Revised january 30, 2009 a tangled web
German Raids and the Soviet Peril to Jews
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German Raids and the Soviet Peril to Jews
German punitive operations of various descriptions—blockades, pacifications, sweeps, raids (or oblava in Russian)—directed against partisans and forest dwellers (primarily Jewish fugitives) were undoubtedly the single largest cause of losses among Jews who escaped from the ghettos of northeastern Poland.311 Numerous Jewish accounts attest to the fact that thousands of Jews perished in these operations. A Jewish woman from Byteń, a small town southeast of Słonim, recalled the outcome of a ten-day German siege on her family camp in September 1942, following their separation from the Shchors Brigade:
In the early days of the widespread manhunt, yet before the Germans came into the forests in force, they overwhelmed the villages around us and cut them off from us. … Along with other villages, the German armed forces had barged into Volchy Nury too, and made a shambles of it. They were vicious. A few hours after entering the village, they rounded up all the people and chose a large number of the men to dig large pits at the end of the village. There they threw in men, women, and children—the greater part of the village population—whom they massacred; and before they left, the Germans set the whole village on fire. Not one house was left standing.315
A considerable part of the partisan units, however, succeeded in breaking through toward the south in the direction of Byten/Kosov [Byteń/Kosów]. The Germans therefore followed with a second “action.” Retreating, the partisans lost 97 fighting men. The German troops shot 785 Belorussian civilians considered to have helped the partisans, another 126 civilian Jews who did not succeed in evacuating to the south far enough, and another group of 24 Roma.316 Of the Jews who broke out during the liquidation of the ghetto in Iwie (Iwje) at the end of December 1942, many were soon killed as a result of concerted German attacks on the nearby hamlets. Several dozen fugitives from Iwie and Traby were killed in Operation Hermann, the massive German anti-partisan blockade of July and August 1943 in Naliboki forest described earlier.317 Many of the Jews who escaped to the forests from the labour camp in Wilejka in the fall of 1942 were killed in the first German blockade, despite being warned of the raid by a Christian underground contact. The Jews wounded in that raid received very little assistance from the Soviet partisans they encountered.318 Yitzhak Zimerman recalled the numerous Jewish victims (approximately 30) of both the first and second German blockades, the latter on April 30, 1943. The following year, around Passover, another German blockade resulted in the loss of an additional 15 Jews from Kurzeniec.319 Shalom Yoran, an escapee from the ghetto in Kurzeniec, recounts that in the winter and spring of 1943: Most of the villages, including those we had asked about, had been totally burnt. Many of the men were killed, and the rest taken to work camps in Germany. The roundups in the puszcza [forest] which we had left took several weeks and, as far as he knew, most of the Jews were discovered and killed. … German military units had surrounded the forest and then entered with sleds and horses. … Systematically, they combed the area and shot any Jew they came upon. There were no partisans in the woods at that time. Of the hundred and fifty Jews hiding there, less than fifty managed to escape. This was similar to what happened in other parts of the forest. The survivors broke up into small groups and spread out. … Although the partisans were the Germans’ main target in the oblava, Jews were an added bonus; all Jews found in hiding were shot on the spot. … Shortly thereafter, unfortunately, a new oblava began at the puszcza. The small group of partisans that were near there had disappeared, so the only people in the forest were Jews, most of whom were caught and killed.320 Harold Zissman (Hersh Cukierman) describes a German raid in the area of Lipiczany forest: The winter of 1942–1943 was bitterly, viciously cold. The snows came in early November. The Germans assembled a great force and attacked the Lipitchanian [Lipiczny] Forest, driving us out of our shelters. Later we would recall this winter as the Bog Blockade of 1942. On the first day of it, the Nazis engaged us along the banks of the Shchara [Szczara], intent on flushing us out of the woods and into the open. … We took heavy casualties … When daylight came, a strong new force attacked our rear and advanced into the woods. It was there that Dr. Atlas [Jechiel Atlas led a small Jewish partisan unit] was killed while giving first aid to his injured men. The Nazis razed the towns of Slizy Podgrobelskie, Volia [Wola], Ostrova [Ostrów], and Ruda Lipitchanskaia [Ruda Lipiczańska]. The livestock was herded away, and anyone not fleeing into the woods was killed. … On the third day, the Germans had the upper hand and reached into the forests to yank us out. They cut our defenses to pieces … From that point on, it was each company for itself.321
In the early part of 1943, the heavily Jewish Frunze Brigade was attacked by SS squads: “We scattered in confusion. Many of our partisans were killed. The Frunze brigade fell apart.”323 A blockade in Nacza forest carried out by Germans and Ukrainian auxiliaries in June 1943 resulted in heavy losses for Jewish fugitives.324 In July 1943, in a raid by the Germans and Lithuanian auxiliaries, “most of those in the family camp (ninety-six in number) were killed.”325 A German blockade in the vicinity of Lake Narocz toward the end of September 1943 also resulted in heavy losses, especially among non-partisans, whom the Soviet partisans had abandoned. The disbandment of Mestj [Mest’—“Revenge” or “Vengeance,” a Jewish partisan unit in Markov’s Voroshilov Brigade] was accomplished several days before the great German hunt through the Narocz forests. The partisan command learned of the concentration of the German forces and decided not to enter into combat with the numerically superior enemy, but to withdraw from the threatened zone before the Germans cordoned it of. This was the customary partisan tactic in the face of superior enemy forces. The withdrawal was directed toward the Koziany forests. The siege came as a heavy blow to the Mestj combatants, whose unit had been dissolved and were as yet unable to re-organize. The F.P.O. [members of the Jewish underground who had escaped from Wilno—M.P.], who were newcomers to the forests and still insufficiently acquainted with the conditions and the locality, suffered greatly. About 200 Jews from the “maintenance” personnel and other Jews of the family camps gathered in the vicinity of the Komsomolski camp and beseeched its Russian commander to take them along, and not leave them to the mercy of the Germans. He refused, and even fired warning shots to frighten those who tried to follow the tracks of the unit. … The Jewish partisans and families who remained in the Narocz forests found refuge in the marshy area, which the Germans found difficult to comb thoroughly. Yet, approximately 130 Jews were killed in the German siege.326
In the forest they were received with hostility. A short time after their arrival in the forest the Jewish unit was disbanded, the weapons which they had collected through great hardship and danger, and had brought with them into the forest, were confiscated, and the Russian Partisan Units under Markov refused to accept the Jews to [sic] their ranks.328 Our otriad successfully accomplished many missions. But being a Jewish otriad, we encountered anti-Semitism from the other units. There were incidents when our partisans were attacked by members of other otriads, who tried to forcibly take away our weapons. They believed that since Jews didn’t know how to fight anyway, we should give our arms to them. … Finally, Colonel Markov had to dismantle the Jewish otriad when he got instructions from the political head of the Bieloruss [Belorussian] Communist Party. The explanation was that a separate Jewish otriad increased anti-Semitism, plus Jews were not officially recognized as an ethnic entity in the Soviet Union. … Markov told us that he had decided to merge our otriad with a non-Jewish one. The new name would be Komsomolski otriad. Our new commander was Volodka [Shaulevich]. … The Belorussian partisans were given all of the command positions. … The commander of each otriad had absolute power over his people. … An episode that took place in our new otriad several days later reconfirmed this absolute power. A Belorussian in charge of the guards accused two Jewish partisans of dozing while on sentry duty. They were immediately arrested … and they were brought on trial before Commander Volodka. They denied the charge, but of course Volodka believed the sentry commander. They were sentenced to death and within ten minutes they were shot. A week later Volodka ordered everybody, which really meant the Jews, to turn in all their valuables, such as gold, watches, and money, so that he could buy more weapons for the otriad. We were called to his headquarters one by one and had to enter unarmed. There, under the watchful eye of Volodka and to the accompaniment of verbal anti-Semitic attacks, we were searched and stripped of anything that was considered of any value. … Since anti-Semitism was definitely a political matter, we complained to the commissar about this disgraceful behavior. He just laughed … The Jews never got the promised arms, and the valuables went to Volodka and his gang, of which the commissar was a part. Several days later Volodka issued an order that all those with handguns, meaning the Jews from Vilna who had recently arrived, were to turn in their arms at his headquarters. In return they would get rifles. We advised them not to believe Volodka’s promises. Some of them listened and hid their guns. The rest gave in their handguns and got nothing in return.329
One after another they went into the bunker and soon came out of it, without loitering a moment to talk to the others in line who were waiting to enter. They were told one by one that they were to penetrate further into the forest. Everyone understood that something was going on, but nobody knew exactly what it was. It was only when they entered the bunker that they saw a table laden with all kinds of watches, money and other valuables. Szaulewicz greeted each man with the directive that he had to contribute something to the defense fund of the Soviet Union—anything of value he had brought along. Each had to sign a paper that he had given his valuables voluntarily. All this would have been acceptable, if Szaulewicz had not led a group of strong-armed men the next day and surrounded the unarmed Jewish partisans, forcing them at gunpoint to take off their good boots, leather jackets, and hand them over to his men. When the Jewish partisans began to grumble and complain to Markov, they were met with a cold shoulder.330 On September 23, 1943, the Jewish unit was summoned, and Markov announced that Vengeance [Revenge] was to be disbanded. … After this announcement the weapons were taken from the overwhelming majority of the unit’s men, and the few left with arms were transferred to the Komsomolski Company. … Vengeance was disbanded a few days before a great German blockade of the Naroch [Narocz] Woods. The partisans began to leave the area before the Germans closed in. Some 200 of those who had been in Vengeance … tried to leave with the Komsomolski Company, which was armed in part with the weapons that had belonged to them. They asked Shaulvitz [Shaulevich], the commander, to take them with him, but he refused, and when they tried to follow, warning shots were fired above their heads. … More than 100 Jews from the family camps died then at the hands of the Germans … [Josef] Glazman too fell during the hunt, together with thirty-five Jewish partisans who joined [Henoch] Ziman’s Lithuanian unit when Vengeance was disbanded. They were killed on their way from Naroch to Kozyany [Koziany]. Moshe [Shutan] drew a harrowing picture of the fate of the Jews in the Naroch Woods, of the severe difficulties after the hunt, and of the ways in which some of the Soviet partisans molested the Jews who survived the German search.331 A blockade in the vicinity of Lake Narocz resulted in heavy losses among non-partisans left to fend for themselves: The regular, well-armed partisans evacuated the forest shortly before the aggressors gathered their forces to comb the forest. The masses of Jews who did not belong to any comabt unit suffered casualties. They were open to attack. Seventy were killed.332 A blockade in the area of Koziany forest, to the north of Lake Narocz, in October 1943 was equally devastating, and not only for the Jews: The devastation left by the Germans was inconceivable. Many Jews were killed by the Nazis. A large number of them had come to our forest from Narocz seeking to escape a blockade of their forest and instead walked into a terrible trap. Villages as far as 20 kilometres from the forest fell before the German onslaught. Homes where Jewish men and women had been hidden by the Gentile population were burned, with their occupants still alive inside.333 But the Germans were not the only source of large-scale Jewish losses. Although ostensibly acting as would-be protectors of the Jews who fled to the forests, as Jewish memoirs attest, Soviet partisans often perpetrated crimes against them. According to Jewish historian A. Zvie Bar-On, It is a proven fact that dozens and perhaps hundreds of Jewish partisans and their families were murdered by non-Jewish partisans [from the Soviet partisan forces], generally covertly by a treacherous bullet in the back, in circumstances that enabled the murderers to deny without difficulty either the deed itself or its deliberate intention. In many cases murder was accompanied by robbery, rape and savage malhandling [sic]. These acts were especially frequent at the beginning of the partisan movement when the link with the centre was slight and discipline in the units of a low order. But acts of murder also occurred at a later period.334 Nechama Tec, another author who has chronicled the Jewish partisan movement in this area, describes the fate of many Jews who tried to hide in the countryside or forests after escaping from the ghettos. Largely because of who they were, the Jewish ghetto runaways, more than others, were at the mercy of partisan groups that, instead of fighting the enemy, robbed each other of anything they considered of value. Rivalry and greed sometimes led to murder. Caught in these conflicts, some of the Jews were robbed and killed. Others were stripped of their meager belongings and chased away. Only some, usually young men with guns, were welcomed into partisan units.335 Lipiczańska forest [near Lipiczany] became home for both Jewish and Russian partisans. It also became a haven for ghetto runaways, many of whom were older people, women, and children. Small family clusters or units of unattached fugitives were scattered all over this forest. Disorganized and unprotected, these groups lived in primitive bunkers. … Unaccustomed to life in the forest, many fugitives were attacked by unruly partisan bands and robbed of their meager belongings and some were murdered in the process. … A survivor of a family camp tells how Russian partisans robbed them of their few weapons. For them, no arms meant no food. … Only a fraction survived.336 One day [Hersh] Smolar [one of the underground leaders in the Minsk ghetto turned partisan] received an unexpected visit from Tevel, a one-time rabbinical student, a brave partisan, and a personal adjunct to a respected head of a Soviet brigade. [Tevye Shimanovich was an aide-de-camp of the Zhukov Brigade.] … I heard we were going to Niemen (a major river). … Scattered on the ground were bodies of young women who were clearly Jewish. … And Smolar did the following: “I went to our headquarters and I made a big fuss. I told them that our people [i.e., Soviet partisans of a neighbouring detachment] had murdered the Jewish women. I demanded justice. To this the commander, who was sent to us from Moscow, said that after all this was war and we have received a notice that the Germans were sending Jewish women to poison our food kettles. This was an excuse for the killings. Nothing changed.”337 Luba Rudnicki, young and just married, escaped from Nowogródek ghetto in the fall of 1942 to the countryside where together with her husband, Janek Rudnicki, and three more ghetto fugitives she was protected by Poles. The group was treacherously attacked by Russian partisans. Two were killed, and the rest ran away to the forest and joined the Bielski otriad.338 Historian Kenneth Slepyan takes a rather benign view of the motivation of Soviet partisans: Suspicions among the partisans ran high; outsiders were not to be trusted. … Partly because of this exclusivity, few non-party Jewish civilians joined, or were permitted to join, the [partisan] movement in 1941. In the atmosphere of fear and suspicion that prevailed in the occupied territories, it was almost impossible for Jews, as outsiders, to enter units unless they were known personally to the partisans, just as it was unlikely that other outsiders, too, would be accepted. … partisans were frequently very suspicious of Jews—or of people who claimed to be Jews—under the logic that a spy would invent precisely such an identity. … Under interrogation, some Jewish partisans even confessed—or were forced to confess—to working for the Germans. … Indeed, even Soviet Jewish partisans executed fellow Jews whom they believed to be German spies.339 Joseph Kuszelewicz, who joined the Bielski partisans, confirms that information: There were some executions of Jewish informers infiltrated into the Bielski group by the Germans in order to betray it. … In most cases, these traitors were quickly uncovered and executed after a rapid and merciless sentence.340 Slepyan also acknowledges that a high percentage of Jews seeking refuge in the forest were murdered by [Soviet] partisans. A group of Jewish women was killed by a partisan band just after having crossed the Nieman [Niemen] River into the supposed safety of partisan territory. Such actions were commonly tolerated by mid-level Soviet officials, who rationalized that such things happen in wartime. … another partisan commander, Astreiko, … before becoming a partisan had been the head of a local police unit that had allegedly executed 300 Jews. Jews thus faced a difficult struggle to join the movement, and even able-bodied Jews were frequently turned away. … Some hid their Jewish identity altogether in order to join or because they feared their comrades’ prejudices. Even after being allowed into units … their acceptance was sometimes only grudging.341 Historian Yehuda Bauer traces the sad experience of Jewish figitives from Baranowicze in the early period. In the summer of 1942, Baranowicze Jews escaped to the partisans for the first time … but most of them were killed by antisemitic partisans. … some of them were killed by bandits disguised as partisans … The Soviet partisans through whose territory the escapees [from the Jewish artisans’ camp in Kołdyczewo] had to pass to reach the Bielski group wanted to kill them, suspecting that they had been sent by the Germans on an espionage mission. Dr. Lewinbok, who was related to the Bielski brothers, managed to dissuade them. … In the forests these young people [i.e., members of the Jewish underground in Baranowicze] … [faced] sharp antisemitism from the Zhorkin partisan unit, which was responsible for the murders of Dr. [Abrasha] Abramowski and [Mamme (Antek)] Kopelowicz.342
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