Revised january 30, 2009 a tangled web
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Other accounts are equally damning. There are numerous testimonies that bear out the fact that, in the early period (at least up to mid–1943), apart from devastating German operations, the greatest peril facing Jews hiding in the forests was not the “hostile” local population, let alone Polish partisans, who were inactive at that time, but rather the Soviet partisans. Some examples follow:
Hundreds of Jews were killed by our own Soviet partisans. In 1941 … the commander of the Pinsk [Pińsk] partisan units issued an order to kill every stranger in the woods who was not attached to a partisan group. Unaffiliated strangers were immediately shot. Most were Jews who had escaped from ghettos or camps and were hiding in the woods. They did not belong to any combat unit because the partisans did not want them. … After a few days had passed, I came across a Jewish boy and asked him, “What happened? What is going on? Where are the Jewish boys and girls?” He hung his head. “Most of the Jewish partisans were dismissed, sent away from the units into Nazi jaws because they did not have rifles.” The order had been given by partisan headquarters. The partisans did not want the enemy to think that so many partisans were without rifles. … The easiest solution was to expel the Jews. As always, when the Jews were not needed they were no longer wanted. Some of our Jewish former partisans had survived and were hiding defenceless in the woods.343 In those autumn days of 1942, one of our Jewish groups was attacked by some Russian partisans, headed by someone named Mustapha. There was only one survivor, Moshe Eisenstein …344 Among the runaway Jews many were older people, children, and women. The Russians were afraid that when the Germans would catch such people they might in turn tell about the Russians’ whereabouts. To prevent this from happening, and for their own safety, the Russians would deliver to the authorities the unarmed, helpless Jews, or they would themselves kill them.345 Just as we had located a place for ourselves in this beautiful forest and began to breathe freely, a group of riders rushed out and ordered us to come to the nearby clearing. These were Russian Partisans. One could see the hatred for Jews in their eyes. … They screamed and cursed and even threatened denunciation and murder. All this for one reason: to rob us of what was left of our “property” that we had brought from the ghetto. … And they, after taking all the booty, left us just as they had come.346 At the end of the summer of 1942 … we left the [Stołpce] ghetto. … We heard that there were partisans in the forest and that they attacked Jews to rob them and often killed them. We avoided the partisans as much as we could. … One day five Jews—four men and I—went to a village for bread. … A partisan stopped us. He carried out an inspection. He took everything out of our pockets: money, watches, even handkerchiefs. During the inspection he mocked us and said that he would kill me … while holding a raised automatic gun … [One of the Jews struck the partisan while he was distracted and they managed to escape.] That partisan named Nitka … later roamed around the forest day and night looking for us, and would kill any Jew that he came across. … In March 1943 … the partisans killed nine Jews who escaped from the camp in Świerzeń.347 Later, in April [1943], we were told that my parents and my family were no longer alive. My father and my uncle had travelled to a village, where we had acquaintances, to bring food. On their way, they chanced upon drunken partisans, who said, “You are robbing our village,” and they killed them.348 What I saw on the river bank [of the Niemen] robbed me of my speech. The bodies of several Jewish women lay on the ground. It was not necessary for me to ask Tevl who had shot them. After swimming all the way across the river, when they finally reached the shore … It was not Germans who had done this—they didn’t even dare step onto “our shore” unless it was part of a mass attack. These Jewish women had been murdered by our own “friends”—by other [Soviet] partisans. … Returning to the staff headquarters, I found both Vladimir Tsaryuk and Stieptshenko there. Tsaryuk was the official representative of the Byelorussian partisan staff. Those women had just escaped from the Nazis, I said to him. Who murdered them? … Tsaryuk “explained”: “We were warned by reliable sources that the Gestapo had sent out a group of women to put poison in our food kettles—we’re in a war—can’t do anything about it now …”349
The few Jews who managed to escape to the forest from the burning ghettos and were unfortunate enough to fall into Grishka’s hands suffered badly. The silent trees could tell many tales of murder and rape. We all knew of his excesses but he was beyond control. A curious thing was that the girl he had singled out in the camp was Jewish. … She prepared his bread and pork for the road, looked after his clothes and shared her bed with him. Grishka went to some pains to conceal their relationship, for to admit it openly would cause a loss of face. … When it became obvious to us all that she was heavily pregnant and could no longer continue to work in the kitchen, he cast her off. She came to me weeping. No child was permitted in the camp. [The child was left to die.] … his lust for killing had made his name feared in the forest and beyond. Complaints came in from innocent villagers who suffered at his hands and who had no reason to feel other than loathing for the man who received nomination for the highest distinction his country could offer—‘Hero of the Soviet Union.’ It was inevitable that the high command should become aware of Grishka’s excesses; too many innocent peasants had been killed, too many women raped and too many huts burned. He had desecrated the unwritten law of the forest. High command passed judgement. Grisha Sibiryak must die. It was a traumatic day when the comrades with whom he had fought carried out their orders.350
In order to push the Jews out of “their” forest the partisan staff resorted to a tactic of terrorizing and robbing them. Several Jews, carrying on their backs a few pounds of potatoes that they had dug up out of abandoned fields, were held up by armed “partisans” who forced them to sit on the ground, searched their pockets and robbed them of everything they had, including the potatoes. One scoundrel even tore the boots off Beyla Pitkovski’s feet. Koptya Korolyov, who was interested only in gold or money, justified his actions with the following “logic”: “The Nazis are already on the outskirts of Moscow and Stalingrad. In any case, they will kill all the Jews, so what’s the difference?” Commissar Tatarikov and Sheyndl Krupenya managed to get away from these robbers a few times, but in October 1942 some partisans caught them and accused Tatarikov of hoarding Jewish gold and money that belonged to the staff. Having no such treasure, he could not give it to them. They held a “trial” and then shot him. His real “crime,” of course, had been his humane attitude toward Jews. One group of partisans came upon Jascha Shepetinski’s father and uncle, who had just been given food by friendly peasants. The partisans accused them of robbing the peasants … The penalty was death by shooting. Shlomo Tchernechovski was ordered by three partisans to give up his rifle. He refused to do so. They shot him and buried him. The following day, they remembered he had been wearing a watch. They dug up the grave and took the watch off his wrist. Noah Obulianski, Chaim Elya Lyuberski and the Birnbaum family were also killed by partisans. … Late in October, Leyma [Pitkovski], while on sentry duty one night, was shot by other partisans. At the end of October [1942] the Jews were ordered to leave the forest. The 144 Jews refused to do so and began building earthen huts for the winter. After a month of fighting the cold, the hunger and the hostile partisans, Rachel Rabinowich and the rabbi from Ivacivici [Iwacewicze] gave up. A new Jewish cemetery was consecrated in the forest. … Around that time a new commander was appointed to head the Soviet-Byelorussian detachment. Vladimir Nikolayevich Bobkov … he was also a drunkard and an anti-Semite. Even the formerly friendly Michalin partisans became infected with the anti-Jewish virus. The new Jewish cemetery in the forest continued to grow. At the end of November, Vaska came to the Jews with the news that the staff had decided to kill all the remaining Jews in the forest. He therefore advised them, as a “good friend,” to get away while they could still run.354
As it turned out, the Germans were no more dangerous than the partisans themselves. On one of our trips from the fields a group of partisans ordered us to lie on the ground so they could search us. Then they robbed us of our better clothing and shoes. Detaining us for hours, they let us go with the warning that we would be shot if we were ever seen again in that vicinity. Another night, roving Wolcze [Wilcze] Nory [“Wolf Caves” outside of Byteń] partisans not only robbed us but beat us with the butts of their rifles. The Wolcze Nory [Soviet] partisans were now in complete domination of the forest. Desperate men, they badgered us constantly even though, by this time, we were barefoot and almost naked and had nothing left for them. … Seryosha, our political officer, was no longer with us. He and his Jewish sweetheart, Shaindel, were hiding somewhere in the woods. When the rulers of the forest eventually found Seryosha they demanded the gold and money he had collected from ghetto Jews who had escaped to the woods. … they “judged” him, found him guilty and ordered his execution. He was shot immediately. … Early one morning, the partisan chief of staff gave us an ultimatum: leave the forest by the second of November or be shot. Other Jewish groups, faced with the same threat, chose to leave. Our group of 170 voted to stay. … Most felt that leaving would mean certain death. … [The author then describes a confrontation with Soviet partisans, who posed as German police and tried to elicit information about the partisan camps from her.] Six months later, after we again joined the partisans, we learned that our theory about the “local police” had been correct. We met the partisans who caught me. They said they didn’t shoot me because they admired my courage. No matter how they tried to scare me, I didn’t give the partisans away. My asking to be killed and my physical condition made them take pity on me. Not until much later, when I learned that the partisans had killed many of the Jews they had caught and tested, did I realize how lucky I was.355
I was transferred with Mariyasha Kagan to Baksht [Bakszty]. There were many active partisan units in the area. My brother Yehuda Yosef took me to the Lidayev partisan unit, in the Nalibok [Naliboki] forest.356 Shortly afterwards, Sonia [a Jewish girl living with a Belorussian partisan] came into the tent and told us that she had bad news. Her “husband” had told her that a few of the more bitter partisans had decided to get rid of us—they didn’t need us. … … most of the Russian partisan groups treated Jewish escapees not as allies, as potential fellow fighters, but rather as enemies on a par with the Nazis themselves. ... A few days later, Tanya and I [Rochelle] were cooking a meal at the campfire. It was dawn. The partisans who were plotting against us had just returned after being out all night. They were drunk and laughing and they came to sit by the fire. They told us that they had ambushed and killed some young Jews on the road leading from Minsk to the east. They said that they had killed the boys right off and had been raping the girls all night long. When they were finished, they shot the Jewish “sluts.” … That day, after hours of running and hiding, Tanya and I crossed the Luze River and entered into the large wilderness region called the Nalibocka [Naliboki] Forest. … It was at that time that we met up with another Russian partisan group that called itself by the name of their army training—the parachutzistn [i.e., NKVD paratroopers]. … There were about a dozen parachutzistn—they were in dirty uniforms, and their eyes took in Tanya and me as if we were cattle or worse. We tried to explain to the parachutzistn how we had run away from the German ambush. We didn’t know that the parachutzistn were the worst of all. It was a group that took special effort and pleasure in hunting down Jewish partisans. They had killed a group of fourteen boys from Jack’s town of Mir—that I learned only later. … They had no intention of letting us just walk away from them. They told us straight off, “Drink vodka and eat so that it will be easier for you to die. If you get drunk, you won’t feel the bullets.” … We watched them drink, and they thought that we were as drunk as we could be. But in fact they were so drunk that they couldn’t tell what our condition was. The river had started to freeze up a little. When it got to be evening, they told us to run. They said, “Okay, now it’s time to get rid of you.” We ran to the river, they were shooting and I was waiting for the bullets to hit. … But neither of us was hit. We crossed the river and ran back into the woods. … Tanya had begged the Russians to let her go because she was Jewish and not an informant—and also because she was pregnant. Even if the Russians genuinely suspected Petrovich, they could have let a pregnant woman go. But they killed all of them. That was Tanya’s fate. … The Russian partisans who shared the woodlands with us could not bring themselves to let us alone. … If our boys from the bunker went out for food at night, and they ran into a small band of Russian partisans, those partisans would take their food and kill them. While that was happening, the Russians would also complain that the Jewish partisans only stole food and never fought with the Germans. … Many of my friends were killed … by our supposed allies the Russian partisans. They killed fourteen boys from my hometown of Mir in a single day.357 Another Jewish woman, after escaping from Mir during the ghetto breakout in August 1942, joined a small family group which was attacked by Russian partisans; her absence saved her and she became the sole survivor of the group.358 Tellingly, two Jews from the village of Grań, in the vicinity of Naliboki forest, who hid in the forest by day and spent the night with friendly peasant families, warned fellow Jews about the Soviet partisans—“They’re worse than the Germans!”—and went on to relate a litany of murders, assaults and robberies that Jews fell victim to at their hands.359 Yaakov Mazovetsky, a Jew who escaped from a labour camp in Lida in December 1942 and was sheltered by a retired Polish officer, was warned about Russian partisans in the area “who killed, with their own hands, lone Jews searching for shelter in the forest.”360 Historian David Meltser provides the following overview of the relationship between Jews and the Soviet partisans: It was not at all easy for a Jew fleeing the ghetto to become a partisan. Gentile [i.e., Soviet] units accepted Jews unwillingly, even when they brought along arms. In early November 1942 the chief of the central staff of the partisan movement, Panteleimon Ponomarenko, ordered his brigade commanders to reject individuals and small groups of people who had by some miracle escaped from the ghettos—namely, Jews. The pretext could not have been more transparent: among them, said Ponomarenko, there might be “agents sent by the Germans.” The Kremlin demonstrated complete indifference to the fate of the Jews in the ghettos. On 5 September 1942 Stalin, in his role as people’s commissar of defense, published Decree No. 189, “On the Problems of the Partisan Movement.” It contained not a word about helping the Jews, who had been condemned to death. … The central staff of the partisan movement did everything it could to hinder the creation of independent Jewish partisan detachments, and in a number of cases such units were disbanded. The most important role in saving people who had fled the ghettos was played by partisan detachments of Jewish families. The idea of founding the family detachments came from Tuvia Bielski, who in the spring of 1942, together with his three brothers, Asael, Zusia, and Archik, engineered an escape from the Novogrudok [Nowogródek] ghetto and created a detachment in the Naliboki wood [sic]. In all, 1,230 Jews from the ghettos of Novogrudok, Lida, and Minsk took refuge with the Bielski partisans. Another Jewish family detachment, organized by Sholom Zorin, numbered 600 persons, and Yeheskel Atlas established a large family detachment in Lipchansky [Lipiczany] wood, where Jews fleeing many towns in the Prinemansk [Niemen] region took refuge. There were similar detachments in the Miadel [Miadziół] district by Lake Naroch [Narocz], the Lukoml district at Vitebshchino and in Polesye [Polesie]. The Israeli historian Leonid Smilovitsky put the number of persons in Jewish family detachments in Belorussia at 5,000.361
One night our [Russian] commander asked me to sleep wnear him. Looking straight in his face, I spit on him. He was so surprised that he expelled me … But not all women coud refuse the commanders.364 Shmuel Spector, the chronicler of the Volhynian Jews, acknowledges that until 1943 some of the Soviet partisan units “had more of a bandit character, and Jews who tried to join them were stripped of their weapons and possessions, sometimes killed and, at the best, thrown out.” He argues that, “Only at the end of 1942 and beginning of 1943 did the Central Staff of the Soviet Partisan Movement succeed in imposing its authority and discipline on these units.”365 Historian Leonid Smilovitsky, however, details a litany of mistreatment of Jews at the hands of Soviet partisans well into 1944, including attacks on individual Jewish stragglers, executions of Jews (including ardent Communists) as German spies, Jewish nationalists and traitors, turning on Jewish fugitives after appropriating their arms and possessions, attacks on Jewish partisan marauders and their camps, stealing the “acquisitions” they had confiscated from the civilian population, and expelling Jews from Soviet partisan units. As a result, many Jews who came to the forest and sought admission into the Soviet partisans were simply afraid to reveal their true identities.366 The most successful escapes from the [Minsk] ghetto were organized flights with a partisan guide (usually a woman or an adolescent). However, there were betrayals. Rachel Grodner reported that a messenger from a partisan group near Rudensk—a man by the name Fedor Turovets—repeatedly came to the ghetto and selected people whom he said he was taking to the partisans. He led them to a wood 10 or 15 kilometers from Minsk, seized precious objects and arms from them, and abandoned them. With his gun he threatened those who tried to follow him. The people were compelled to return to the ghetto, but on their way were often caught by the Gestapo. Those who perished in this way included sisters Liuba and Asia Kaganovs, Genia Feldman with her son, and many others. After Abram Rozin fled from the ghetto in 1943 and reached a partisan party in the area of the Ruzhanskaia [Różana] pushcha (thick forest) not far from Ivantsevichi [Iwacewicze], the commander Matevosian gave him a hostile reception. The leader announced to the group that the war would finish soon, “and look, a Jew comes running from Minsk and wants to reserve his place in a bear kiosk…” David Karpilov, who had been an editor at the Zviazda publishing house before the war, was shot by the partisans when he came to them from the ghetto; they suspected that he was a German spy. Maria Naumovna Zaiats was denied admission to a partisan party; fortunately, she was rescued by Jewish partisans from the Sholom Zorin party who picked her up in the woods. Rivka Ekkel’chik fought in the Suvorov party under the assumed name of Anna Bykova, Roza Levina posed as Olga Kovnatskaia, and Giller Mendelevich Steiman became Ilia Maksimovich.367 When operational conditions worsened, the leaders of some detachments that had “tolerated” Jews in their midst sometimes dumped them. In October 1943 the Nazis began a broad-based punitive action against the partisans of the Shirokov Brigade, which operated in the Kozina-Glubokoe [Głębokie] District. The commander of the Antonov Detachment ordered nine Jews to report to him and told them to leave the camp. His explanation was that the detachment was too big, the Germans had already entered the forest, and it was impossible to break through their covering force together. At the same time he ordered a shoemaker and a tailor to stay behind. The detachment was not dissolving at all; it was only expelling its Jews, a fact that the command of the unit did not bother to conceal. The Jews protested vehemently, saying that the partisans first took their weapons and then would not allow then to stay with the detachment. They shouted that the partisans should shoot them on the spot, that they had nowhere to go, but all was in vain. The rejected Jews tried to follow the detachment at a short distance, but some Belorussian partisans bringing up the rear of the column warned the Jews that they had orders to shoot if the latter would not back off. The story of Itzhak and Reuven Yuzhuk is similar. Along with the cousins Osher Goldman and Zeev Senederuk, they hid in the woods for several months after the liquidation of the ghetto in Pogost-Zagorodskii [Pohost Zahorodny] in the Pinsk [Pińsk] District 9of Pinsk Oblast’). Local residents advised them to look for the partisans near Lunents [Łuniniec]. … The partisans provided the brother with food and a separate tent, but several days later, when the partisans were ready to move on, they abandoned the four Jews, advising them to obtain weapons and attack the enemy on their own. … Another group of Jews, fleeing from Gantsevichi [Hancewicze], was accepted temporarily by one of the partisan detachments, but later the partisans told them to leave the camp. They were starved and weakened, with no weapons or military experience, and so they refused. After giving them several warnings, the partisans shot them. That is how Yakov Rabinov, his brother Yankel, Iosif Mednik, and a certain Grinbaum met their ends.368 Yakov Rubechnik, a third-year medical student from the Minsk ghetto, died under similar circumstances. The partisans in the forest discovered poison that Rubechnik carried to take if the Germans caught him. For him this was a death sentence. A Jewish family, including a five-year-old child, was shot in the Borisov District (Minsk Oblast’) in 1942 on the charge of plotting sabotage. The counterintelligence services of the partisan detachments were trained to track Jewish “turncoats,” and if these were Polish Jews who furthermore had worked, albeit as forced laborer, under the Germans, their situation was hopeless. On March 18, 1943, a Polish Jew, Professor Genrikh Maksimilianovich Czapliński of the Kraków and L’vov [Lwów] conservatories, crossed over to the partisans of the A. F. Donukalov Brigade, operating in the Minsk area. … Pnonmarenko and L. F. Tsanava, the Belorussian People’s Commissar of State Security, reported to Stalin on May 15, 1943, that the professor was a German intelligence agent who had been specifically sent to infiltrate Soviet lines, “an old agent of German intelligence” who had worked in a number of countries. The professor was transferred to the Main Administration of Soviet counter-intelligence, or “Smersh” (the acronym for “death to Spies”) under V. S. Abakunov, where his trail (predictably) disappears.369 The absence of directives from the CHQPM [Central Headquarters of the Partisan Movement] and BHQPM [Belorussian Headquarters of the Partisan Movement] on aid to the prisoners in the ghettos and Jews in hiding meant that commander inclined to antisemitism had a free hand. Especially in detachments lacking military discipline there were instances of harassment, looting, robbery, and even the murder of Jews. … Lieutenant Kliuchnik, commander of the Shchors Detachment, killed the Jew Zaskin, commissar of the Lazo Detachment, and the partisan Petrashkevich (also a Jew) without even having charged them with any wrongdoing. Nekrasov, commander of a platoon in the headquarters company of the Stalin Brigade, marched out an entire group of Jews from the Frunze Brigade and had them shot.370 Chaim Podberezkin fought in the Mikhail Lediaev Detachment of the For Soviet Belarus Brigade. … In the fall of 1943 Podberezkin and a group of nine other partisans succesfully sabotaged a railroad. They stopped at a village for a drunken celebration before heading back to their base. On the road back, Podberezkin sat in front and drove the horse, with three others in the cart behind. One of them, Kozlov, suggested that they “bump the Yid off.” Hearing no dissent, he put the barrel of his gun to the back of Podberezkin’s skull and with one shot took off half his head.371 A tragedy in the Stalin Brigade’s Dzerzhinsky Detachment, which was operating in the Baranovichi [Baranowicze] Oblast’, caused a considerable stir. On their own authority detachment commander Konstantin Feopentevich Shashkin and political commissar Evstafii Petrovich Liakhov shot the partisan Grigorii Rivin for being a “Jewish nationalist.” After the fact they portrayed the matter as a decision taken collectively by the detachment command.372 Permissiveness on the part of the authorities encouraged new violations. In one fall 1943 episode, partisans of the Dzerzhinsky Brigade … fell upon Jews of the Parkhomenko Detachment while the latter were on a mission to obtain food supplies at the village of Liuben in the Ivenets [Iwieniec] District of Baranovichi [Baranowicze] Oblast’. With an eight to three advantage, the Dzerzhinsky partisans cried “Beat the Jews!” roughed up the Parkhomenko-ites, and carried off all the supplies the latter had collected. … Jews remained the target of attacks right up to the liberation. During the night of March 18, 1944, in the village of Mostishche in the Novogrudok [Nowogródek] District, partisans of the Voroshilov Detachment (the most senior detachment of the Karitachi Partisan Formation) disarmed seven Jews of the Kalinin Detachment. Two days later partisans of the Furmanov Detachment of the Chapaev Brigade detained a wagon train of Kalinin troops and seized twenty-one bags of grain, four hogs, two cows, four horses, and all the personal effects of forty Jewish soldiers. The next day the chief of staff of the Kirov Brigade, Captain Sergei Filipovich Vasiliev, took thirty-five kilograms of salt from them. The commanding officer of the Kalinin Detachment, Tuvia Bielski, complained to Major General Platon that Dzerzhinsky Brigade commander Shaskin had prevented his partisans from crossing the Nieman [Niemen] River bridge and had seized their horses and carts. … Sokolov, Platon’s aide, issued an order on April 2, 1944, in which he stated that careful investigation had established instances of “mass terror,” in the form of beatings and seizures of weapons, ammunition, clothing, and requisitioned provisions, against Jewish partisans.373
Like Yosel and me, Nisel wanted to join a partisan unit as soon as possible. We began to look for a way to achive our goal, but no partisan unit would accept us.377 I [Mina Volkowiski] was in a group with one Jewish woman, Krysia, a beauty. She was Commander Chapajev’s mistress. Among us were Chapajev, several fighting men, and a few others. One day we woke up, and Chapajev and the fighters were gone. They left us there … They simply abandoned us. … Later I heard that Krysia had been shot by the Soviet partisans. … I moved around with this small partisan group. One day we were told to go to headquarters. There I heard terrible things about Jews. They blamed Jews for the German attack; they said that the Jews who were caught gave away partisan secrets. They blamed the Jews for everything.378 The commanders of the non Jewish partisans began to harass the Jews. They even reprimanded Hershel Posesorski for bringing so many Jews with no weapons. The Jews were called “free-loaders” “money manipulators” and other anti-Semitic insults. … The commanders of the non-Jewish partisans did not wait for Hershel Posesorski’s return with weapons. While he was away they began to expel the Jews in small groups from the partisan base, telling them to go and kill Germans and get weapons. The small groups that were expelled daily from the partisan camp were sent to a certain death. I was expelled with a group of seven, 5 men and 2 women … we found out how Hershel Posesorski was murdered. This murderer Anantchenko demanded from Hershel his revolver, Hershel refused and Anantchenko killed him.379 [The Pobeda partisan unit under the command of Lieutenant Colonel Bulak, A.S. Saborov Brigade:] When Bulak confiscated a Jewish partisan’s ammunition, our leadership decided to move to the camp of Orlinsky, and it was at this time that Bulak shot two Jewish woman partisans, Shlovsky and Becker, and evicted several families as well. A similar incident occurred in the Aramov camp.380 They were former prisoners of war, all Ukrainians. The Germans had given them a chance and incorporated them into their police force … But these Ukrainians moved to the partisans with all the guns and all that they got from the Germans. … Then six young men came to us, Jewish men. They had been working outside of the ghetto. … When they heard about the liquidation of the ghetto, they came to us … But these partisans killed all the Jews. They would go on an expedition, and each time another of the Jewish boys would not return. It was obvious that they were murdering them. None of them made it.381 Then, around Christmas [1942], two Ukrainians joined the [Oktiabr] otriad [commanded by Viktor Panchenkov] and when Bela listened to their talk she heard that as avid anti-Semites they were attacking defenseless Jews. More often than not, their assaults ended in the victims’ deaths.382 When they were ready to leave, they asked [Jashke] Mazowi to join them. Although he was afraid they might kill him, he followed. On the way one of the Russians volunteered an explanation. “We took a Jew into our otriad, we trusted him and treated him well. He ran away on the sly, without telling us. Because of what he did we shoot all the Jews we meet.”383 Before the liquidation of the ghetto [in Brześć in October 1942] the Jewish underground had links with the group headed by Sashka “of the golden teeth”, that represented themselves as Soviet partisans. Only afterwards did it become clear that this was a gang of thieves that would meet those that fled to the forest, to rob them of their clothing, boots, and arms and then murder them. The majority of those who managed to flee the city during the liquidation met a similar fate. Only very few managed to avoid the hands of Sashka and his murderous hooligans …384 Without convening the High Command or following official procedures, [Commander Boris] Bullat used his tribunal powers to punish fellow Partisans for breaking the rules of the Underground. Two Derechin [Dereczyn] girls, Bella Becker and Feigeh Shelubski, he indicted immediately for discarding their ammunition magazines. He sentenced them to death by firing squad. … I had my own problems with Bulat’s baseless, spiteful attitude toward the Jewish Partisans. … While we were returning, we saw yet more proof that anti-Semitism was thriving in the Underground. We encountered four Partisans from Bullak’s company, who demanded we hand over to them our boots and automatic weapons. … The rider, who was from Zaicev’s command, ordered the bandits to report to the staff commander … In the end they escaped punishment … Jews were accused of specific crimes against locals such as rape and robbery, as well as discarding weapons. Some of the Jewish Partisans, whether they were guilty or not, wehether the crimes had even taken place or not, would be executed for them.385 On January 1943 we joined the general Soviet partisan group of 200, the Kirov group. The Jewish fighters were scattered among many fighting brigades. … After the unification of all the partisans we felt right away a disrespectful attitude towards the Jewish fighters. It was definitely an anti-Semitic bias. They tried to minimize our devotion, dedicated [sic] and heroism in battle. It became known to us that 5 fighters from the town of Lachwa [Łachwa], Binyamin Zalmanowitz, two brothers Walachjanski and 2 brothers Shulan were shot without cause or reason by a partisan group under the leadership of a commander Kubasoff. Before this groups [sic] murder a Jewish partisan from Lachwa, Hershel Muravnik, that we excluded from our group for disciplinary reasons, was murdered on the order of Commander Ivanoff (Lisowitz) and division head Rufeyer. In June–July 1943, the Soviet partisans under the command of the above Ivanoff executed a Jew from Lachwa Nachum Muravchieck, the killer was Wolodia Poliakoff. The official reason for the murder was given: discipline violation and former member of the ghetto police. The true reason for this wantom [sic] murder was that when Muravchick joined the partisan group he gave the commander a few gold coins, and the murders [sic] did not want this to be known, they killed him. The Jews in these partisan groups were treated badly …386 The fatal day arrived, the day of the Red Army, the 23rd of February [1943]. Early in the morning we heard knocking. Two Russian partisans asked my husband [Yaakov Rudnicki, a dentist] and Dr. [Mark] Berkman to come to their dwelling, because a third partisan, Vania, had been injured during the night operation. Without any suspicion, they went with the partisans in their sledge. My brother in law Meir [Rudnicki] stayed with us. A few minutes later we heard machine gun shots. We knew it was bad news. Did the Germans attack them? We had no other thought. … Meir took his rifle and went to stand guard. Tamara [Zyskind] and I followed him … My brother in law went further and suddenly we heard a horrific cry. They killed my brother [in law], I thought. Tamara and I started to run away … We walked a few meters away from our bunker, when we heard the call of the two partisans, who only a short while ago took my husband and Dr. Berkman to the injured friend. I approached them first. With a pistol directed at my heart they ordered me to climb on the sledge, which stood beside our bunker. I started to ask questions: what were the shots? Where were my husband and his friend? Dr. Tamara, who was usually brave and cool, lost her head, could not utter a word and pulled me to the sledge. An unusual strength came over me, strength out of desperation. I started to ask about the fate of my husband, Dr. Berkman and my brother in law. One of them blurted out: “we killed everyone and we will kill you too, today is the Red Army day, we received an order to kill all Jews.” I had a flicker of hope that one of the men was still alive, and it gave me the urge to go on questioning and talking. … Both were drunk, they smelt of spirits. Till today I cannot believe the coolness with which I manipulate [sic] them. Calm and relaxed I promised them that we would come to them, but only in the evening. I advised them to go home and sleep, rest for a while, and we would wait for them to come and pick us up. I explained to them that women cannot survive in the forest alone, and that we did not know the surroundings and wouldn’t move without them. They accepted it, and told us to wait till the evening. … They left the bunker and we set out in the snow desperate, with no hope and not knowing what to do. We saw in the deep snow prints of man’s boots. We got up and ran towards them. It was my husband, who was rushing to help us. He was stunned, tired and broken. His words were: “they killed Dr. Berkman, his head fell on my shoulder, where is my brother Meir? A miracle saved me, I managed to knock Sasha’s hand (that was the partisan’s name) and his revolver dropped to the ground, the second man was the driver of the sledge and had no weapon, Sasha (the partisan) took the machine gun, but I managed to jump into the forest, hung my coat on one of the trees, they shot at it thinking that it was me. In the meantime, I returned to you. Where is my brother?” those were short, broken and terrible sentences. We told him the atrocious news that his brother was murdered. … Only one rifle with a broken barrel was left in the bunker. I picked it up and we started to walk away from the bunker. Where to go? It was a clear day. Broken, shattered and fatigued we walked, leaving behind brothers and friends, sacred corpses. We could not even bury them. We could not come close to them, lest we would also be killed. After a short time we heard deafening shots from the direction of the bunker. It seemed that the murderers regretted leaving us and came back to pick us up. Thanks to the dense forest we managed to escape.387
The commander of our unit was none too happy to see us. A few days later we were ordered to leave and make our way to another forest—without weapons. … Again we found that the command of the partisans was determined to be rid of us. We were even accused of stealing food from the partisans and threatened with execution if we didn’t “confess”. … we were beaten, in good Nazi fashion.388
For that goal, four brave partisans went out: Shepsl Sheftel, Sender Bielavski (Ivye), Leyb Kalmanovitsh, Hirshke Levkovitsh (Trab). They succeeded in getting an assurance that the whole group would be taken into a new detachment, “Aleksander Nievski”, which was being organized. Happily, they turned back to bring the group. On the way, near the little town Olenieve [?], they encountered a Russian “wild” partisan group, “Antonovtses” (from the name of their leader, Anton), that did not conduct any war activities, but was only busy eating, drinking and robbing. They were incited by the peasants, who said that the Jewish partisans robbed them. They took the four rifles and everything that was on the wagons (food and supplies) [doubtless this was the spoils of a robbery—M.P.], and let them go free. But figuring that without rifles the other detachment would not take them in, they went back and demanded the four rifles. … The “Antonovtses” took them into a house, made them undress, tortured them and drove them out naked to the local cemetery and shot them there.389
The family camps were not only vulnerable to betrayal by the Germans and their collaborators. Anti-Semitic partisan groups also operated in the forests. A few months later two new brigades were formed in our forest and they were not friendly at all towards Jews, especially the Zukov [Zhukov] brigade. The Schirokov brigade (for motherland) was a little more friendly. … Many of the Jewish partisans attempted to create completely Jewish fighting units in our forest. … None of these groups were successful because the Soviet authorities would not permit Jewish fighting units. They were given an ultimatum: join the Soviet partisans or be disarmed and shot. … We also had to confront the fact that in our own units there were anti-Semitic Russian prisoners of war who would happily shoot Jews in the back given half the chance.391 After that fourth mass murder [in Nowogródek in May 1943] the underground prepared a plan for mass escape. … The head of the organization was Dr. Yaakov Kagan, commander of the underground organization in the ghetto … dug a tunnel of 250 meters, work that continued for 3 months; when it was complete, the underground notified the work camp residents details of the escape plan. On a dark and rainy night, 26 September 1943, 323 people gathered at the entrance to the tunnel; all succeeded to escape but for 70 who got confused within the tunnel and would up back in the city, were caught and executed. … More than 200 Jews succeeded in escaping to the forest. Most of them joined the Belsky Brothers’ units and very few to other partisan units. Dr. Kagan’s group reached the anti-Semitic Soviet command; they were told to surrender their weapons and were murdered when they refused.392 … in May 1943, “partisan Grigorii Rivin, Jewish by nationality, [was] shot because of his systematic spreading of Jewish chauvinism.” Rivin’s transgression was that he openly and frequently complained that “Jews were not accepted into the [partisan] unit . . . [and that] they were harassed.” In June 1943 in Mironka, after a Jewish sentry mistakenly killed a Soviet partisan, the latter’s comrades unleashed themselves upon the Jewish patrol, killing seven of its members. In the wake of such occurrences, the supreme command of the Soviet partisan Stalin Brigade announced that the “spreading of Jewish chauvinism and, equally, of anti-Semitism is a fascist method to destroy the partisan vigilance.” The former was punished seriously, while the latter appears chiefly to have been denounced verbally.393 On the night of November 25, [1943], while waiting for Radionov in Murine-Voke [?], some of the [Soviet] prisoners-of-war got drunk and their voices could be heard from some distance. This could have drawn the attention of undesirable “guests” and endanger the entire company. Elijau Olkin, who stood on guard, went to calm the noisemakers. He knocked at the door of the house. It was completely dark outside. The door opened and a shot was heard—the bullet entered Olkin’s stomach and he was badly wounded. He was in dreadful pain and asked to be shot to death. When they were about to move, they shot him. This marked the end of Elijau (Liushka) Olkin, the commander, the fighter of the ghetto, the devoted and gifted member of AKO.394 When we went on a food expedition to the village, all the others would go inside the house, and we [Mina Volkowiski and Musia, another Jewish woman] had to guard the place and the horses. Musia was shot. I was saved by a miracle. … She was asked to clean, and she refused. So they denounced her at the headquarters. Gusev, the anti-Semitic commissar, came to investigate and called it [her refusal] sabotage. There was an order that the two of us had to be killed. One of the guys went for a walk with Musia and shot her. Another partisan had an order to kill me. … He could not do it.395 How they mistreated Jews! … They would kill Jews, rob them, and mistreat them in many, many ways. Whenever we had a Jewish boy, he would have to do the worst jobs. The Jews were terribly humiliated … At one point, around 1944, the Germans supplied arms to a few villages so that they could defend themselves against the partisans [i.e., against partisan raids]. They called it self-defense. Bobkov, our commander, gave an order to burn one such village. Among those who left was a Jewish boy from Byten [Byteń] … In the morning they came back and reported that the whole village was destroyed, but one of the partisans, the Jews, had not wanted to take part, so they shot him.396 … a horrible event was carried out by the same group of partisans led by Vanika [Plantovski], the murderer. This group was nicknamed Automattiki, because most of them carried automatic rifles. One hot day, we were once again surrounded by the Vanika group of partisans. We were ordered to line up without our arms. … Vanika didn’t explain the reason for the raid. He ordered all of the Jews to step out in front of the line, and he read more names from a list. … As soon as the two women were guided to the side, the merciless Vanika called out, “Poost zseevot,” Let them live. This phrase was a code to the gunman to shoot! Within a second, several partisans fell to the ground, wriggling in their agony: the Jew, Meyer; the couple; and one other. The murderer ordered three other partisans and me to dig a mass grave, while the gunman finished up the job of killing them.397
If armed Jewish partisans experienced such problems with the Soviets, the situation for non-partisans and stragglers was often far worse. As Nechama Tec points out, among the runaway Jews many were older people, children, and women. Soviet deserters and former POWs would deliver these unarmed, helpless Jews to the German authorities, or they would themselves kill them. The Soviet government made no effort to protect the Jews.400 Of the Jewish women accepted into Soviet units “the majority became mistresses of partisans, usually officers.”401 Rapes of Jewish women, including those attached to partisan units, by Soviet partisans were commonplace.402 A member of a partisan unit in the Lipiczany forest recalled that Jewish women could be endangered by leaders no less than by the partisan ranks: Our very first Russian chief was an ignorant and stupid man. He cursed the Jews in his drunken state. It was difficult to protect the Jewish women from his ever-active sex drive, especially when he went on a drinking binge.403 Acts of anti-Semitism occurred on a daily basis, as Jews were singled out by the Russian partisans as objects of suspicion and hatred. … In one of the large Russian brigades in our forest, some eighty Jewish women were accused by the Russian high command of being derelict in carrying out orders, and also of stealing. They were threatened with expulsion from the brigade. Expulsion had dire consequences as it meant giving up their guns and, therefore, any ability to defend themselves. The women turned to my father to help clear them of the wrongdoing of others. Papa met with the high command to plead their case. Exasperated, he threatened to quit the hospital if the Jewish women were punished.404 Chaim Lazar records copious examples of Soviet duplicity and treachery in Narocz forest in the late summer and fall of 1943, including robbery, set-ups and outright murders of Jewish partisans. The initial romantic period did not last long. … the Soviet partisans were beginning to show great interest in our guns [brought with them from the Wilno ghetto]. … We wanted to take advantage of the opportunity and to give them our guns in exchange for a promise that in a day or two they would bring us rifles. … But after a short time we learned that the partisans did not keep their word. They did not bring the promised rifles—and this was still during the relatively idyllic period, in comparison with what was to follow. … Every day there were incidents of robbery in the forest. At first we did not understand what was going on. One of our boys returned to camp barefooted. He said that he had met up with Russian partisans in the woods and they ordered him to take off his boots. While one took his gun, another removed his watch. There were incidents of murder as well. Several Jews were found dead in various places in the forest. There were also more and more cases of anti-Jewish outbursts. Insult, scorn, and ridicule were the daily bread of the Jewish fighters. We complained to the High Command but nothing came of it. … One day an official announcement came from Markov’s headquarters that by order from Moscow all the separate national battalions must be disbanded, and first of all, the Jewish battalion. Its name was changed from “Vengeance” [“Revenge”] to “Komsomolsk” and the Jewish command was replaced by a non-Jewish one. … One day all the Jews were lined up and led to Markov’s headquarters. They were met by a strong guard. One by one the Jews were led to the Headquarters cabin. … Each and every one of the Jews was told that because the times were growing harder from day to day and there were not enough arms for the experienced fighters, the Jews must hand over their arms, and all their money and valuables to buy more arms. Each of them was searched. Their boots were removed, their good clothes taken away, and their valuables were confiscated. … Some hours later one could see a whole mourning procession of several hundred half-naked Jews, without arms and fearful for their future. … Afterwards, the Jews saw the girlfriends of the Soviet commanders ans commissars sporting the clothes taken from the Jewish woman partisans and wearing watches taken from the Jews. … Thousands of partisans began to leave the forest [in anticipation of a large German raid]. … But the Jews were left to their own devices. No one was interested in their fate. … Their request to receive arms or join partisan units leaving for other areas met with no response. Derisive remarks were made about the Jews and their bravery. Several Jews who tried to join the departees were shot and killed. Only a handful succeeded in being accepted by the departing units. … [Lazar then describes a trap that 35 Jews fell into, laid by Henoch Ziman, a Jewish Communist code-named “Jurgis,” which resulted in all but one of the Jews being killed by the Germans.] One day a company went on a food foray to a Lithuanian village … On the way the Jewish fighters encountered the Russian partisans of Mishka Capitan, who were also going to one of the villages on a similar mission. … But just as they were about to leave the village, the Russian partisans began shooting … They pointed their guns at the Jew and wounded him mortally. … Shapiro fell not from enemy bullets but from the bullets of “brothers-in-arms.” … One day there appeared in our new camp two partisans from Russka Forest [Puszcza Ruska]. … They said that the commanders in Rudnik [Rudniki] Forest apparently wanted to get rid of superfluous people and, therefore, had sent them to an enemy-ridden area, knowing full well that we would never return. … Hundreds of Jews from Vilna [Wilno] and the surroundings were in Narocz Forest when the Germans launched a major attack on the forests in the autumn of 1943. … After the non-Jewish partisans took away their arms, these Jews remained defenseless. … About one hundred Jews died in the forests in various ways during the German siege. When the partisans returned after the siege, the Jews tried hard to be accepted into the partisan ranks, but they were rejected. Without alternative, the Jews set up their own camp …405 Jewish partisans, such Rachel Margolis, accuse Markov’s brigade of being outright thieves. Not only did they confiscate weapons from Jewish partisans, but also took all their valuables such as money, watches, and leather jackets. When she later visited a senior officer of the Chapayev unit she saw that the hleadership had hoarded bags full of confiscated loot for themselves.406 Other memoirs are equally telling: The staff of the Frunze brigade kept thinking up new ways to discredit our Jewish detachment. … The three of us—the Commander, the Chief-of-Staff and I—drew up a statement for the regional staff in which we described the situation in the Frunze brigade, including the inaction of the brigade staff and its discriminatory acts against the Jewish partisans. … I then proceed to read the statement we had prepared for General Platon, the regional commander. I had almost finished when a bullet whizzed past me and lodged in Golitzev’s shoulder. … We never learned who fired the shot. … But then one day I received a signal from the sole “survivor” of the mobilized young Poles [from the Minsk region]. He had been under my command for a time and was then appointed Komsomol organizer for the brigade staff. What he told me—no more and no less—was that they were arranging to finish me off. During a so-called ambush, a police bullet would “take care of me.” The police group would actually be a company of partisans, under orders to shoot to kill because we were really enemy agents in disguise.407
In a different way the Bielski otriad saved the lives of the Kesler group. They had come to the Bielski detachment reluctantly, but if they had refused to join they would have been killed by the Victor Panchenko [Viktor Panchenkov] group. These examples represent only a fraction of the Jews who were protected from the Russian partisan threat.408 Jewish partisans were often robbed by their Soviet commanders and were punished severely for transgressions that were tolerated if committed by non-Jews. A Belorussian in charge of the guards accused two Jewish partisans of dozing while on sentry duty. … They were sentenced to death and within ten minutes they were shot. A week later [Commander] 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 the 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. This felt more like being searched by Germans than by fellow partisans. … we complained to the commissar about this disgraceful behavior. He just laughed and said, “We are collecting all this to buy arms for you. Knowing you would not willingly give up your possessions we had to take them by force.” The Jews never got the promised arms, and the valuables went to Volodka and his gang, of which the commissar was a part.409
The peasant he took the clothing from was a contact for another partisan brigade made up of Soviet soldiers who had escaped after being prisoners of war. Different partisan groups had zones under their own control. Other partisans were not allowed to take anything except food from these areas. This particular peasant was a vauable spy for the Soviet group. … It did not take long for the man to report Hennik’s thievery to the Soviet partisans. Within days, a few people from the intelligence unit of the Soviet brigade came to the camp. They wanted to put Hennik on trial. David [Bobrow] and several others tried to intervene, but our group was much smaller than the other partisan group, and they had much better weapons. … Hennik’s wife ran up crying and screaming. … The Soviet partisans took Hennik away and within an hour, they tried him, convicted him, and shot him.410
In the camp, they remember the day that a group of Jews from Ishishuk [Ejszyszki] came to the forest. They had been sheltered by farmers, until the danger of their being discovered became too great and they could not remain in their hiding place. In vain did they plead to be accepted into the camp. The staff members remained firm in their refusal, although they knew that they were actually pronouncing a death sentence for these people. For many weeks, these Jews wandered near the Jewish camp, suffering from cold and starvation. Only after the Russian partisan camp absorbed some of them did ‘our commander’ also agree to absorb the rest. They also remember the incident involving a woman from Ishishuk—Potzter and her two children, who wandered for a few weeks in the forest in the freezing cold. The boys would bring them stolen food until the staff was forced to give in to popular opinion and accept them. Three Jews decide to join the Jewish camp and bring with them a Czechoslovakian cannon. The staff members ponder acquiring this precious munition without also having to accept the men. They invite them for a conversation in the staff tent, a commissioner draws a revolver, takes their cannon from them and arrests them. The staff spreads the news that the three are traitors and should be killed. One of them succeeds in fleeing and alerting the commander of a Russian division. The Russians rush to their aid and threaten to attack the Jewish camp. They free the three men, who join their division.413 Beniamin Brest, who wandered in the vicinity of Rudniki forest for several months with a group of Jews which included women, recalls that the Jewish partisan unit he encountered refused to accept the women into their ranks.414 Abram Mieszczański accuses Berl Szereszoniewski and Chaim Lazar, the leaders of his Jewish unit, of abandoning partisans thought to be expendable during a mission, leaving them almost without weapons to fend for themselves.415 A Jewish forest group in the area of Lipiczany forest refused to accept a Jewish boy of about fifteen encountered in the forest: His entire family had been killed and he was attempting to survive alone in the forest, desperate to find a group to feed him and provide him with refuge. He was brought to our ziemlanka. … “Please,” he begged, “Let me stay into your group, I will do anything you want of me.” The group leader replied, “There is no room or food to spare.” The members of the group knew each other from the ghetto and were unwilling to share their meager food supply with a stranger. The boy began to cry, on his knees, he begged for mercy. My parents tried to intervene on the boy’s behalf. It was to no avail. The boy was allowed to dry his clothes by the fire; he was then given some bread and led away by one of the men. He was taken deep into the forest, and a fire was lit to keep him warm. Alone and abandoned, he cried and begged, “No, no, don’t leave me here alone to die.” We never saw that boy again.416
With this introduction, he then read a list of names, including Itche and Moyse Gratchuk, Elya and Sarah Osak, Yudl Berkner and his two children, Itche Pinski, Sarah Abramovski, Israel Sokolik, Ponyachek, the three Shepatinskis, 14-year-old Nyutke Shelyubski, Itzkowicz, three young men from Lyubovich [Lubowicze], Vaksman, Abraham Bublicki, Israel Slonimski and ten others—a total of 32 people. Apparently the staff, with the help of some “friends of the Jews,” had succeeded in compiling a list of “non-battle-ready” elements, but the real reason was that Guzhevski didn’t want too many Jews in his detachment. … The staff seemed to have forgotten that most of those who were on the list had risked their lives while they were in the ghetto to obtain weapons and clothing for the partisans … At least they let them take their weapons (including two machine guns) and a supply of ammunition. … Without a plan and without leadership, their hopes disappointed, the separated group left the encampment without a destination. … they were now faced once more with the prospect of wandering aimlessly through the forest swamps, looking for another partisan group that would accept them. … The next morning they were dealt another blow: Ten of the men announced that they did not want the responsibility of the women and children and had therefore decided to go out on their own. ... And they disappeared. So now there were only 21. But the next morning another seven left—they too did not wish to be burdened with people who were not “battle ready.” They argued about weapons, especially the two machine-guns. The argument grew so heated that it almost came to a violent end. … This group of ten went off on its own into the forest, but the next morning they drove Berkner and his children away, leaving them alone in the swamp. Berkner then found his way back to the original group, where he was received sympathetically. … For two weeks these 14 desolate human beings subsisted on raw cabbage given to them by peasants in the villages. Their fate now depended solely on blind luck. They no longer even bothered to take security measures. … A couple of days later two partisans brought them the news: permission had been granted for them to come to the Vasiliyev encampment. They were given directions and instructions, and when they got there they discovered that the two “strong” groups had also been allowed into the camp… In that terrible inhuman time, even some Jews were committing anti-Semitic acts…418 An account by a woman from the Baranowicze region confirms that a similar attitude prevailed there as well: They were among twenty-five or thirty escapees from the ghetto. Some men had rifles, some had guns. This was a motley crew of desperate men fighting to survive, to stay alive. They were all filthy, covered with lice. The commandant of their group was a young man, Moshe Zalmanowicz. … There was a kind of unconcealed envy when they saw women with children. They were openly opposed to having women and children in their group.419 And there was yet another danger lurking—internal rivalries and a lethal power struggle. Another danger arose from denunciations written by Jewish partisans against their own commanders. On the basis of one such denunciation the inter-regional staff began talking about dismissing Bielski and replacing Zorin with a Russian commander.420 That there was fertile ground for competing factions to arise is corroborated by the accounts of Polish and Jewish Communists who had direct contact with the Jews under the command of Tuvia Bielski. Bielski had a checkered career during the war, flirting on and off with the Communist authorities. During the Soviet occupation of Eastern Poland, he became a commissar.421 He sought a rapprochement with the local Soviet partisan comma422nder when he came under their gun for his group’s excessive pillaging in the countryside.423 In scenes reminiscent of conditions that prevailed in almost every ghetto, Józef Marchwiński, who acted as Tuvia Bielski’s second in command for a time, described the life of plenty and leisure led by Bielski’s entourage and his “harem” of well-dressed, attractive women, which was known as the “tsar’s palace” by the poor Jews who often did not have enough to eat.424 A Jewish Communist opined that Bielski was eager to accept into the camp people who had gold and other valuables, but less likely to take in the poor, especially those who had no weapons.425 Some Jews, like Jack Shepsman, ended up leaving the Bielski camp and joined Soviet partisan units. Shepsman recalled: “I didn’t like it there a bit, we didn’t have any arms; I had gone there to fight, to do something, and they put me in the kitchen—I didn’t survive just for that! I had to take revenge for what the Germans had done.”426 Another source of danger mentioned in Jewish memoirs was the frequent bickering and thievery among the Jewish forest dwellers, and even occasional murders of fellow Jews.427 Drunkenness in the partisan ranks was also a serious problem.428 Partisans wooed women forest dwellers and curried favours by offering gifts of clothing, jewelry, and other items stolen from the peasants.429 Needless to add, non-Jews they encountered were looked on with suspicion. I had a few bizarre encounters with Jewish women who tried to pass as Christians and might have had to pay for this with their lives. Once I met two Jewish women from Minsk who had been caught by partisans and accused of spying, and only after I had questioned them for a long time, because I suspected they were Jewish, did they admit their identity and thus were saved.430 Finally I came upon a path and followed it for hours. Suddenly somebody ordered me to stop. They were two Jews but I remembered Mechnikowski’s [her Polish friend from Pińsk] warning not to join Jews, as they were likely to be murdered in the forest, so I told them that I was a Christian and a Pole. Suddenly I heard the one say to the other in Yiddish: “We ought to shorten her by a head’s length.” They took me to their headquarters. I took off my wet garments to dry them at the fire. Unfortunately my coat caught fire and I exclaimed in Yiddish: “Oy meine shmates brennen—my rags are burning,” forgetting I was supposed to be a Pole. At that, the Jews said that I must be a spy set upon the partisans by the Germans but luck was with me again. Somebody among the Jewish group called out: “Teacher, what are you doing here?” This was a pupil of mine…431 Although Jewish memoirs make blanket charges that Polish partisans were also killing off Jews, there is very little concrete information to substantiate this assertion. Nechama Tec’s book Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, for example, which describes numerous cases of Jews murdered by Soviet stragglers and partisans, presents virtually no evidence of such activities on the part of Poles. Yüklə 1,68 Mb. Dostları ilə paylaş:
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