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Hinda Tasman relates how she escaped from the Minsk ghetto and was recruited by a partisan unit under the command of Shalom (Simcha) Zorin to smuggle Jews from the Minsk ghetto and lead them to Zorin's family camp.
The Story of Cyla (Tzila) Yoffan
The story of Tzila Yoffan, who escaped from the Lida ghetto with her family and joined the family camp of Tuvia Bielski. The story is supplemented with additional materials.
From a Diary by a Jewish Partisan, 1942-1943
"...The idea of the forest returned and came to life. After the second mass-murder all of us were certain that the Germans made no difference between one Jew and another..."
"Do not rush to fight and die. We are so few – we must save lives. Saving one soul in Israel is much more important than killing Germans."
Nechama Tec, Defiance: The Bielski Partisans, Oxford, 2008, p. 112
Reading Corner
In a reality in which each individual Jew was subject to persecution and murder, how were people able to reach out to others instead of caring only for their own survival?
(1906-1987)
Jewish partisan commander who set up a family camp and a fighting unit in a Belorussian forest
The Nowogrodek ghetto residents persisted in their attempts to flee to the forests and find shelter among the partisan units and in the family camp established by the Bielski brothers.
Video Testimonies
Spotlight
"A boy called Lania and myself asked to go on a mission to the ghetto in order to bring people out of there [… ] Lania decided to go with a group of people at night and I, with a different group by day. In September 1943, we walked from the ghetto to the forest […] I had some 12 people with me."
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Lazar Engles (Engelstern)
"The moment we first set foot on the soil of the Naliboki Pushcha, the atmosphere was completely different. We felt a new kind of security, as if we were in our own partisan kingdom…. We had survived so many dangers, but we were now among Jews in the forest."
Yehuda Bauer
Soviet Partisans and the Jews: Bogdan Musial, Sowjetische Partisanen – Mythos und Wirklichkeit.