Revised january 30, 2009 a tangled web

Acting on Orders to Eliminate the Polish Partisans

Despite the massacre in Naliboki, at the behest of the high command of the Home Army, the Polish underground in the Nowogródek and Wilno regions continued to maintain cordial relations and cooperate with the Soviet partisans. As mentioned earlier, the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Belorussia had charted a different course for the future of those relations and, on June 22, 1943, issued the following circular to Soviet partisan commanders in the field:

In those regions that are under the influence of our partisan units and party centres do not allow activities of Polish groups formed by the reactionary nationalist circles [i.e., the Home Army]. The leaders are to be eliminated in a manner that is not noticeable. The [Polish] units are to be disbanded and their arms depots are to be appropriated or, if it is possible, take those units under your secure influence. Use them by directing them to active combat against the Germans. Regroup and break them up in an appropriate way. You should do away with their significance [as] independent military units and attach them to large [Soviet] units, after which you are to carry out quietly an appropriate cleansing of hostile elements.¹⁵⁶
The murder of Home Army Second Lieutenant Antoni Burzyński (nom de guerre “Kmicic”) and some eighty members of his unit, the so-called Polish Legion, in August 1943, is illustrative of the pattern of deceit and treachery that characterized relations with the Soviet partisans, and indeed with the Soviet Union, throughout the war and afterwards.¹⁵⁷ In June 1943, Fedor Markov, the commander of the Voroshilov Brigade, had reached an understanding with Burzyński’s fledgling detachment of 300 men, and, on the surface, relations appeared to be favourable. One of the terms agreed to was that Jews would refrain from carrying out provision-gathering raids, which often entailed brutal mistreatment of the villagers.¹⁵⁸ Indeed, such charges were mentioned frequently in reports from that period¹⁵⁹ and, as we shall see, are corroborated by Jewish sources. The Poles and their underground were ardent opponents of the German occupiers. Early in August 1943, Polish partisans staged daring assaults on German garrisons in Duniłowicze and Żodziszki.¹⁶⁰ These military operations eclipsed anything the Soviet partisans had undertaken in the area.

Markov was intent on enforcing the complete subordination of the Polish underground, however, and dispatched agents to infiltrate and secretly undermine its partisan detachments.¹⁶¹ The decisive blow came on August 26, 1943, when Burzyński together with other Polish officers were lured to the Soviet camp on the pretext of finalizing a joint assault on a German outpost in Miadziół. Not suspecting foul play, the Poles accepted the invitation. The Polish delegation was arrested and, according to some reports, Burzyński was tortured before being put to death.¹⁶² A large contingent of Soviet partisans from the Voroshilov and Rokossovsky Brigades was then dispatched to surround the Polish partisans’ camps near Lake Narocz in Narocz forest (Puszcza Naroczańska). The rest of the story can be found in a report authored by Markov himself and sent to General Ponomarenko, who had given the green light for this operation:

Tovarishch “Ber” [NKVD Major Jonas Vildžiūnas], the leader of the operational group which conducted the investigation, segregated the arrested Polish brigade into three groups. The first group, consisting of 50 men, together with the brigade leaders, was shot. The second group, consisting of 80 men, was disarmed and released. The third group, consisting of 70 men, was sent to a [Soviet-formed] partisan group headed by [Wincenty] Mroczkowski, [the so-called “Bartosz Głowacki” group]. …

Sending these people to Mroczkowski’s unit was a mistake. They should have been shot, but we were worried that it might be used against us by the Germans and Poles as propaganda about a second Katyn. …

During my absence Mroczkowski learned of the execution [of Kmicic’s men] and, for that reason, went over to the Polish nationalists taking 60 Poles with him. … The 30 remaining Poles planned to get arms from us and go over to the Polish side. We had these 30 shot. In total, we shot 80 men from the Polish legion.

Groups from the Polish legion are now openly attacking Soviet partisans, especially my brigade. …

We are using every means to liquidate the armed Polish bandit groups in the field.

1. We are sending agents to every Polish group in order to undermine them.

2. We are sending large numbers of agents (80 people) to every area where there are Polish partisans in order to learn of their movements, bases and activities and to inform headquarters.

3. We are currently distributing pamphlets informing about the situation on the front and the bandit activities of the Poles.

4. We issued an order to all our partisans to disarm any Poles who are encountered and to liquidate their leaders and members of the Polish Military Organization [i.e., Home Army].

5. We will clear the area of this vile garbage.¹⁶³

After the assault on Burzyński’s unit, Markov dispatched his men to destroy the active remnants,¹⁶⁴ murdering at least twenty members of the Polish underground network in the vicinity.¹⁶⁵ The Poles struck back at the Voroshilov Brigade on September 11, attacking near Niedroszla. The following day they destroyed a Soviet unit plundering the village of Chojeckowszczyzna.¹⁶⁶ The Soviet assault took on a distinctly etnic dimension. Rachel Margolis, a member of the Jewish underground in Wilno who arrived in the Narocz forest in September 1943, recalled that one of the senior officers in Markov’s brigade even went so far as to abuse Jewish partisans for speaking in Polish among themselves.¹⁶⁷

The massacre near Lake Narocz was not the first such incident, nor was it the last. Individual Poles connected to the underground had already been killed in 1942,¹⁶⁸ and by mid-1943 the Soviets were quietly eliminating small groups of Polish partisans and those suspected of cooperating with the Polish underground. A delegation of Polish partisans was murdered near Szczuczyn in May 1943, after accepting an invitition to attend a meeting with the Soviets.¹⁶⁹ According to secret reports filed by the Soviet partisan command, a group of nine Polish partisans (“Sikorshchiki”, i.e., Poles loyal to the Polish government in exile headed by General Władysław Sikorski) was surreptitiously liquidated near Łuniniec on May 9, 1943.¹⁷⁰ Tadeusz Korsak of the Wilejka-Mołodeczno circuit command of the Wilno District of the Home Army was abducted by the Chkalov Brigade in September 1943, and murdered after being interrogated for several weeks and refusing to become an informer.¹⁷¹ (Tadeusz Korsak’s rescue efforts on behalf of Jews is described later.) Many Poles with Home Army connections were also executed.¹⁷² Yet despite all these betrayals, not fathoming the depths of Soviet perfidy, the Polish partisan leadership still attempted to come to an understanding with the Soviet partisans.¹⁷³ However, cease-fires were broken repeatedly by the Soviet side.

On the surface, relations between the Polish and Soviet partisans in the area of Naliboki forest also appeared to be proper and promising. Although they had agreed to a joint escape strategy during Operation Hermann, which was unleashed by the Germans in Naliboki forest in July and August 1943, this did not prevent the Soviets from skirting any military engagement with the Germans and leaving the Poles in the lurch to fend for themselves. The Poles suffered more than a hundred casualties.¹⁷⁴ The leaders of Stołpce Concentration (Zgrupowanie Stołpeckie) of the Home Army, under the command of Major Wacław Pełka (“Wacław”),¹⁷⁵ still had no qualms about accepting an invitation to meet with General Dubov (Grigorii Sidoruk) at the Soviet base, on December 1, 1943, not suspecting what lay in store for them.

The Soviet plan of action had been approved at the highest level and was carefully and stealthily executed. Permission to carry out this operation had been sought on November 4, 1943, by General Platon, who headed the Soviet partisan high command in “Western Belorussia”, and was granted on November 14, 1943, by General Ponomarenko, the first secretary of the Belorussian Communist Party and chief of general staff of the partisan movement.¹⁷⁶ General Platon had claimed falsely that the Poles did not want to fight the Germans, and that Polish partisans were terrorizing the local population and attacking small groups of Soviet partisans.¹⁷⁷ On November 22, 1943, General Ponomarenko sent a report to Stalin proposing a change of strategy from isolated altercations to a full-scale assault on the Polish underground in order to “destroy” hostile Polish partisans active in “Western Belorussia,” to “discredit, disarm and scatter” those who allegedly adopted a wait-and-see attitude (toward the Germans), and to “liquidate” their leadership.¹⁷⁸

Around the same time, the Home Army Command took a position diametrically opposed to that of the Soviets’. On November 20, 1943 General Tadeusz Komorowski (“Bór”), the commander in chief of the Home Army, issued his Order 1300/III, which contained a basic outline of Operation Tempest (“Burza”). He instructed the field to cooperate with the Soviet forces, to welcome them as “allies of allies” and to stress their partnership in the common fight against Nazi Germany. Much latitude was left to the judgment of local commaders.
I have ordered the commanders and units which are to participate in fighting the retreating Germans to reveal themselves to in-coming Russians. Their task at this stage will be to assert the existence of the Polish Republic. …

All our war preparations are aimed at arned action against the Germans. In no circumstances can they result in armed action against the [Soviets] who are entering our territories in hot pursuit of the Germans … The exception is in essential acts of self-defence, which is the right of every human being.¹⁷⁹

Thus, confontations with Soviet partisans were to be avoided and Polish partisan formations which, because of past altercations, could not ensure proper relations with Soviet partisans were to be removed.¹⁸⁰ General Komorowski reiterated these instructions on January 8, 1944, and continued to urge cooperation with the Soviet partisans even after the events described below unfolded.¹⁸¹

After surrounding and disarming the Polish delegation, consisting of about 25 men, on their way to the Soviet base on December 1, 1943 (this was done by a unit led by Major Rafail Vasilevich), the Soviets struck what they hoped would be a final blow to the Polish partisans. Surprise attacks by the Stalin and Frunze Brigades were launched on the Polish partisan base in Drewiczna on Lake Kromań, where Miłaszewski’s unit was stationed (by then it had been transformed into a full-fledged Home Army battalion), and on another Polish partisan camp in Derewno (or Derewna). Caught off guard, some 230 Poles were “disarmed.” Anyone showing the least resistance was shot on the spot, in accordance with Soviet orders. The Polish camps were thoroughly plundered by the undisciplined Soviet partisans.¹⁸² According to Soviet reports, ten Polish partisans were killed and eight injured in the ensuing melee in Derewno, in which one Soviet partisan was also wounded. Anti-Soviet elements were, according to orders from General Platon, to be “executed quietly, so that no one would know.”¹⁸³ After a month-long interrogation, which resulted in death sentences being passed against them, five captured Polish underground leaders (including Miłaszewski and Pełka) were transported by plane to Moscow and interned in the Lubianka prison, where some of them perished; the remaining partisan leaders were executed locally.¹⁸⁴ Some Polish partisans were released after signing “declarations of loyalty.” The remaining captured Polish partisans (about 135) were inducted into Soviet partisan units. More than thirty of them (and perhaps as many as 50) were executed when they attempted to “desert.”¹⁸⁵ In actual fact, many of them were executed surreptitiously. (This is confirmed by Oswald Rufeisen, whose account is cited later.)

After this assault, the Soviet partisans embarked on a wide-scale “cleansing” operation directed at family members and supporters of the Home Army in the area.¹⁸⁶ Entire families were murdered, their propery was plundered, and hamlets such as Babińsk, Izabelin, Olszaniec, and Szczepki were burned to the ground.¹⁸⁷ As could be expected, Polish retaliations followed.¹⁸⁸ From that point, there was open war between the Soviet and Polish partisans in the Nowogródek district—one that the Soviets had brought into being. Surprisingly, even after this juncture, the Polish partisan leadership attempted to negotiate a modus vivendi with the Soviets but were repeatedly rebuffed.¹⁸⁹ It was abundantly clear that no independent partisan units would be tolerated.

The following eyewitness account by Lieutenant Adolf Pilch (“Góra”), penned not long after the war, describes vividly how the disarming unfolded, its prelude, and its impact on the Polish partisans in that region.

Our relations with the Soviets deteriorated sharply after the 11^th November 1943. That day our units went to Mass in Derewno [or Derewna], and held a ceremonial parade there to celebrate Independence Day. A great number of people from Derewno and the surrounding country came to take part in the proceedings, and although we had great fears of German intervention, they did not materialise, and everything went off as arranged. The Soviets were very far from pleased with this observance of our National Day, and what angered them most was the speech of the Home Army Regional Commander, Second Lieutenant Swir [Aleksander Warakomski (“Świr”)], who stressed that Poland was indivisible and that the nation would not allow any bargaining over the Republic’s territory.

From that time, open talk among the Soviets that we were Fascists and reactionaries became current, and spying on, and in, our units was intensified. In that same month the commander of our cavalry squadron was approached with the proposition that he should take his detachment over to the Soviets. Warrant Officer Noc [Zdzisław Nurkiewicz (“Noc”)], who was promised the rank of a Soviet major, refused indignantly, saying that he would rather spend his life cleaning the boots of a Polish major than become a Soviet one.

A few days later, his deputy, Sergeant Dab [Jan Jakubowski (“Dąb”)], was approached with the same proposition, though with a very stylish addition, that he was to shoot his commander first. He was to receive the rank of captain. His reaction was similar to that of Warrant Officer Noc. Well before that, in October, a new officer had arrived to join our unit. He was Major “Waclaw” [Wacław Pełka], and in the first days of November he assumed command of the battalion. I then became second-in-command. Lieutenants Klin [Julian Bobrownicki (“Klin”)] and Zator [Maciej Rzewuski (“Zator”)], as well as Officer-Cadet Junosza, arrived with Waclaw. On 27^th November, about a fortnight after the change of command, Waclaw and a few more officers received an invitation, signed by Dubow [General Dubov], from the Command of the United Soviet Brigades of the Iwieniec region, asking them to come to a war council to be held on the 30^th of the month. As almost all those officers were away with various widely scattered detachments and outposts, and it was not possible to get them back at short notice, we sent a despatch rider with a message that our officers would arrive on 1^st December 1943 at noon.

The officers designated for the talks arrived on the evening of the 30^th. They were Lieutenants Lewald [Kacper Miłaszewski (“Lewald”)], Ikwa [Ezechiel Łoś (“Ikwa”)], and Waldan [Walenty Parchimowicz (“Waldan”)]. They had not the least desire to go, and only consented to accompany the commander after the latter expressed a wish not far removed from a command. Eleven men from the cavalry squadron were to provide the escort.

The party was to leave at 6 a.m. on 1^st December.

I woke up very early that morning. Hearing people move about outside, I began dressing in the darkness. I was almost ready when the major popped his head in through the door. “Are you up?” he asked. I answered that I was just coming out. When I came out the officers were ready; Waclaw swung himself into the saddle, and they rode off.

I remained outside and watched them disappear down the narrow path through the forest. A moment later I could only hear the sound of ice breaking under the horses’ hooves. …

The quartermaster, Lieutenant Ludek [Ludwik Wierszyłowski (“Ludek”)], came out of my hut, where he had been looking for me. He had prepared breakfast for those who had just gone, and had been up before me. Now he came to ask me to come to breakfast. We went into his hut. We had hardly finished our coffee and a slice of black bread, when the officer on duty, Officer-Cadet Mita, came in and reported that a Soviet patrol of five men on horseback had just arrived and requested to see someone in authority. I said that I would come out; but I was in no hurry. It was less dark when I came out. I started looking for the Soviet patrol and couldn’t see it anywhere, so I just stood and watched the camp around me,

All the men were still asleep, that is, the eighty of them that were in camp at that time. The second company had its camp about a mile away, while the first company, almost the entire cavalry squadron, and a few more patrols—altogether about two hundred and fifty men—were away on various duties out in the country.

I turned around suddenly with a strange presentiment.

Three men were walking towards me along the path up which our officers had gone half an hour before. It was not light enough to see their faces, and only when I heard Major Wasiliewicz’s [Rafail Vasilevich, the leader of the May 8, 1943 assault on the town of Naliboki—M.P.] voice did I realise that they were Russians.

“Well now, you, assemble your units for us!”

Lewald [Miłaszewski], unarmed and without his belt, his fur jerkin unbuttoned, stood between Wasiliewicz, who was armed with a sub-machine-gun, and another man similarly armed, both their weapons at the ready. It was to Lewald that Wasiliewicz had spoken.

At once I understood everything. Already, the sound of many footsteps in the snow was heard from the path, and several dense ranks of men, all with automatic weapons, emerged into the clearing. “That’s probably the N.K.V.D.,” I thought to myself. Just at that moment Janek Orlina, the chief clerk of the battalion’s office, passed me a little way off. I called to him to run to Lieutenant Grom’s [Lech Rydzewski (“Grom”)] company to report that the officers invited to the war council had been disarmed and that the Soviets were already in the camp,

Meanwhile, Lewald was explaining something to Wasiliewicz, but the creaking of the snow drowned their voices. I stood behind a bush, unnoticed by anybody: then, somehow, quite automatically, I followed Orlina to Grom’s company. A few minutes later, a little before seven, we were in their camp. In a short time everybody was ready.

I gathered the officers and explained the situation to them. As I saw two alternatives before us, I asked for their answers to two questions; were we to attempt to liberate our comrades in the camp that had been overpowered, or were we to profit from our freedom and escape from the forest alone? With one accord they all opted for the march on the occupied camp.

For a fortnight, we had been playing hosts to a small Partisan unit from the Vilna [Wilno] district, who had already built themselves two huts. There were only about twenty of them, but they were ready for anything and everything, and had had quite a useful experience.

I decided that our guests, who had volunteered to join us, should attack the camp from the right, and the rest of the company, about seventy men, rather young and not yet well co-ordinated, from the left. We were to go into action at an agreed upon time, or at the first shots. I went out with our boys, right on ahead, with the advance guard. When we were halfway to the camp, we already had Soviet units in our rear, but we carried on just the same.

We got near enough to see a part of the camp between the branches. Our comrades were standing, unarmed, in three ranks in the small clearing. In front of them stood a row of Soviet Partisans with sub-machine-guns at the ready, and a machine-gun, trained on them, stood at each flank.

We had been noticed, and someone shouted that at the first shot from us they would open fire on our comrades.

In the face of this threat I could not bring myself to start the engagement. I left my companions and walked to the camp.

I soon reached the hut which was our headquarters, and looked round me. Our camp was a sight: I had never seen so many people there. The Soviets were plundering everywhere, looking for papers, documents, gold and treasures, but most of all, watches. They pulled legs out of the walls and tore out door and window frames. The place was crawling with them, every one of them looking for something to grab and steal. There seemed to be no one in authority. The only place where there was order was among those guarding our men. I stood at the side with a few of our officers: it didn’t seem as if we were being watched. I turned to the Regional Commander, Swir, whom ill luck had brought to us on a visit the day before.

“You must get away.” “Yes, but how?” At the moment a few shots rang out from the direction whence the party of Partisans from Vilna was supposed to approach. The three ranks of men flattened themselves on the ground, while their guards fired a few bursts over their heads.

Behind the barracks, Lieutenant Grom was struggling valiantly not to be disarmed, but finally he was brutally overwhelmed, and succumbed.

I estimated the number of Soviets in our camp at about one thousand five hundred [an overestimate—M.P.], but this wasn’t the lot, as a considerable number were posed outside as cover and sentries.

Among the Soviets I recognised our former “friends”, together with Marusia, the wife of the commander of the Frunze Brigade. They had often been our visitors and guests, though they must have been preparing this attack for quite some time. Two of our own men, Private Wankowicz [Wańkowicz] and Lance Corporal [Antoni] Tararaj, were conspicuous among the Soviets; they were both armed. We had suspected them for a long time, but had no clear proof that they were working for the Soviets. Fortune, however, is a capricious lady. A few weeks later Tararaj fell into our hands.¹⁹⁰

Now and again there were single shots from the forest; those were our guests from Vilna giving signs of life.

Major Wasiliewicz came out before the men on the ground, told them to get up, and added whether anyone would go and tell those sons of bitches in the wood that there was no sense in further fighting, and ask them to surrender.

The three ranks stood in dead silence for a long while, then Przywara [Tadeusz Maszewski (“Przywara”) came forward, followed by Corporal Zbik [Żbik]. As they passed me, on an impulse I joined in and walked on between the two of them. Fortunately no one took any notice of this, as there were swarms of soldiers milling around everywhere. Only at the brook, still inside the camp, we were stopped by a slant-eyed creature, probably a sentry. Przywara had to use all his eloquence to explain our mission to him, producing a dirty handkerchief tied on a stick as evidence. We were stopped a few more times after that; at one of these checks the Soviet sentry was curious to know why I was still armed, but Przywara managed to explain that, too.

In the first clearing we came to we found one of the boys from Vilna, who was wounded. Zbik stayed with him and Przywara and I went on. Finally we reached our men. Lieutenant Adam, the second-in-command of the detachment, was wounded in the leg.

No one, of course, thought of surrendering. Straight away we started on our way out of the woods. As was to be expected, all the roads out of the forest were well guarded, and our march was rendered even more difficult. It took us seven hours to cross less than three miles of swamp. We took turns to carry Adam.

I walked first, holding a thick and long stick in my hand. The bog was covered by a layer of ice about an inch and a half thick, which gave way under our feet. With every step there was the illusion that the ice would hold, and with every step there was the disappointment when one’s feet plunged into the icy much underneath. We got stuck up to a little above our knees on the average, but at one time I was plunged up to my armpits, and my companions only just managed to pull me out. Every fifty steps we stopped for a short rest. As we got more and more tired the distance between rests was reduced to twenty steps, and then to ten.

With the exception of myself no one had eaten anything that day. Our clothing, soaked in the mud, kept freezing. Whenever we stopped, we found after a minute that we could not bend our legs, as our trousers and underclothes had frozen solid. A sweetish stench exuded from the bog and made me feel thoroughly sick. It was particularly obnoxious near streams and small rivulet. Dead tired myself, I admired the untiring energy with which our nurse Irka tended Adam’s wounds every time we stopped. It was getting dark as we got to the end of the swamp: what a joy it was to put one’s feet on really firm ground! But although the ground was easier, we walked even more slowly. We had come out of the swamp with hardly anything left of our boot, and with our clothing torn to shreds. We could not follow the roads or paths as they were all held by the Soviets, and we had to force our way through the undergrowth. Fortunately, while crossing a strip of young saplings, we came upon some huts and shanties where a handful of people from the burned-out belt [i.e., the area cleared by the Germans in the summer of 1943 during Operation Hermann—M.P.] had made their homes. These people, who up to a short time before had lived in their own houses on their own land, now lived in indescribable misery, but nevertheless they shared with us all they had.

It wasn’t until I’d had a rest and swallowed a few potatoes and some spoonfuls of soup that I felt myself going to pieces. Physically I had reached the limit of my endurance, and my mental state was even worse than my physical. I thought of all my comrades taken prisoner, and wondered whether they were still alive.

Before midnight we got to the first houses beyond the burned belt, in a village called Brodek. There we learned of the tragic fate which had befallen our first company, stationed at Derewno. That morning they had been treacherously attacked by one of the Soviet brigades; and after some of our men had taken to arms, ten of them were put against the wall and shot. The few who were wounded were finished off, but not before they had been hideously tortured. Some were kicked to death, others had their fingers and ears cut off. The rest, with Lieutenant Jar [Jarosław Gąsiewski (“Jar”)], were taken to the forest under escort.

A few days later we came upon Warrant Officer Noc, who had been out on a patrol with his squadron, collecting those who had escaped from the Soviets.

The first news began to reach us from the forest. Frolow [Frolov], a Soviet citizen married to a Polish girl, who had earlier refused to join the Soviets and had remained with us, had been hanged. The brothers Skrodzki had been killed in an appalling fashion. Their ears, cut off while they were still alive, were fried, and men were forced to eat this “dish”. It sickens me to write about such things, but they cannot be passed over in silence.

In the spring, after the snows had melted, half-decomposed bodies were often found in and around the forest, and families and friends recognised them for those of their dear ones. According to unconfirmed reports half of our officers had been shot somewhere in the centre of the forest.

And this was only 1^st December 1943. The front line was till some five hundred miles to the east, while here the fight was being waged, not against the Germans—no, they were not touched—but against the owners of the country, whose only fault was that they were Poles. And at the same time [the Polish authorities in] London instructed by radio: “Units of the Home Army are to reveal themselves to the Soviet front-line commanders.”

After the lesson I received that fateful day I no longer bothered to obey these instructions, and I know that I thereby earned the gratitude of the men under my command, who, being on the spot, had a better opportunity of correctly assessing the situation than had the statesmen in London.¹⁹¹

After the attack on the Stołpce Concentration (which included Miłaszewski’s unit), there was a state open hostility between the Polish and Soviet partisans,¹⁹² despite contacts at high levels and attempts to coordinate joint actions against the German forces.¹⁹³ The Soviet partisans mounted formidable assaults on the poorly armed Polish partisans,¹⁹⁴ targeting especially those units that had emerged from the remnants of the disarmed Polish partisans, namely the Fifth Brigade of the 14^th Home Army Division under the command of Captain Zygmunt Szendzielarz (nom de guerre “Łupaszko”—“Lupashka” in Soviet documents) and a detachment of the Stołpce Concentration under the command of Major Adolf Pilch (nom de guerre “Góra”).¹⁹⁵ As historian Michał Gnatowski points out, in the majority of cases it was the Soviet side that was the aggressor; Poles engaged in sporadic retaliatory operations and shot back when fired at by Soviet partisans in chance encounters.¹⁹⁶ The net outcome was that this new battle front created by the Soviets undermined the effectiveness of the Polish underground struggle against the Germans. Having created this state of events, Soviet propaganda then exploited the situation by blaming the Polish underground and tarring them as Nazi collaborators. The effects of this propaganda linger to this day in historical writings, both post-Soviet and Western.

Aware of the fate of ill-equipped Polish partisans who were being hunted down ruthlessly by Soviet partisans, the Germans attempted to turn this to their advantage. The German gendarmerie in Iwieniec proposed a local cease-fire on December 9, 1943, in exchange for arms, without attaching any conditions. The effect of this informal arrangement allowed Poles to defend themselves from relentless Soviet attacks. On occasion, the Germans left supplies of arms at poorly defended outposts which were captured by the Poles. (Poles also acquired weapons from other sources, both on black market and from individual German soldiers, since they did not receive supplies from the high command of the Home Army.) The arrangement benefitted the Germans because fighting between the Soviet and Polish partisans meant that they were less likely to attack German outposts. However, the Polish partisans never subordinated themselves to the Germans, nor did they join in German operations against Soviet partisans.¹⁹⁷ Moreover, as German reports make clear, not all Polish units participated in these dealings. Polish partisans continued to carry out attacks on German garrisons,¹⁹⁸ and indeed they were more frequent than those carried out by the Soviet partisans. These dealings with the Germans were strongly condemned by the district and high command of the Home Army who did not fully appreciate the predicament of the Home Army in the Nowogródek region. This even led to a death sentence being passed against a local Home Army leader, which fortunately was not carried out.¹⁹⁹

That individual units of the Polish underground occasionally accepted such German overtures (as did Soviet and Jewish partisans, for that matter²⁰⁰) should not be surprising given the repeated acts of treachery on the part of the Soviets. It is important to note, however, that such informal dealings were not broad-based but merely local in nature and were undertaken in response to Soviet aggression. They constituted a purely tactical and short-term strategy entered into for self-preservation and provided the Polish underground with an opportunity to rebuild its strength. Polish forces were subsequently directed at both the Germans and the Soviets. It did not turn the Poles into political or ideological allies of the Nazis, nor did it signify the type of collaboration that the Soviets engaged in from 1939 to 1941 and continued to be guilty of throughout much of the war.²⁰¹

In mid–December 1943, two weeks after the assault on the Stołpce Concentration, Andrzej Kutzner’s unit, stationed in the village of Duszkowo near Raków, was attacked by Soviet partisans and suffered heavy losses. On February 2, 1944, after a pitched battle with the Germans in Worziany that resulted in scores of casualties, the Fifth Brigade of the 14^th Home Army Division under the command of Zygmunt Szendzielarz (“Łupaszko”) was attacked by the combined forces of the Gastello, Voroshilov and Rokossovsky Brigades near the village of Radziusze.²⁰² This attack, which is described in more detail later, occurred the day after the Poles had been invited to a meeting with the Soviet leadership.²⁰³ Dismayed by their unsuccessful assault on the Polish forces, the Soviet partisans vowed to wipe out the families of Home Army members²⁰⁴ and took to “pacifying” scores of Polish villages suspected of supporting the Home Army.²⁰⁵ Polish historian Michał Gnatowski has argued compellingly that the principal goal of the Soviet partisans was not to fight the Germans, but to to seize control of the territory and eliminate the Polish underground.²⁰⁶

It is an open question to what extent the conduct of the Soviet and Jewish partisans in this region impacted on relations between Poles and Soviet and Jewish partisans in other parts Poland. News of the assaults on Polish partisans in northeastern Poland soon spread to central Poland and further soured Polish-Soviet (as well as Polish-Jewish) relations.²⁰⁷ How do the Jews who served with the Soviet partisans see these same events? Their testimonies follow the overview of Jewish historiography on this topic.
Jewish Historiography

According to the traditional mainstream, which is generally oblivious to the fate of the Poles and has difficulty in distancing itself from Soviet wartime propaganda, the Poles were squarely responsible for the bad relations with the Soviet partisans and especially targeted Jews. Whether because of the actions of the local command or following “orders” allegedly received from the Polish government in exile, it was the Polish partisans who reputedly provoked the quarrel with the Soviets.

Without offering any evidence of the existence of such an order, Shalom Cholawski, a former partisan turned historian, claims in typical fashion:
In the beginning of September 1943, Polish units received orders to hit Russian and Jewish partisan units. We were now waging war against the Poles and the Germans, and it was not long before fighters in our brigade had an encounter with the new enemy. Harkavi and his group, while on an operation [most likely an “economic” one—M.P.] in the Naliboki region, were attacked by a band of armed Poles. … The news of the battle and the Polish betrayal spread quickly through the Naliboki forests.²⁰⁸
The assessment proffered by Israeli historian Dov Levin, also a former partisan, is rather similar:
As the front approached Lithuania, the hostile activity of the Polish underground forces, which were connected with the Polish government-in-exile in London and were known as the AK (Armia Krajowa), increased sharply. In that area, the AK was nicknamed “White Poles,” and one of their aims was to take control of the Vilna area [i.e., the prewar Polish province of Wilno—M.P.] after the Germans’ retreat, in order to create a situation that would facilitate de facto the Polish annexation [sic] of the area after the war. Despite attempts to negotiate [sic] with them, the Poles in eastern Lithuania became dangerous and cruel adversaries of Soviet partisans in general, and of the Jews among them in particular.²⁰⁹
Shmuel Krakowski, a specialist on partisan affairs at Yad Vashem, takes an even more strident view, purveying baseless claims that are in keeping with the crudest form of Soviet wartime propaganda.
The main Polish underground forces, subordinated to the Delegatura [i.e., the civilian administration of the Home Delegate of the Polish government in exile—M.P.] and supported by the right-wing groups [i.e., virtually everyone but the Communist fringe], strove to ensure the reestablishment of Poland in its prewar eastern frontiers. To reach this goal, a bitter struggle was launched against Soviet partisans in the east …²¹⁰
Other academics simply attribute the problem to endemic Polish anti-Semitism.

Leonid Smilovitsky, an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, belongs to the new wave of Israeli historians who maintain that the lack of access to Soviet archives did not enable scholars in the West to write objectively about what transpired in “Western Belorussia.” He therefore undertook a scientific study to accomplish this long overdue task. However, the conclusions he arrives at do not differ substantially from the ones noted above. In his view, the Poles were clearly the culprits and responsible for the worsening relations between the Soviet and Polish partisans. Smilovitsky ignores pivotal events such the massacre of some 130 Poles in Naliboki in May 1943. He attributes the hostilities in the area to the actions of the Polish government in exile who, allegedly, unilaterally declared the USSR to be the enemy of Poland after the breakdown in diplomatic relations between the two countries in the wake of the discovery of the mass graves of Polish officers in Katyn. Without providing any meaningful chronolgy, Smilovitsky alleges that Polish partisans “terrorized” the civilian population, attacked Soviet partisans and perpetrated “atrocities” against them, and, as begets vicious anti-Semites, they methodically murdered Jews. In fact, it was Stalin who broke off diplomatic relations with the Polish government in exile in April 1943. Henceforth, Soviet partisan propaganda dubbed the Polish prime minister General Władysław Sikorski’s policy as “criminal and hostile to the people.” According to a propaganda directive, one was to talk “about Polish Legionaries [the Home Army] as the protégés of the Gestapo.” The language of propaganda pervaded the military correspondence as well. Soviet commander wrote about “the archenemy of our Fatherland: the German occupiers and their Polish lackeys.” Polish guerrilla groups were described as “hostile toward Soviet power” and including “notorious fascists.” A top secret order of May 1943 proclaimed: “Poles fighting against the [Soviet] partisans are German agents and enemies of the Polish people.” On June 23, 1943, the Soviet partisan leadership authorized denouncing the Polish underground to the Nazis. Later, orders went out to “shoot the [Polish] leaders” and “discredit, disarm, and dissolve” theur units. On December 5, 1943, it was resolved that “the [NKVD] Chkalov Brigade should commence the cleansing of the area from the White Polish bands … The band, especially policemen, landlords, and settlers, are to be shot. But no one is allowed to learn about this.”²¹¹ Feigning friendship, the Soviets lured at least two sizable Polish partisan detachments to their destruction. At first the Poles sought reconciliation. Later, they fought back. By fall 1943, a full-fledged local Soviet-Polish war raged in the northeastern Borderlands.

In a display of unseemly chauvinism unworthy of a serious scholar, Smilovitsky claims that the Soviet partisans simply “borrowed the fighting methods of their enemy.” While acknowledging in passing the “disarming” of Polish partisans of Burzyński and Miłaszewski, Smilovitsky does not bother to mention that the Soviets actually murdered scores of those whom they “disarmed” and situates these events out of context, as justified retaliation. He accuses the “extremist” High Command of the Home Army and its local representatives of cooperating with the Nazis against the Soviets (the Germans’ erstwhile allies). He charges the Polish underground with displaying “great cruelty” toward the civilian population suspected of sympathizing with the Soviet partisans. According to Smilovitsky, when the Polish side finally came to its senses and expressed an intention “to abandon confrontation and to move toward interaction” with the Soviet partisans, it was too late. Needless to add, “Anti-Semitism was widespread among the fighters of Armia Krajowa and of the grouping National Armed Forces,” even though the latter were not active in this area. According to Smilovitsky’s simplistic narrative, “Jews were regarded as a ‘pro-Soviet element’—they were persecuted and killed.”²¹²

If that was the entire story, however, one would be hard-pressed to account for rescue efforts on behalf of Jews undertaken by members of the Polish underground. The following biographies simply do not fit the stereotypical mould pushed by Holocaust historians. The Perewoski family from Wilno took refuge in an area located between the towns of Gródek (or Horodek) and Radoszkowice, near the prewar Polish-Soviet border. A number of Poles who were declared to be Righteous Gentiles by Yad Vashem, including Home Army members and the local priest, came to their assistance. One of them, Tadeusz Korsak, an organizer and senior member of the Polish underground, was executed by the Chkalov Brigade on October 8, 1943.²¹³

In June 1941 the Germans entered Vilna [Wilno], and the Perewoski family was sent to live inside the ghetto. The father, Shmuel Perewoski, who had been assigned to forced labor in the HKP camp, feared for his family’s safety, and decided to act. He contacted Tadeusz Korsak, a Pole with whom he had once worked, and managed to bring his family to him, with the help of a Polish nanny who had lived with them before the war. The first to be smuggled out was Shmuel’s 6-year-old son Eliyahu [Eli Levin Parovsky, later called Leszek], followed by his wife, Dora, and their baby girl, Tzelina [Celina]. The three of them hid in a basement in the city. Tadeusz then hid Dora and the children in a wagon filled with hay and brought them to the family farm in the village of Balcer [Balcery], near Minsk (today Belarus). Shmuel came to Balcer later on. The Perewoskis hid in the Korsak’s home for close to a year, during which time Eliyahu became the local priest’s assistant [i.e., probably an altar boy to Rev. Edward Murończyk, the pastor of Dubrowy, who was killed by Soviet partisans in October 1942], and sang in the church choir. In early 1943, Shmuel, Dora and Eliyahu left the Korsaks and moved to the neighboring village, where they continued to receive assistance from the Korsak family, who helped them to obtain false papers and food, and to find hiding places. In mid 1943, Shmuel was brutally murdered by Communist partisans. Dora and Eliyahu fled and joined the Polish partisans, where Dora helped out with different jobs, and Eliyahu was a shepherd. Tzelina stayed at the Korsaks until Tadeusz and his two daughters were murdered [by Soviet partisans]. Tadeusz’s wife Wladyslawa [Władysława] escaped with Tzelina, and they found refuge with relatives—Jan and Maria Michalowski [Michałowski] from the village of Jerozolimka [near Wilno]. Jan and Maria had 5 children of their own, but they took Tzelina in, and gave her a place to stay until the end of the war. The Michalowskis looked after Tzelina with love and devotion, and after the war gave her back to her mother, who came looking for her.²¹⁴
The fate of Teresa Dołęga-Wrzosek, a native of Warsaw who lived in Stołowicze during the occupation, is equally telling. Dołęga-Wrzoszek was a liaison officer for the Home Army who carried messages between Home Army units stationed in Naliboki forest and the Soviet partisans. Before the liquidation of the ghetto in Stołowicze she was entrusted with the care of a Jewish boy named Rysiek, whose parents also hailed from Warsaw. Dołęga-Wrzoszek also took in a Jewish girl named Zita who was hidden in a barn, but her presence was detected and Zita was executed by an SS-man who came for her with two Belorussian policemen. Miraculously, Dołęga-Wrzosek was spared when her young daughter threw herself on her mother to protect her from being shot. Young Rysiek survived the ordeal, hidden in the family house. He was joined by an abandoned, several-months-old Jewish baby who was found in a field. This child also survived the war. Dołęga-Wroszek was recognized posthumously as a Righteous Gentile by Yad Vashem. She too fell afoul of the Soviet partisans, as had Tadeusz Korsak and many other Poles. They denounced her to the Germans in March 1944. She was arrested with six other Home Army members and imprisoned in Kołdyszewo where she was tortured to disclose her underground network. Because the Germans were then in retreat, she managed to survive, only to be rearrested by the NKVD for allegedly collaborating with the Germans. After being interrogated for several months she was released in a very poor state of health and died soon after.²¹⁵

The memoirs of Pola Wawer (née Komaj), a Jewish doctor from Wilno, also attest to extensive assistance from many Poles, including members of the Home Army, in the Wilno area where she and her mother survived the war. While residing in Szyrwinty (Širvintos) with Emilia and Wojciech Pogorzelski, who were both doctors and active in the Home Army, protection was extended to her by Franciszek Burdynowski, the Home Army organizer in the Wiłkomierz (Ukmergė) region. Her principal benefactors, the Pogorzelskis, were honoured by Yad Vashem.²¹⁶ Another local Home Army Commmander who sheltered and protected Jews was Bronisław Krzyżanowski. He too was recognized as a Righteous Gentile,²¹⁷ as was Helena Sztutkowska of Wilno, a lawyer and active member of the Home Army who used her contacts to obtain false documents and shelters for Jews in the countryside.²¹⁸

Emanuela and Stanisław Cunge, natives of Łódź who took refuge in Wilno at the beginning of the war and converted to Catholicism, passed as Poles in the vicinity of Żodziszki near Smorgonie. They mixed in the company of many friendly and helpful Polish and Belorussian landowners, professionals and Catholic priests who were supporters of the Home Army. Although some of these people knew of their Jewish background and others suspected it, the Cunges did not encounter any anti-Semitism. When friends of theirs, the Holcmans, who were sheltered by Polish landowners near Oszmiana, were denounced to the Germans, the Home Army passed a death sentence on the denouncer and executed him. Emanuela Cunge’s life was also threatened, though not by Poles but by Soviet partisans who robbed and set fire to the estate of the Mierzejewski family in Ruskie Sioło where she was staying with her son. After murdering the Polish landlord and a Soviet prisoner of war who worked there, the partisans wanted to kill Emanuela Cunge, whom they mistook for the landlord’s wife who happened to be away, and her young son. After pleading with her assailant, she and her child were spared (the partisan fired his gun into the air to avoid the suspicion of his fellow partisans, among them a woman) but were left in the burning manor and narrowly escaped death. Soviet partisans also robbed an estate in nearby Tupalszczyzna where Emanuela Cunge was to relocate, killing Hilary Głuszka. Cunge mentions the daring and successful Home Army assault on the German gendarmes and Belorussian police in Żodziszki and confirms that Belorussians of the Orthodox faith who sheltered her willingly joined the Polish Home Army.²¹⁹

Indeed, if one were to rely—as most Holocaust historians do—exclusively on Jewish anecdotal literature such as the accounts set out below, which are highly selective and succumb to denial, one would be left with a terribly skewed picture of Polish-Jewish relations.

At first, recalled Jacob Greenstein, AK [Armia Krajowa] partisans in the Naliboki Forest were willing to work side by side with Jewish and Soviet fighters. Then, in December, 1943, the Poles received an order from London “to get rid of the Red partisans, especially the Jews.”²²⁰
The Polish partisans were all the time our allies until the Soviets started winning and moving towards the former Polish borders. They didn’t want them on their land, knowing, from experience, once they stepped in they would seldom leave. Well, they decided, first of all, to wage a war against the Jewish partisans. What else? Logical, wasn’t it?²²¹
Soon we were faced with a plague of White Poles,—that was the worst of all the plagues. They announced total war and destruction on the Bolshevik and Soviet partisans and upon all Jews. A Jew who fell into the hands of the White Poles never lived to tell about it …

The White Poles were very well armed. Their ammunition came by plane from abroad [sic]. Behind them were the English in London. … All the Poles were on their side and among the Byelorussians (White Russians) there were farmers who prefarred [sic] Poles to Russians.²²²

Even more analytical Holocaust scholarship does not depart markedly from the accepted schema. American sociologist Nechama Tec, for example, repeats the standard cliché that Polish partisans in this area received orders to wage war on Soviet and Jewish partisans. Specifically, she lays blame on a group of officers, some of whom were allegedly Fascists, sent by the Polish government in exile “with instructions to undermine and contain the Soviet power in this area,” for “disturb[ing] the existing Polish-Russian equilibrium.” She alleges, without offering proof, that Polish partisans roamed the countryside attacking Jews: “White Poles were using Jews as shooting targets.”²²³ These charges have found their way into works of non-Jewish historians who rely on Jewish sources uncritically, with scant, if any, regard for Polish and Soviet sources.²²⁴

This interpretation simply overlooks a mass of crucial evidence to the contrary and treats Soviet wartime policies with respect to the Poles as being “neutral,” or even “defensive.”²²⁵ Indeed, it is surprising that such views, which are premised on the “benign intentions” of the authors of the Gulag and Katyn, are still being put forward by historians (and others), to the detriment of the Poles, long after Stalin’s sinister ways have been amply exposed. As British historian Norman Davies argues compellingly,

One has to remember that the Soviet Union under Stalin had adopted a stance of extreme, formalized hostility towards everything outside its borders or beyond its control. Unless instructed otherwise, all Soviet organizations routinely treated all foreigners, including pro-Communist sympathizers, as suspects or enemies. They routinely arrested and eliminated any Soviet citizens, including prisoners of war, who had been abroad without permission or had been in unauthorized contact with non-Soviet persons. In this state of affairs, which was well known to the USSR’s neighbours, there was no possibility whatsoever that the Polish Underground could have reached a modus vivendi with the Soviet Army of its own accord.²²⁶
Jewish Partisans Join in Soviet Operations Against Polish Partisans

What was the role of Jewish partisans in these pivotal actions? The truth of the matter is that Jews in the Soviet partisan movement collaborated in the planned destruction of the Home Army. Indeed, a compelling argument could be made that it was the Jewish partisans who first declared war on the Polish partisans.

There is no question that Jewish partisans took part in unprovoked, murderous attacks on Polish partisans, at a time when there the latter were not involved in hostlities directed against either the Soviets or the Jews. The following rather laconic description of the “disarming” of Burzyński’s unit near Lake Narocz in August 1943 was penned by Shalom Yoran (then Selim Sznycer), a member of “Revenge” or “Vengeance” (Mest’ in Russian, Nekama in Hebrew), a partisan unit composed of Jews within the Vorshilov Brigade commanded by Markov.
Brigade Commander Markov decided to rid the area of the AK [Armia Krajowa] menace. Our entire brigade was moved to the region close to the AK bases. We surrounded and attacked them. After three days of fighting, the entire area was free of the AK. Many of them were killed, many were taken prisoner, and the rest ran away to the areas close to Vilna [Wilno], where another AK brigade was located.²²⁷
Other Jewish partisans, however, attempt to justify their participation in Markov’s attack on the Polish partisans by advancing bogus claims that the Home Army were Nazi collaborators and incorrigible “Jew killers.” These partisans are oblivious to the repercussions of these assaults for Polish-Jewish relations, preferring instead to skew the evidence and lay all the blame on the Poles. The following account by Alexander or Shura Bogen (Katzenbogen), a member of the Jewish “Revenge” detachment, is characteristic of that sentiment.
One morning, a messenger arrived from the brigade headquarters with an order: The division of Nekama [Hebrew for “Revenge”] had to get ready for a mission. All the fighters had to go with a weapon to a forest thicket a few kilometers away, taking position in a frontal line and then waiting for orders. Nobody knew exactly what the orders would be. We lay between the tall pine trees and waited impatiently for instructions. We knew something important was to occur. We could see from all sides of us that many Russian divisions came and held position. Messengers ran from one place to another to transfer orders from the headquarters of the brigade. We lay there with our weapons drawn toward an opening in the forest and waited for the order to open fire, but no order came. All of a sudden, we saw a large camp of partisans walking toward the direction of the clearing. We were very surprised to see that all of these people were without weapons—they looked devastated and downcast, walking in groups of four. I lay down with my drawn weapon and examined the rows of advancing people. Externally, they looked like any other partisans. I could not figure out what had happened.

All of a sudden, one of them looked at me. Our eyes met, and I yelled, “Jank [Janek], what is happening here?” I had studied with Jank in high school. He was the only Polish kid in the Jewish-Polish gymnasium in Vilna [Wilno]. He was a good-looking guy, tall and splendidly built, very friendly and liked by everyone. Now he was walking here among the lines of Polish partisans without weapons. They were POWs being taken to their deaths! I could not exchange any words with him, and he disappeared as if it had all been a dream. I could not imagine that Jank, who was so good-hearted, could belong to a group of anti-Semites who killed Jews. They were the Armia Krajowa (AK). Only a short time passed before we heard shots from the directions of the clearing. Then a deathly quiet descended.

… the headquarters of the Soviet partisan movement in Belarus and Lithuania received orders from Moscow to get rid of the AK. Colonel Markov, the head of the Voroshilov Brigade, had sent an order to all divisions in the Naroch [Narocz] Forest to get rid of the Polish brigade that still had some ties with Russian partisans. On this day, all the fighters that belonged to the Polish brigade were ordered to come, without weapons, to this clearing in the forest and meet their Russian comrades. When the Polish brigade arrived, the Soviets put fifteen of the commanders in a line and, after they [the Soviets] read what [the commanders] were guilty of, which was resistance to the Soviet rulers, they were killed on the spot.

Only the leaders were killed. Most of the Polish fighters were added to different Soviet regiments. As time passed, they escaped and organized their own unit. They started fighting the Russian partisans and killing Jews, collaborating with the SS. After the punishment, I saw hundreds of Polish resistance soldiers returning from this execution that took place in the clearing. They appeared very shaken; I looked for Jank, my classmate, but could not find him among the returnees.²²⁸

Another Jewish partisan, Peter Smuszkowicz, is much more straighforward. He signals the direct and foreseeable consequences of that assault on relations between the Soviet and Polish partisans: relations that had been favourable up to that time turned hostile overnight.
During the summer of 1943, Yacov and I were members of a Soviet partisan brigade named after its commander Ponnomarenko [sic]. A large group of partisan detachments, including the Markov Brigade [actually the Voroshilov Brigade led by Markov—M.P.] were assembled in the forest. The Markov Brigade was a strong force and had steady contact with Moscow, both through radio connections and airplane (Kukuruznik) drops. Nearby was a Polish partisan base known as Kmicic [i.e., Burzyński’s unit]. One of their officers was Porucrnik [porucznik, i.e., lieutenant] Mruckowski [Wincenty Mroczkowski]. At this time there was an atmosphere of cooperation between the Russian and Polish partisans as they fought their common enemy, the Germans.

There were many Jewish boys in the Markov Brigade. … At this time the Jews and Polish partisans were still friendly. …

We were curious as to the reason for the sudden assembly of so many partisan groups. We heard rumours that we were preparing an attack on the German garrison in Miadziel [Miadziół]. We lay in ambush position and within a few hours shots could be heard nearby. We soon discovered what had happened. The leaders of a unit of Polish partisans of the AK (Army-Krojowa) [sic] Land Army had been arrested by Soviet partisans on orders from Moscow. Some of them [in fact just one—M.P.] had taken their own lives. Their partisans had been separated and assigned to several Soviet detachments. They kept their weapons, but their commanders were arrested and though some may have escaped the rest were shot.

At the first chance they got, the Polish partisans deserted the Soviet brigades and reformed their own AK units. They were now our enemies.²²⁹

Elsewhere in that same book, the activities and loyalties of Jewish partisans, many of whom were prewar citizens of Poland, are not hidden:
Our commander [i.e., of the Spartak Brigade] ordered Polish partisans to be disarmed and we were told to keep them out of our forest.²³⁰
Belorussia had by that time close to 200,000 partisans. Many of the fighters were Jews as were many of the commanders, particularly in eastern Belorussia. Most of them felt that Russia was their Motherland. We laid down the red carpet for the Red Army.²³¹
More typically, however, Jewish partisans simply gloss over the assault on Burzyński’s unit all together, as evidenced by the following account of Boris Green (then Greniman), an “organizer” of the “Revenge” unit.
When we reached the Markof [Markov] Otriad, at that time, he did not accept Jews … Markof was willing to accept me, as he needed a radio technician, however he refused to admit my brother. … I did my partisan work with devotion and dedication. … I remained with the Markof’s Otriad till the end of the war. …

We grew to become a significant force. … We were not alone in the forest, from time to time we encountered groups of the Armia Krajowa the Polish partisans that as a rule were collaborating with the Germans in killing Jews and Jewish partisans. We had a confrontation with them and a loss of life.²³²

Even memoirs of academics like as Noah Shneidman, who acknowledges some wrongdoing on the part of the Soviet partisan leadership, misrepresent the sequence of crucial events, level unsubstantiated charges against the Home Army, and invariably take the side of their Soviet “protectors.”
Just a few weeks prior to the disbandment of Mest [“Revenge”], the Belorussian Soviet partisan leadership disarmed and disbanded a detachment of the so-called A.K. (Armia Krajowa), or the Polish Home Army. The A.K. regarded the Polish government in exile, in London, England, as its superior and it opposed both Nazi occupation and Soviet rule. Most A.K. members were highly anti-Semitic, and many Soviet partisans, as well as Jews hiding in the forests, were killed by them. None the less, the A.K. unit, which operated in the Narocz region, had good relations and cooperated with the Voroshilov brigade partisans. Being afraid, however, of treachery Soviet partisan leaders abused the trust of the Poles, lured them cunningly into a trap, and killed their leaders.²³³
Remarkably, the ideologically tinged memoirs of Yitzhak Arad (then Rudnicki), a historian at the Yad Vashem institute, who belonged to a partisan unit based in Narocz forest which was part of the Voroshilov Brigade, do not do not even mention the “disarming” of Burzyński’s unit.

David Plotnik, who served in the Chkalov unit and then in the Kalinin division of the Komsomol Brigade, describes various assaults on Polish partisans including the “disarming” of Miłaszewski’s unit in December 1943:

I took part … in the attack on a Polish company under the command of Miloshewski [sic, Miłaszewski]. …

We also carried out a punitive mission against the German-inspired self-defense organization of the peasants in the villages of Zagorie [Zagórze?] district, Bohudki and Zalesie.²³⁴

The Shchors detachment of the Gastello Brigade, in which many Jews served, was also enlisted for similar actions against the “White Poles” and their supporters.²³⁵

How about those Jewish partisans who were merely “aligned” with the Soviets such as the Bielski unit? According to Jewish sources,

In the late fall of 1943, Russian headquarters in the Nalibocka [Naliboki] forest ordered a surprise attack on the Kościuszko group [of the Stołpce Concentration, which included Miłaszewski’s unit]. Several otriads were asked to contribute fighters. The Bielski unit sent fifty men.

At dawn the Poles were surrounded and without a single shot were taken prisoner.²³⁶

[Jacob Greenstein:] We went out, 200 of us, I was part of the group. We surrounded them at night and in the early hours of the morning, without one shot, we took them prisoners. There were about 400 of them. Only 50 or so of their cavalry men were missing. They were in a nearby town, Iwieniec. When they heard what had happened they united with the Germans and fought against us. …

When we took these Poles prisoners, the soldiers among them we divided into small groups and sent each group into a different Russian unit. Many of them had come from the surrounding villages and towns. Soon most of them ran away. The rest stayed with us and fought against the Germans. With the officers we dealt differently. … I was present when they were being interrogated. We could get nothing out of them. … I have heard later that some of them were sent to Moscow. I don’t know what happened to them there. … I know that when we disarmed them and when we took them prisoners we did not kill them.²³⁷

As we can see, these self-serving, sanitized accounts are rife with inaccuracies and misrepresentations. The authors suffer from amnesia about the fate of the Poles they helped to “disarm.” Yechiel Silber, a member of the Bielski group, suffers from the opposite syndrome: exaggeration coupled with invention. The latter is calculated to justify the former.
A command was immediately issued from Moscow to remove the weapons from the Poles. A few partisan Otriads organized themselves, and went out to the Poles to remove their weapons.

A plebiscite was conducted in the morning: who wishes to remain with the partisans and who wants to go home. All had to register. The camp had several thousand people, and only a few dozen chose to remain.

Those of the Poles who registered to remain as partisans were grouped into one Otriad told us that that they had a directive to murder all Jewish and Russian partisans. Their headquarters was located in England, under the leadership of Nikolajczyk [i.e., Stanisław Mikołajczyk, Poland’s then exiled Prime Minister]. The camp which was supposed to remain free was free to go to the other world …²³⁸
The final statement is doubtless a euphemism indicating that they killed off the Polish partisans. Needless to add, the alleged “directive to murder all Jewish and Russian partisans” is sheer invention.

Oswald Rufeisen, a Jew who was sheltered by Polish nuns in Mir after leaving his post with the German authorities and before joining the Ponomarenko otriad, tells a markedly different story. Rufeisen denies that Polish partisans were hunting down Jews and takes exception to the standard Jewish version of these events.

When I entered the forest [in December 1943] the Polish partisans were being liquidated, disarmed, subdivided, and placed into different units. I don’t know if the purpose was to finish them off or simply to subordinate them to the Soviets. Perhaps only later on someone gave an order to liquidate them. After they were dispersed they could not have become Russian enemies because they were disarmed. The few I had met in our unit were shot in the back, in an underhanded way. This happened when they were supposedly being transferred to another place. Someone who sat behind them shot them, one by one. … This was not decent. I think that it was part of a conscious effort to liquidate the Polish underground. … This was a dirty job of the Soviets, the same way as Katyn was or the Polish uprising in Warsaw.²³⁹
Jewish sources claim that the discord between the Polish and Soviet-Jewish partisans stemmed from anti-Soviet agitation by the Polish partisans, and more specifically from an assault by a squadron from Miłaszewski’s partisan detachment on a group of Jewish partisans from Zorin’s unit caught pillaging near the villages of Dubniki and Sobkowszczyzna, on November 18, 1943.²⁴⁰ Plundering of villages by various factions had been a major problem in this region since the spring of 1943. As Soviet sources acknowledge, the problem intensified considerably in October and November 1943, especially with the arrival of large numbers of Soviet partisans from the Minsk ghetto in Eastern Belorussia. In response to such activities, the leader of the Frunze Brigade issued a warning that anyone caught robbing in Soviet partisan territory would be executed on the spot.²⁴¹ As a rule, when Polish partisans apprehended intruders from the Soviet partisans they were handed over to the Soviet command.²⁴²

Hersh Smolar, a Jewish partisan in Zorin’s unit, describes the events in Sobkowszczyzna as follows:

One day we heard the awful news that in the nearby village of Sharkovshchisna [sic—it was Sobkowszczyzna; Szarkowszczyzna is a town about 175 km to the north of Sobkowszczyzna], ten Jewish partisans of the Zorin brigade had been murdered by the cavalry unit of the Polish legion, led by Sgt. Zdzislaw Narkiewicz [Zdzisław Nurkiewicz]—known as “Noc”. How this happened we learned from Ber Shimonovitsh, a Jewish partisan who had managed to escape the slaughter. Another partisan, Lyova Cherniak, from the Minsk ghetto, was seriously wounded and left for dead, but we saved him. The testimony of these two men convinced the partisan leadership to dissolve the Polish legion. The local Polish partisans were distributed among our units. The entire staff was arrested and shipped to the hinterland on the first plane that landed on our forest air-strip. Narkiewicz and his men surrendered to the S.S. units and fought with them against the partisans.²⁴³
It is difficult, however, to view as a turning point an event that followed the massacre of 130 civilians in Naliboki (May 1943) and 80 members of Burzyński’s partisan unit (August 1943). Moreover, even before the Sobkowszczyzna incident, plans had already been laid by the Soviets to eliminate the Polish partisans in that area,²⁴⁴ so at best this was just another pretext to justify a strike against the Poles. Furthermore, there are credible reports that Jewish partisans from the Stalin Brigade and Chkalov Brigade operating in that area were actively hunting down and eliminating members of the Polish underground already in the early part of October 1943,²⁴⁵ which is before the events in Sobkowszczyzna. The claim that Nurkiewicz and his men joined up with SS units is also a fabrication.

As Jewish accounts acknowledge, attacks on Polish partisans by Soviet and Jewish partisans intensified and spread throughout the Wilno area.

In one attack, on March 5 [1944], the [Ordzhonikidze] unit participated in a joint attack with Russian bands that eliminated forty-seven White Polish fighters and injured twenty-one.²⁴⁶

Other Jewish sources are clearer about the goal of these operations (the first entry below refers to the same assault described immediately above). Entire Polish families suspected of supporting the Home Army were also wiped out.