Jewish Resistance During the Holocaust Read online

  For the most part, Sonia’s account parallels that of Nechama Tec in Defiance; she refers to the drinking, the occasional infidelities, but dismisses them as minor distractions in a brigade concerned primarily with rescue and survival. What struck me about Sonia Bielski was her being, her persona and the strength of her character, a tenacity surrounding this 80-year-old woman. I tried to imagine what this woman was like 50, 60 years ago; what a powerful presence she must have been amidst these determined fighters. When she first joined the brigade, Zush insisted that she be his ‘woman’ or ‘wife’; Sonia, as she put it, ‘found him attractive; this tall, handsome man’; but she had one condition. ‘I said to him he must rescue my parents from the ghetto before he could have me.’ Zush never hesitated; at great risk to himself, he successfully managed the rescue operation.

  It is very touching, sweet, this love story between Zush and Sonia; the love, passion, runs through her every word; intensity, commitment, admiration, frustration, jump from her eyes, and the sadness, too, of his no longer being there. But it was a passionate and desperate time; men and women loved each other. No one knew if they would be alive the next morning. Sonia’s remembrances were more about love and working to patch over differences than about killing and revenge. ‘Yes, at our “wedding” we had 1,200 guests; God gave us the huppah.’ If a fighter wanted a wife, it had to be now. Leah J.: ‘A few days after I met him, my husband told me “you have to be my wife or I will kill you and myself”.’ But ‘luckily, I liked him, so I went with him.’ Or, as Elsie S. describes it, ‘A girl living with a man had a better chance of living.’ Pregnancies generally were dealt with by abortion; but one or two births occurred in the brigade.

  About two hours into the interview, Mrs. Bielski invites her two friends over for lunch and the four of us sit round her small kitchen table. It is an extraordinary conversation, moving alternately from English to Yiddish, with the women disagreeing over interpretation and facts, but intent on describing what they endured. I find myself traveling back in time and memory with these women, whose voice and eyes reflect pride and sorrow, anger and wonder at their survival. And in the images they use to describe survival, I sense something like a prayer of deliverance, an affirmation understood through the continuity of generations, the accomplishments of children and grandchildren. Survival in their accounts could not be disconnected from birth, natality. Behind their eyes, and in the sonorousness of their heavily accented voices, and their own wonderment and even confusion at the reasons for their survival, each spoke of the experience in terms of natality, what they subsequently created as mothers and grandmothers. It was a powerful theme that tied past and present together, that allowed them to locate and define the reasons behind their survival.

  I had not heard the importance of natality expressed in this way in the narrative of the men, who while speaking of their great pride in their children and grandchildren, never placed them at the moral epicenter of survival. Natality in the narratives of the women stood at the center not only of who they are now, but what they had been ‘then.’ It was as if they were saying back ‘then’ they held inside themselves, physically and spiritually, the key to the future; that their bodies could, if they survived, assure, if not sanctify, the continuity of the community through the literalness of birth.

  Natality and being Jewish: these themes encircled each other, as if survival had been God’s way of saying to time and history, ‘It will all begin again, and it begins with birth, with your bodies.’ Sonia O.: ‘And that’s why I survived.’ The children represent continuity and connection with a community stretching back into the past and forward into the future, a community greater than themselves, but one that would not exist without natality, the very physicality of their bodies as guarantors of identity. This belief, commitment or faith in natality, creates a biological link to their own murdered families; it is their testament, or Kaddish, to the death of mothers, fathers, grandmothers, grandfathers, brothers, sisters, sons and daughters. Natality establishes a spiritual conversation of the living with the dead; because through their children, the remembrance of those they loved moves across the boundaries of time. With birth comes a re-creation of the past; the child brings back into the world the spirit of those who perished. The mother sees in her child an image of her dead mother and father.

  The forests bring birth; and it is the omnipresence of birth, spiritual rebirth, not death, that hangs over the forest. For Jews traumatized by German barbarity, the ghetto held death and terror. But the forests allowed for the creation of action, the establishment of a community; it was the space of natality and regeneration. Being a partisan transformed all moral perspective; as one survivor put it: ‘No one in the forest was bad; we were all good.’ Concepts of good and goodness change in the forests; anti-Semitism, the vicissitudes of survival, alter the traditional formulations. ‘Good’ consists in surviving, and that means fighting, subverting the aims of the anti-Semites, intimidating peasants and stealing food. ‘Bad’ defines itself as what anti-Semites can and may do to you. The unrelenting hatred of Jewish partisans by Germans, peasants, Poles, some Russian partisans, forced the Jewish brigades to stretch and redefine the meaning of good and bad. For example, forcibly confiscating food from peasants had nothing do with ‘Thou shalt not steal’; it was rather, ‘We are collecting taxes.’ As Charles Bledzow, a member of the Bielski Unit, described it to me: ‘We would come to a farmer by surprise; they know what to do; that was the power of our reputation in the forests.’ And then he adds, with a smile: ‘We justified it by arguing it was taxes; they paid taxes to us.’

  Ethics and morals in the forests possessed meaning only as they impacted surviving; moral difficulties in terms of relationships within the brigade (for example, over food and labor distribution), if they arose, could be negotiated, although internal conflicts on a few occasions reached the point where they exercised a divisive impact on the brigade. Individuals understood the limits, even if they were not explicitly stated. The unspoken dictum meant action threatening the brigade’s unity or safety would not be tolerated, whether it came from the inside or the outside. Bledzow: ‘You ask about ethics and morals; we had ethics and morals but we invented our own to fit how we had to survive. You had to do things to bring in food; that was it, the bottom line. With many of the Russians anti-Semitic and the local farmers hostile, if you didn’t use force, you were a dead man.’ Sonia Bielski praised the fighters and non-fighters, but, she said, ‘human nature’ complicated the picture: ‘Everybody was greedy like an animal; we fought with each other; there were conflicts, but we managed to cooperate … . You were bound to have some jealousies … the fighters received the most generous food portions, they had the wives … sometimes the malbush felt frustrated and left out.’

  Many of those not part of Zush’s brigade but in the main group with Tuvia Bielski fought in their own way by gathering food, guard duty, reconnaissance, and these too involved risks. Sonia O.’s husband, for example, while not a fighter, worked at whatever was asked of him. He had a gun, but never used it; yet she felt safe with him ‘because the group made us safe in the forests; we could protect ourselves.’

  Sonia O.’s security in the forest involved more than the presence of guns; it also evolved around a continuing faith that God was watching over this community and would save them. ‘I knew we would make it; at times I had my doubts; it was no bed of roses, but I prayed I might one day see my children and tell them about their grandparents. Even though so many Jews died, we won by giving another generation.’ Sonia smiles; pride fills her eyes. ‘But you know, this faith in what my children might bring kept me going.’

  Faith in natality played a significant role in maintaining a psychological balance, never succumbing to fear, depression and despair over loss of family. In Leah J.’s words: ‘God is in your children; it is a terrible thing to be a Jew… . So the children and the knowledge that you might survive and have children become your future and your salvation.’ But there was m
ore to it than that, a negative, troubling counterpoise to natality; the belief that Jews deserved this suffering; guilt in the eyes of God. Sonia O.: ‘This was very much on my mind … maybe God was testing us.’ The men I spoke with had little patience with this spiritual position; they rejected it outright. ‘Germans killed us; not God.’ But, with the exception of Sonia Bielski, the women embraced this concept. Sonia O.: ‘Who are we to know God’s will? When I raised this in the brigade, they shut me up, particularly the fighters if they were around. So, I thought to myself, maybe we went away from God; we moved from his path.’ The sadness in her voice wraps around her words and slows them down. ‘Who knows … it was so long ago … we did something wrong that God didn’t like. And when we survived, it was God telling us to be observant as Jews, to instill faith in our children.’

  To prove her worthiness in having survived, Sonia O. argued, she felt she had to demonstrate by faith in God; that meant strict observance, keeping kosher and giving her children religious education.

  ‘There is a God, I know because I’m alive’; yet, surviving meant overcoming the guilt at having survived. ‘Why me? Why not my sister, brother, father, son?’ Guilt recurs throughout Sonia O.’s narrative, a heavy obligation that interrupts the pleasures of natality.

  ‘My spirit sometimes hurts; it hurt then when we had a few moments to think to ourselves. You feel guilty for the crime you did not commit. I didn’t kill Jews; but I still felt guilty. It bothered me in the woods; and it bothers me now. Why am I alive? Why were my brothers and sisters killed? Why is my little sister dead and not me?’ She is quiet for a moment. ‘Maybe I shouldn’t have survived; was it luck? … God’s will?’

  These thoughts, recriminations, preoccupy her, a remembrance that possesses no answer, no resolution, an open wound in her soul:

  ‘The older I become, the more this haunts me. I thought about it once in a while in the forests and later, after the war, there were times when it entered my mind… . But now, this guilt at having survived comes to me all the time. I wake up in the middle of the night, wondering, why me? Why did I survive?’

  Sonia Bielski, however, dismisses guilt. ‘You have to be a Jew in your own way’; decision, action, healed her soul. ‘Being a partisan was my prayer.’ She drew her spiritual inspiration from the sight of Zush and the fighters, and the knowledge that they were protecting her. ‘Killing Germans: that was our prayer. We knew we had a place; it was in that forest, where we lived; the brigade gave us our freedom; it allowed us to make our own choices; it freed our spirit.’ And even though the forests could be difficult, filled with obstacles, ‘It was ours; those bunkers in the ground; they were our place.’ Freedom and spiritual liberation lay in the protection of the trees: ‘We didn’t have time to think about what we’ve lost, only what we could save by fighting. In those forests we were free.’ But even she, at moments, had her doubts:

  ‘I once asked my husband, “Why is God killing us?” He would have none of it. He told me not to think about it. “We kill Germans, collaborators; God has nothing to do with it.” But I thought to myself, God is giving and taking; you have to accept that fact, and then do what you can to fight back. I let my hate of the Germans take over; then I stopped thinking about God.’

  Yet, Sonia O. reminded me that the group with Tuvia, the non-fighters, possessed plenty of hate and desire for revenge. The ethics of community shifted after the German assault on Novogrudek. What would have been unthinkable in the shtetl took on a spiritual and redemptive valence in the forests; normally mild-mannered and peaceful persons acted violently and with rage.

  It is late in the afternoon the next day. I had called Sonia O. and asked her if we could continue the discussion. We are alone in her apartment and she seems eager to talk. Yet her mood takes us into deep shadows. ‘Lots of things I don’t want to remember … so much hate on both sides.’ Tears stream down her face, but she insists we explore these painful memories.

  ‘In the ghetto I was part of a small group determined to find a way out; we had been digging a tunnel. A kid dug with us, but we found out he had been hired by the Germans and police to inform. We later learned he had been responsible for the deaths and capture of several families. Apparently the Germans and police paid him or told him he and his family wouldn’t be killed if he told them where to find Jews.’

  Her speech slows; she seems to be catching her breath:

  ‘There was a barber in our group, a gentle guy; we knew him as a person who never hurt anyone. All he had done in his life was cut hair; but his family had been murdered. One night, after digging, he grabbed an ax and without a word hacked off the head of that kid. I remember his eyes; how wild they were. We buried the head and body in the tunnel. No one ever spoke of it.’

  The sadness in Sonia’s eyes is not sympathy for the informer, but for the barber, the memory of his bitterness and the transformation of a gentle soul into a killer, an avenger. She looks at me, and says as much to herself as to me: ‘Look, the Germans wanted to torture you, to rip out your soul and burn your body. We couldn’t avoid that. We had to protect ourselves.’ She turns away for a moment and we both sit quietly; she looks to the side, towards a large window which opens out to the next building, no view, but an empty space punctuated by the bright whiteness of the building’s structure. Her voice returns, but much softer. I can barely hear.

  ‘I remember one more thing. I have never described this to anyone. It was horrible, but it happened. A couple of times, we caught German soldiers running from the Russian front. We murdered them. Everybody took a stick to kill the German. The one that I saw, they cried, “This is for my mother, my son, my grandmother” … no mercy. Each person, old men, women got in a blow. When I saw this I started to cry, not for the German. I hated him just as much as anyone else. But the Germans killed my father the same way, beating him to death with sticks … I couldn’t bear to watch it.’

  Sonia stops speaking and then continues, insisting: ‘It’s wrong to say only the fighters were violent; all of us in the camp killed Germans when we had the opportunity. But I couldn’t watch this; it brought back the memories of my father’s death. I ran away, into the woods, not for the Germans. What those people did to the soldier was right. But I just kept thinking about my father.’ For many Jews, faith sustained itself on vengeance.

  It is critical not to underestimate the power of this community in the forest to hold and contain selves physically and psychologically battered by the German policy of ghettoization and annihilation. Each participant in the Bielski Brigade had lost if not an entire family, then the majority of their loved ones. Lapsing into madness, a frequent occurrence in the ghettos, especially amongst children, was fought against in the forest, but it took an enormous commitment from everyone to self-defense, and from the community itself to hold and comfort each other. In the words of one survivor, Elsie S., ‘How could a human mind still be normal in the face of this? … I thought I was dying; I lost my entire family in a single day … I was envious when I saw a bird flying; that bird had freedom.’ Ghetto diaries, as conditions become increasingly difficult, describe individuals and families disintegrating emotionally; catatonic children wasting away, fouling themselves against ghetto walls; shrieking women roaming the streets; suicides increasing daily. The forest community, however, provided barriers to this sinking into madness. Elsie S.: ‘You talked with everyone in the camp. Any work was helpful; you exchange ideas; try to console one another. People, if they wanted, could be understanding. But you couldn’t be morbid all the time. How can you function if you think about death every minute of the day? It was a new way of life.’ In the words of the youngest Bielski brother, Aaron, twelve years old at the time of the Brigade’s founding: ‘With the Bielskis in your camp, you felt you had an army; we knew that to be in the forest, it was far better than the camps. Compared to those living in the concentration camps and ghettos, we lived in the Waldorf Astoria.’ Children in the Bielski Brigade fared far better than children in th
e ghetto, although children never received any formal schooling. Still, the few children in the brigade played with one another, and adults cushioned them from the trauma suffered during the German assaults.

  Aaron (Bielski) Bell, eleven when the German invasion began, witnessed the crippling of his father. Hidden behind a wall, he watched while a group of German soldiers beat his father with rifle barrels.10 What he calls ‘being terrorized’ remains with him in his dreams and thoughts; it is there in his eyes, as he, with considerable difficulty, speaks about his past. He still bitterly remembers the collaborators and their role in the murder of his parents. Aaron’s father, paralyzed by the beating, lay on his back for ten days until he and his wife were taken away by the Germans. Aaron found refuge with a sympathetic neighbor and eventually his brothers took him and his sister’s family to the forests. It is not a time he wants to recall. ‘Look outside, this Palm Beach, it is beautiful, heaven on earth. But I will try to tell you what I can.’ Going back is not where he wants to be and the interview proceeds in fits and starts. But he insists we continue and tells me not to hold back on my questions. He will do as well as he can. What preoccupies him in our interview are the collaborators; he repeatedly comes back to them and their role in murdering Jews:

  ‘I hated them, the father and son who worked for my parents; both took pleasure in seeing them trucked away by the Germans. My mother, someone later told me, asked the son for her galoshes; and he said, “You won’t be needing galoshes where you’re going.” When my brothers several months later went into town and brought him back, I felt good when the fighters executed him.’

  I asked Aaron if he would consider this a form of ‘goodness’ in the forests. With no hesitation he replied: ‘Of course, when they killed him, it lifted the spirits of our whole group!’