection of Testimonies (Haifa: H. Eibeshitz Institute for Holocaust Studies, 1999), 285–306. A large group of Jews led by Bielicer, based in forests near Zaczepicze about ten kilometres from Bielica, received extensive assistance from the surrounding population. See the testimony of Lejb Rajzer, Archive of the Jewish Historical Institute (Warsaw), no. 301/555/2. Shimon Kantorowicz was sheltered for two years by the Krepski family in Helenów near Stłopce, and even though this was known to almost the entire village no one betrayed him. Information from Yad Vashem case no. 5844. Another Jew recalled the assistance he and his father received from the villagers of Powiłańce near Ejszyszki, on numerous occasions: “The village was composed of some forty houses strung out side by side on a single street. Each house was inhabited by Poles, but my father knew many of them and had done favours for them in the past. At each house, we knocked and explained our plight. Only a few turned us down … Very soon our wagon was filled with butter and eggs and flour and fresh vegetables, and my father and I wept at their kindness and at the realization that we had been reduced to beggars. The people of Powielancy [Powiłańce] were so generous … Now we sent out a food gathering group each evening to beg in the neighbouring villages where most of the people felt kindly toward us. One of the villages in this area was Powielancy whose people had filled our cart with food when father and I had come from the Radun [Raduń] ghetto. They helped us again most willingly for they sympathized with our plight.” See Kahn, No Time To Mourn, 55, 124. Shulamit Zabinska, a teenage girl who was sheltered by Poles in the Wilno countryside, recalled that many Poles brought food to the ghetto, “otherwise everyone would have starved to death. It was dangerous, and people were shot for this.” After escaping from the ghetto she was taken in by Weronika (“Wercia”) Stankiewicz and her mother, passing as Wercia’s niece. Although the villagers knew she was Jewish no one betrayed her. See Tomaszewski and Werbowski, Zegota, 117–18, and Żegota, 2^nd edition, 110. Similarly, Estera Bielicka was taken in by the Myślicki family in Matejkany where she lived openly. Although the villagers knew about her Jewish origin, no one betrayed her. See Wiktor Noskowski, “Czy Yaffa Eliach przeprosi Polaków?” Myśl Polska (Warsaw), July 20–27, 1997. The neighbours of a Polish family in Białozoryszki near Wilno were aware that that family was sheltering a Jewish boy. See Chodorska, ed., Godni synowie naszej Ojczyzny Part One, 104–109. Particularly moving are the rescue accounts involving children found in Bartoszewski and Lewin, eds., Righteous Among Nations, 391–97; Wiktoria Śliwowska, ed., The Last Eyewitnesses: Children of the Holocaust Speak (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1998), 307–22; Grynberg, Księga sprawiedliwych, 308–309. A Jewish woman from Butrimonys [Butrymańce] near Alyta [Olita], on the territory of interwar Lithuania, recalled the widespread assistance of the Polish minority in that area, in particular a hamlet named Parankowa: “Parankova became known among us unfortunate Jews as a Polish hamlet where nobody would hand you over to the murderers; ‘to me Parankova is truly the Jerusalem of Lithuania’.” See Rivka Lozansky Bogomolnaya, Wartime Experiences in Lithuania (London and Portland, Oregon: Vallentine Mitchell, 2000), 75. See also If I Forget The…: The Destruction of the Shtetl Butrimantz. Testimony by Riva Lozansky and Other Witnesses (Washington, DC: Remembrance Books, 1998), passim. Other examples can be found in For additional accounts see Dawidowicz, “Shoah Żydów wileńskich,” in Feliksiak, eds., Wilno-Wileńszczyzna jako krajobraz i środowisko wielu kultur, vol. 1, 243–76; Gilbert, The Righteous, 6–7, 16–19, 21–24, 75–83; Gutman and Bender, eds., The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Parts One, 56, 57, 68–69; 74, 98–99, 108, 110, 126–27, 132, 159–60, 164–65, 200–1, 212, 219, 283, 290, 302–3, 355, 360–61, 394, 411–12, 417, 434–35, 443, 447, 458–59, 481, 483, 487–88, 489–90, 497, 511–12, 517–18, and Part Two, 539–40, 544, 546, 572, 586, 588–89, 607, 624–25, 644–45, 646, 650–51, 656, 662, 669–70, 677, 697, 705–6, 715, 724–25, 739–40, 748, 768, 780, 783–84, 786, 793–94, 798, 799, 815–16, 828, 834, 853–54, 917–18, 922, 932, 939–40; Rima Dulkinienė and Kerry Keys, eds., Su adata širdyje: Getų ir koncentracijos stovyklų kalinių atsiminimai; With a Needle in the Heart: Memoirs of Former Prisoners of Ghettos and Concentraion Camps (Vilnius: Garnelis and Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania, 2003), 111–12, 362–63, 380–81. Only a tiny fraction of these rescuers have been formally recognized by Yad Vashem in Jerusalem as “Righteous Gentiles.”

Among the many Catholic priests—often with ties to the Home Army—in the Wilno region who, with the encouragement of Archbishop Romuald Jałbrzykowski of Wilno, came to the assistance of Jews were: Leopold Chomski (Wilno), Andrzej Gdowski (Wilno), Edmund Ilcewicz (Wilno), Rev. Jagodziński (Wilno), Julian Jankowski (Wilno), Władysław Kisiel (Wilno), Jan Kretowicz (Wilno), Kazimierz Kucharski (Wilno), Antoni Lewosz (Wilno), Tadeusz Makarewicz (Wilno), Hieronim Olszewski (Wilno), Leon Puciata (Wilno), Michał Sopoćko (Wilno), Bolesław Sperski (Wilno), Juozas Stakauskas (Wilno), Romuald Świrkowski (Wilno), Ignacy Świrski (Wilno), Antoni Grzybowski (Albertyn), Rev. Petro (Belmont), Mieczysław Akrejć (Brasław), Paweł Dołżyk (Derewna or Derewno), Feliks Kaczmarek (Duniłowicze), Bolesław Moczulski (Ejszyszki), Albin Jaroszewicz (Grodno), Michał Klimczak (Father Dionizy, Grodno), Gedymin Pilecki (Hermaniszki), Józef Chomski (Holszany), Bolesław Gramz (Idołta), Władysław Maćkowiak (Ikaźń), Stanisław Pyrtek (Ikaźń), Kazimierz Kułak (Landwarów), Tadeusz Grzesiak (Kleck), Lucjan Pereświet-Sołtan (Kolonia Wileńska), Witold Sarosiek (Kundzin), Józef Pakalnis (Łyntupy), Józef Szołkowski (Mejszagoła), Hilary Daniłłowicz (Mickuny), Michał Badowski (Mir), Antoni Mackiewicz (Mir), Karol Lubianiec (Mołodeczno), Paweł Dabulewicz (Nacza), Józef Bajko (Naliboki), Józef Baradyn (Naliboki), Leon Bujnowski (Niedźwiedzica), Aleksander Ciszkiewicz (Niedźwiedzica), Jan Grodis (Nieśwież), Mieczysław Kubik (Nieśwież), Stanisław Miłkowski (Nowa Wilejka), Michał Dalecki (Nowogródek), Piotr Pruński (Połusza), Aleksander Grabowski (Pozorowo), Aleksander Hanusewicz (Raków), Witold Szymczukiewicz (Rukojnie), Adam Sztark (Słonim), Kazimierz Grochowski (Słonim), Michał Michniak (Słonim), Antoni Udalski (Soleczniki), Stanisław Tyszka (Troki), Józef Obrębski (Turgiele), Władysław Kaszczyc (Werenowo), Dominik Amankowicz (Widze), Zygmunt Miłkowski (Wiszniew), Romuald Dronicz (Wołkołata), Antoni Udalski (Wołożyn), Jan Sielewicz (Worniany), Hipolit Chruściel (Worniany), Józef Kuczyński (Wsielub), Paweł Czapłowski (Żodziszki), as well as unidentified priests from Borodzienicze, Iszczołna, Lida, Łyntupy, Ossowo, Pielasy, Raduń, Stara Wilejka, and other localities. The orders of Catholic nuns involved in rescue activities include: the Benedictine Sisters (Nieśwież, Wilno), Dominican Sisters (Kolonia Wileńska, Wilno), Daughters of Mary Immaculate (Lida, Wiszniew), Daughters of the Purest Heart of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Wilno), Franciscan Sisters of the Agonizing Christ (Kozińce, Wilno), Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary (Mickuny, Raków, Wilno, Wołkowysk), Sisters of the Most Holy Name of Jesus under the Protection of the Blessed Virgin Mary Help of the Faithful (Połkunie, Wilno), Sisters of the Countenance of the Most Holy Redeemer (Wilno), Sisters of the Merciful Mother of God (Magdalene Sisters—Werki, Wilno, Wołokumpie), Sisters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul (Werki near Wilno), Sisters of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, especially Marta Wołowska and Ewa Noiszewska (Słonim), Sisters of the Family of Nazareth (Gulbiny, Nowogródek), Sisters of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Visitation Sisters—Wilno), Ladies of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (Wilno), Sisters of the Resurrection of Our Lord (Mir), Pallotine Sisters (Nowogródek), Ursuline Sisters of the Agonizing Heart of Jesus (Czarny Bór, Wilno), Sisters Servants of the Most Blessed Mary Immaculate (Wilno), Sisters of the Angels (Wilno, Wyszary). See Zygmunt Zieliński, ed., Życie religijne w Polsce pod okupacją 1939–1945: Metropolie wileńska i lwowska, zakony (Katowice: Unia, 1992), 44, 51–55, 83–84, 406–407; Zygmunt Zieliński, ed., Życie religijne w Polsce pod okupacją hitlerowską 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Ośrodek Dokumentacji i Studiów Społecznych, 1982), 244–45; Cyprian Wilanowski, Konspiracyjna działalność duchowieństwa katolickiego na Wileńszczyźnie w latach 1939–1944 (Warsaw: Pax, 2000), 112–13, 115–16, 118, 120, 123–25, 129–30, 131, 135; Aleksander Dawidowicz, “Shoah Żydów wileńskich,” in Feliksiak, eds., Wilno–Wileńszczyzna jako krajobraz i środowisko wielu kultur, vol. 1, 263–66, 269; Bartoszewski, The Blood Shed Unites Us, 191–92; Bartoszewski and Lewin, eds., Righteous Among Nations, lxxxiii, 396–97, 513–17; Bartoszewski and Lewinówna, eds., Ten jest z ojczyzny mojej, 229–32, 1022, 1023; Andrzej Chciuk, ed., Saving Jews in War-Torn Poland, 1939–1945 (Clayton, Victoria: Wilke and Company, 1969), 33–34; Wacław Zajączkowski, Martyrs of Charity, Part One (Washington, D.C.: St. Maximilian Kolbe Foundation, 1987), Entries 77, 322, 377, 378, 463, 643, 665; Ewa Kurek, Your Life Is Worth Mine: How Polish Nuns Saved Hundreds of Jewish Children in German Occupied Poland, 1939–1945 (New York: Hippocrene, 1997), 125–26, 131, 132; Jasiewicz, ed., Europa nieprowincjonalna, 150, 366; Wiktor Noskowski, “Czy Yaffa Eliach przeprosi Polaków?” Myśl Polska, July 20–27, 1997; Wojciech Cieśla, “Ojciec od spraw beznadziejnych,” Gazeta Wyborcza, December 29, 2000; Franciszek Kącki, Udział księży i zakonnic w holokauście Żydów (Warsaw: Adiutor, 2002), 14, 17, 30–33, 38, 43, 45, 58, 103, 122–23, 132, 140; Jan Żaryn, Dzieje Kościoła katolickiego w Polsce (1944–1989) (Warsaw: Neriton and Instytut Historii PAN, 2003), 17–19; Laryssa Michajlik, “‘Sąsiedzi” obok ‘sąsiadów’? Ratowanie Żydów przez chrześcijan na terytorium Białorusi w latach 1941–1944,: in Krzysztof Jasiewicz, ed., Świat niepożegnany: Żydzi na dawnych ziemiach wschodnich Rzeczypospolitej w XVIII–XX wieku (Warsaw and London: Instytut Studiów Politycznych PAN, Rytm, and Polonia Aid Foundation Trust, 2004), 733; Teresa Antonietta Frącek, “Ratowały, choć groziła za to śmierć,” Part 3, Nasz Dziennik, March 15–16, 2008 (Franciscan Sisters of the Family of Mary). For Jewish sources confirming Polish accounts see: Friedman, Their Brothers’ Keepers, 16–17, 125–26, 140; Tatiana Berenstein and Adam Rutkowski, Assistance to the Jews in Poland, 1939–1945 (Warsaw: Polonia Publishing House, 1963), 40; Kowalski, A Secret Press in Nazi Europe, 217–18; Mordecai Paldiel, The Path of the Righteous: Gentile Rescuers of Jews During the Holocaust (Hoboken, New Jersey: KTAV Publishing House, 1993), 117–18, 216–17, 227, 241–44; Mordecai Paldiel, Sheltering the Jews: Stories of Holocaust Rescuers (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1996), 117–18, 209; Gutman and Bender, eds., The Encyclopedia of the Righteous Among the Nations, vols. 4 and 5: Poland, Part One, xliii–xliv, 63–64, 108, 124–25, 182, 355, 376, 483, 511–12; Part Two, 656–57, 799, 807, 939–40; Gilbert, The Righteous, 79–82; Tec, In the Lion’s Den, 73, 96, 98–99, 163–77; Riwash, Resistance and Revenge, 144; Silverman, From Victims to Victors, 132, 246–47, 325; Machnes and Klinov, eds., Darkness and Desolation, 571, 572, 575, 595, 596; Wawer, Poza gettem i obozem, 17, 36, 83–84; Abram, The Light After the Dark, 58–59; Cunge, Uciec przed holocaustem, 129, 137–38, 178, 182–83, 273 (Wilno), 193, 234–35, 252–53, 261, 277 (Żodziszki), 207 (nuns); Cholawsky, The Jews of Bielorussia during World War II, 272, 278; Smilovitskii, Katastrofa evreev v Belorussii 1941–1944 gg., 64, 132; Śliwowska, ed., The Last Eyewitnesses, 257–61, 307–22; Stein, Hidden Children, 63–64, 207; Isakiewicz, Harmonica, 96; Tomaszewski and Werbowski, Zegota, 98–99, and Żegota, 2^nd edition, 93; Gutman and Krakowski, Unequal Victims, 236–37; Eliach, There Once Was a World, 594, 599 (Ejszyszki, Raduń); Żbikowski, Archiwum Ringelbluma, vol. 3, 356 (Słonim), 474; Anita Brostoff and Sheila Chamovitz, eds., Flares of Memory: Stories of Childhood during the Holocaust (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2001), 121–22, 301; Halperin, Ludzie są wszędzie, 173 (Nieśwież); Grynberg and Kotowska, eds., Życie i zagłada Żydów polskich 1939–1945, 386, 522–23; Yehuda Bauer, “Kurzeniec—a Jewish Shtetl in the Holocaust,” Yalkut Moreshet: Holocaust Documentation and Research [Tel Aviv], no. 1 (Winter 2003): 156; Mordecai Paldiel, The Righteous Among the Nations (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem; New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 18, 62–64, 72–74. Not all encounters of priests with Jews were favourable. The Jesuit priest Wacław Sęk, who administered the parish of Baturyn near Mołodeczno, was denounced by a Jewish partisan on account of his alleged “reactionary” views. The Soviet partisan headquarters, however, was not as convinced of the priest’s harmful ways because they released him after a brief interrogation. On another occasion, a Jewish partisan defended Rev. Sęk, who was pursued by the Germans, as a friend of the partisans when a local Soviet commander ordered his execution. See Wacław Sęk, Proboszcz z gorącego pogranicza (Lublin: Norbertinum, 2003), 72, 81, 98, 94–95. Rev. Sęk’s memoirs are replete with graphic descriptions of the cruel and rapacious exploits of the Soviet partisans, who engaged in few confrontations with the Germans, and the bind the civilian population found themselves sandwiched between the Nazi hammer and Soviet anvil. Russian partisans even stole rosaries from Rev. Sęk, thinking they were necklaces with which they could impress their girlfriends. The Germans in turn took their revenge by burning villages and homesteads of those suspected of aiding the Soviet partisans in any way, including food confiscations.

492 Kahn, No Time To Mourn, 94–96. It is worth noting that there were many Jews who were assisted by Poles in the Grodno area (some examples were provided earlier). See also Spector, Lost Jewish Worlds, 180–85. Sympathy for outsiders was not a hallmark of ghetto life. In Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski, for example, the Judenrat moved energetically to rid the ghetto of Jewish deportees from Vienna, who were relatively well off, and in the process confiscated much of their possessions. See Waldemar R. Brociek, Adam Penkalla, Regina Renz, Żydzi ostrowieccy: Zarys Dziejów (Ostrowiec Świętokrzyski: Muzeum Historyczno-Archelogiczne, 1996), 101. The example of relative prosperity in the Grodno ghetto is not an isolated one. Conditions in ghettos varied from place to place and could change overnight. A resident of the ghetto in Raduń near Ejszyszki recalled: “there was no instance of actual starvation. Mutual help was commonplace, and all the needy would receive daily food rations, contributed and distributed voluntarily by the Jews of Radun.” See Aviel, A Village Named Dowgalishok, 92. In the Wilno ghetto trade flourished as late as March 1942: “Now, people carry on free and open [commerce] … Little shops opened … Peasants who come in to take out garbage bring merchandise into the ghetto, and there is trade in the ghetto the likes of which have never been seen. … Outside the ghetto, they say that the Jews in the ghetto live better than the residents of the city. There’s some truth to that. In this respect, the ghetto is much livelier and more active than are the inhabitants outside the ghetto.” See Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, 243. For information about the wide-scale smuggling of goods from the “Aryan” side see pp. 595–96. Kruk mentions other paradoxes of the German occupation: “Aryans who want to save themselves from Aryan-German hands come for asylum to … the ghetto”; “Germans have no trust in the Aryan Poles, Russians, and Lithuanians. But, on the contrary, their Jewish slaves are their best…co-workers.” Ibid., 479.

493 Gilbert, The Righteous, 80.

494 Duffy, The Bielski Brothers, 89.

495 Ibid., 111.

496 Ibid., 115.

497 Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgody, 139–40; Boradyn, “Stosunki Armii Krajowej z partyzantką sowiecką na Nowogródczyźnie,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 115.

498 The following examples are illustrative, and by no means comprehensive. Jacob Gens, the head of the Jewish Council in Wilno, sent Jewish policemen to Oszmiana and other outlying towns to assist in the liquidation of the ghettos. The Wilno policemen included Salek Dessler, Natan Ring, Meir Levas, Berenshetein, and Leizer Bart. A Jewish policeman from Wilno named Nika Drezin, who “betrayed melinas [hideouts] freely,” was put in charge of the ghetto in Oszmiana, which the Jewish police helped the Germans to liquidate. The Jews in Oszmiana were rounded up and transported by train to Ponary for extermination. See Gelbart, ed., Sefer Zikaron le-kehilat Oshmana, 25–31, 115; Cohen, The Avengers, 70–73; Kruk, The Last Days of the Jerusalem of Lithuania, 411; Nathan Cohen, “The Last Days of the Vilna Ghetto—Pages from a Diary,” Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 31 (2003): 36, 42; Margolis, Wspomnienia wileńskie, 97. At least three Gestapo agents were planted at the H.K.P. work camp in Wilno: Nika Drezin, Auberbach and Jona Bak. See “Life Story of Perella née Esterowicz (Pearl Good),” Internet: