Revised january 30, 2009 a tangled web

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521 Yoran, The Defiant, 100–101, 103.

522 Account of Ze’ev Lerman (pseudonym) in Dan Bar-On, Fear and Hope: Three Generations of the Holocaust (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1995), 102.

523 Silverman, From Victims to Victors, 60, 87, 97, 105, 106, 123, 129, 147.

524 Soviet archival documents make it clear that this was a generally accepted practice among Soviet partisans. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia on July 24, 1943, attended by Ponomarenko, instructions were issued to shoot, execute, hang or burn alive any civilian who stood in the way of partisan provision gathering. The document in question is reproduced in Zdzisław Julian Winnicki, Szkice polsko-białoruskie (Wrocław: Gajt, 1998), 51–52 (fond 4, opis 33a, delo 254, Documents of the Belorussian Partisan Headquarters, in the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus in Minsk).

525 Yechiel Silber, “The Partisans of Sochaczew,” in Sztejn (Shtayn) and Wejszman (Vaysman), eds., Pinkas Sokhatshev, 514ff.

526 Interview with Litman Mor, August 14, 1992, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.

527 Yoran, The Defiant, 104–105, 106, 107–109, 111–12, 162.

528 Kahn, No Time To Mourn, 85. Kahn remarked that his father and many Jews of the older generation did not support all this violent activity. “Leibke,” his father told him, “these farmers who you’re taking food from are my friends! I’ve known them all my life, I’ve eaten with them, done business with them! How could I hold a gun to their heads?” Ibid., 86. The Jewish forest group was led by a tailor named Elke who was executed by a party of Soviet partisans (which included two Jews) after continued bickering over food raids by the family group. The Soviets then confiscated all the weapons collected by the group and warned them not to raid the villages for food anymore. The group elected a new leader after Elke’s death, a man called Paisha, who was formerly part of the Grodno underworld. Ibid., 89–90.

529 Alexander (Shura) Bogen, originally Katzenbogen, “The Onset of the Partisan Units in the Forest of Naroch,” in Moshe Kalcheim, ed., With Proud Bearing, 1939–1945: Chapters in the History of Jewish Fighting in the Naroch Forests (Tel Aviv: Organization of Partisans, Underground Fighters, and Ghetto Rebels in Israel, 1991), Internet: .

530 Yoran, The Defiant, 133–35.

531 Cohen, The Avengers, 117–18.

532 Tec, Defiance, 103: “From time to time peasants would tell about each other’s possession of arms. The Jewish partisans would follow these leads and make the owners give up their treasures. Occasionally the information was false and the partisans demanded guns from people who did not have them.”

533 Chodakiewicz, Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, 83–84.

534 See, for example, the conditions for a Communist People’s Guard unit, to which a number of Jews were attached, operating in the vicinity of Piotrów in the Świętokrzyskie Mountains in central Poland. The armed Jewish partisans were instructed not to take anything by force from the “neighbouring” villagers; in exchange, many villagers came to their assistance. See Eugeniusz Fąfara, Gehenna ludności żydowskiej (Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1983), 352–53. On the other hand, according to non-Communist sources, a Jewish band led by Józef Lepiarz from that same unit was feared by the local population whom they robbed and raped mercilessly. See Wojciech Jerzy Muszyński, W walce o Wielką Polskę: Propaganda zaplecza politycznego Narodowych Sił Zbrojnych (1939–1945) (Biała Podlaska: Rekonkwista, and Warsaw: Rachocki i S-ka, 2000), 323. The two accounts are not necessarily inconsistent since the instructions not to take anything by force may well have pertained only to the immediate area of the partisan base (i.e., “neighbouring” villages). See also Chodakiewicz, Żydzi i Polacy 1918–1955, 333–34.

535 Silverman, From Victims to Victors, 157–58, 189.

536 Testimony of Jacob Greenstein, in Tec, In the Lion’s Den, 193, 194.

537 Yoran, The Defiant, 133–34, 139–40.

538 Tec, Defiance, 74; Nirenstein, A Tower from the Enemy, 352–53.

539 Nirenstein, A Tower from the Enemy, 352. Also cited, though somewhat rephrased, in Tec, Defiance, 73.

540 Tec, Defiance, 75; Nirenstein, A Tower from the Enemy, 354.

541 Tec, Defiance, 37.

542 Ibid., 39.

543 Ibid., 46.

544 Ibid., 110, 115.

545 Ibid., 142–43.

546 Ibid., 161.

547 Ibid., 178.

548 Ibid., 179.

549 Ibid., 193.

550 Duffy, The Bielski Brothers, 78–80.

551 Ibid., 134.

552 A Soviet field report from November 10, 1942, for example, refers to a Jewish provision-gathering group that went to the western bank of the Niemen; they were disarmed, the confiscated weapons were given to the peasants, and they were administered a beating. The report does not clarify whether this was done by Belorussian peasants or by Russian partisans (perhaps both), but their accompanying remarks (“Without Jews we will save Russia”) make it clear they weren’t Poles.

553 Rubin, Against the Tide, 115.

554 Kagan and Cohen, Surviving the Holocaust with the Russian Jewish Partisans, 66.

555 Ibid., 189.

556 Moshe Baran, “The Farmer Kowarski,” in Brostoff and Chamovitz, eds., Flares of Memory, 37.

557 Tec, In the Lion’s Den, 192, 194, 201–202.

558 Boradyn, “Stosunki Armii Krajowej z partyzantką sowiecką na Nowogródczyźnie,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 120.

559 Silverman, From Victims to Victors, 136.

560 Account of Boris Green (Greniman) in Kowalski, ed., Anthology on Armed Jewish Resistance, 1939–1945, vol. 1 (1984), 542–43.

561 Account of Romualda Soroko (née Kazuro), the youngest of the Kazuro children (in the author’s possession). After their rescue, the Gordons thanked the Kazuros profusely saying that they would never forget them and would keep in contact. Through the family of another Polish rescuer from the vicinity, the Kazuros learned much later that the Gordons had settled in Toronto. They never communicated with the Kazuros, however, and ignored Romualda’s repeated requests to have her parents recognized by Yad Vashem, despite the intervention of representatives of the local Yad Vashem organization. Confirmation of the rescue is found in Riwash, Resistance and Revenge, 144, reproduced earlier.

562 Libe Levitanus Zaidlin (née Papkin), aka Liba Levitanos-Zaidlin, “The Trials and Tribulations Confronting the Face of Death,” in The Book of Druya and the Communities of Miory, Druysk and Leonpol, Internet: , translation of Mordekhai Neishtat, ed., Sefer Druja ve-kehilot Miory, Drujsk, ve Leonpol (Tel Aviv: Druja and Surrounding Region Society, 1973), 201 ff.

563 For some examples of Home Army reprisals in the vicinity of Rudniki forest see Borodziewicz, Szósta Wileńska Brygada AK, 43, 101–103, 199–200. These reprisals targeted armed marauders regardless of nationality or partisan affiliation, and both Polish partisans and marauders fell in the confrontations. Marauders who were taken captive were generally set free.

564 “A Child Partisan from Voronova,” in Kowalski, ed., Anthology on Armed Jewish Resistance, 1939–1945, vol. 2 (1985), 614 (based on the Lida Memorial Book).

565 Zizas, Persecution of Non-Jewish Citizens of Lithuania, Murder of Civilian Populations (1941–1944), 98–99. As the author notes, these operations targeted mostly Poles.

566 Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 124, 156.

567 Silverman, From Victims to Victors, 125.

568 Ibid., 191–92. According to Jarosław Wołkonowski, as a result of raids staged by the Germans in the regions of Brasław and Postawy in the fall of 1943, more than thirty villages were burned and several thousand peasants were killed on suspicion of helping Soviet partisans. See Wołkonowski, Okręg Wileński Związku Walki Zbrojnej Armii Krajowej w latach 1939–1945, 85.

569 Account of Shimon Zimmerman in Meyerowitz, ed., The Scroll of Kurzeniac.

570 Account of Yitzhak Zimerman in Meyerowitz, ed., The Scroll of Kurzeniac. This account describes the heroism of a Jewish woman who would not betray her Christian benefactors: “Fayga Lea Sorrel’s [sic] was caught by the Germans in one of the searches. She was brought to the village of Sterenski [sic] where there was a German headquarters. They tortured her very severely and tried to make her admit that in the villages the Jews of the woods were getting food. The villagers watched her be [sic] tortured and were very scared. They knew that their lives were dependent on what she said. For three days they tortured her with everything, but she denied everything. She kept saying that the gentiles beat her mercilessly in the villages and they ran us out of their homes and everything that we have to eat is only from what we managed to steal from the fields or what the partisans give us. When they saw that the torture was not going to get them anywhere, the Germans started a new tactic by promising all sorts of things. They even tried to trick her by bringing her to a gentile who already confessed that he was giving food to the Jews of the woods. But she claimed right in front of the gentile that he was lying, that he was one of the cruelest villagers and that he caused many troubles to the Jews. A few days later, she died from torture. When the villagers heard that she died, they were unusually emotional. … They secretly took her body and buried it in the graveyard in Sterensky [sic] and they would go to her grave and pray as if she were a saint.”

571 Account of Jehoash Alperovitch in Meyerowitz, ed., The Scroll of Kurzeniac.

572 Account of Zalman Katz in Abram, The Light After the Dark, 21–22.

573 Alpert, The Destruction of Slonim Jewry, 342–45.

574 Zizas, Persecution of Non-Jewish Citizens of Lithuania, Murder of Civilian Populations (1941–1944), 84–86. As the author notes, these operations targeted mostly Poles.

575 Cohen, The Avengers, 119–20.

576 Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 129.

577 Report of the government in exile’s delegate for the Nowogródek district, Archiwum Akt Nowych, Warsaw, Delegatura Rządu collection, sygnatura 202/III–121, karta 244.

578 Zissman, The Warriors, 141–42.

579 This document is cited in Dean, Collaboration in the Holocaust, 146.

580 Tec, Defiance, 86.

581 Ibid., 105.

582 Sutin, Jack and Rochelle, 62, 67–68, 93–94, 95–97.

583 Account of Aida Brydbord (Chaja Czerczewska) in Brana Gurewitsch, ed., Mothers, Sisters, Resisters: Oral Histories of Women Who Survived the Holocaust (Tuscaloosa and London: The University of Alabama Press, 1998), 274. This account was originally published in the Journal of the Center for Holocaust Studies, vol. 6, no. 4 (spring 1990).

584 Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 134–35.

585 Faitelson, Heroism & Bravery in Lithuania, 1941–1945, 332–33.

586 Brysk, Amidst the Shadows of Trees, 58–59, 84. These raids occurred in the area of Lipiczany forest.

587 Home Army field reports counted 29 assaults in the region of Szczuczyn alone in the course of one month. Such assaults were said to be the partisans’ virtually sole pursuit. See Pełczyński, et al., eds., Armia Krajowa w dokumentach 1939–1945, vol. 3: 264. (The relevant report was received March 1, 1944.)

588 See Abschrift aus dem Fernschreibdienst der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 17 November 1943; Abschrift aus dem Fernschreibdienst der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 16 December 1943; Abschrift aus dem Fernschreibdienst der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 21 December 1943; Abschrift aus dem Fernschreibdienst der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 13 January 1944; Abschrift aus dem Fernschreibdienst der Sicherheitspolizei und des SD, 3 February 1944; OAM, 504–1–7, on microfilm at RG–11.001M, reel 74, United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Archives.

589 A typical Pole from Rudniki reported: “I counted 19 times that the [Soviet] partisans scoured the village looking to take something. Among them was a Jew by the name of Kuszka from Olkieniki who said, ‘Do not take lean sheep or those with lamb.’” See Andrzej Kołosowski, interview with Witold Aładowicz, “‘Bogdaniec’ z Rudnik,” Nasz Dziennik (Warsaw), January 13–14, 2001.

590 Arad, The Partisan, 118, 151.

591 Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 134, 142, 162–63.

592 Account of Israel Weiss in Baruch Kaplinsky, ed., Pinkas Hrubieshov: Memorial to a Jewish Community in Poland (Tel Aviv: Hrubieshov Associations in Israel and U.S.A., 1962), xiii. It is likely that the village referred to as being “burned down completely” was the village of Koniuchy. Both Israel Weiss and Shlomo Brand are mentioned in the list of Jewish partisans in Rudniki forest responsible for the massacre. See Kowalski, A Secret Press in Nazi Europe, 405–407.

593 Faitelson, Heroism & Bravery in Lithuania, 1941–1945, 357. Faitelson states that Zorin’s men “would go out to obtain food from areas at some distance from the camp, areas which were very poor and what they succeeded in obtaining was generally taken from them by the Russian partisans.” Ibid.

594 Duffy, The Bielski Brothers, 251.

595 Boradyn, “Stosunki Armii Krajowej z partyzantką sowiecką na Nowogródczyźnie,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 80; Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgody, 84.

596 Wertheim, “Żydowska partyzantka na Białorusi,” Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 86 (1988): 144.

597 Cohen, The Avengers, 133.

598 Boradyn, “Stosunki Armii Krajowej z partyzantką sowiecką na Nowogródczyźnie,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 80; Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgody, 83.

599 Zbigniew S. Siemaszko, “Rozmowy z kapitanem Szabunią,” Zeszyty Historyczne (Paris), no. 29 (1973): 146; and Siemaszko, “Komentarze,” Zeszyty Historyczne, no. 86 (1988): 165. See also Tec, In the Lion’s Den, 201–202; and Tec, Defiance, 73.

600 Boradyn, “Stosunki Armii Krajowej z partyzantką sowiecką na Nowogródczyźnie,” in Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1941–1945), 96–97; Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgody, 84, 98–99; Wołkonowski, Okręg Wileński Związku Walki Zbrojnej Armii Krajowej w latach 1939–1945, 190. Such conduct led to interventions by Home Army units on behalf of the beleaguered civilian population. General Platon ordered his forces to apprehend Polish partisans and to spread stories that they were German agents and traitors of the Polish people. See Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgody, 101–102.

601 The Soviet partisans executed the Jewish robbers, but Zorin returned to exact revenge on the widow, who somehow survived. See Kazimierz Bondarewicz, “Mój Kul,” in Jasiewicz, ed., Europa nieprowincjonalna, 890.

602 Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1942–1944) w świetle dokumentów sowieckich, 157; Krajewski, Na Ziemi Nowogródzkiej, 163.

603 Quoted in Jacek Hugo-Bader, “A rewolucja to przecież miała być przyjemność,” Gazeta Wyborcza, Magazyn Gazety (Warsaw), November 15, 1996. For additional confirmation in Jewish sources, see Samuel Amarant, “The Partisans’ Company of Tuvia Belski,” in Yerushalmi, ed., Navaredok Memorial Book, Internet: , 333 ff.

604 Boradyn, Niemen–rzeka niezgodzy, 81. Memoirs of Jewish partisans also make it clear that the Polish estates were a “prime target.” See, for example, Kahn, No Time To Mourn, 135.

605 Nirenstein, A Tower from the Enemy, 354. Tuvia Bielski’s account is also found in Kowalski, ed., Anthology on Armed Jewish Resistance, 1939–1945, vol. 4 (1991), 507. See also Tec, Defiance, 84.

606 Alpert, The Destruction of Slonim Jewry, 258–59.

607 Erdman, Droga do Ostrej Bramy, 238–39. Needless to say the livelihood of many totally innocent families was wiped out. Moreover, the destruction of the economic infrastructure of the locality meant that the inhabitants were now “unemployed” and thus subject to deportation to the Reich for forced labour.

608 Testimony of Joe Cameron (Yossele Hamarski), Internet: . For more on Hamarski see Eliach, There Once Was a World, 638.

609 For a comparison of the conflicting positions of the Polish and Communist underground in the Lublin region in this regard see Marek Jan Chodakiewicz, Between Nazis and Soviets: Occupation Politics in Poland, 1939–1947 (Lanham, Maryland: Lexington Books, 2004), 190–91. After negotiations with the Home Army, on June 15, 1943, the command of the Lenin Brigade adopted a resolution that estates would be burned only in exceptional circumstances, such as in the course of fighting or if German garrisons were located there. See Boradyn, ed., Armia Krajowa na Nowogródczyźnie i Wileńszczyźnie (1942–1944) w świetle dokumentów sowieckich, 25.