The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy, Perennial imprint of HarperCollins, 302 pages including end notes, $14.95.

By Donald H. Harrison

It might have been as long ago as 1967 when we were both working in the Los Angeles bureau of the Associated Press that, on a break, Bruce Lowitt told a tale that I couldn't help but recall while recently reading the paperback version of The Bielski Brothers by Peter Duffy.

As Lowitt tells the story: "In the middle of the deepest, darkest part of the continent is a swamp, the most fetid, disgusting swamp imaginable, with gaseous bubbles oozing to the surface. And in the middle of the swamp are these two hippos, standing in muck up to their eyeballs. And one of the hippos heaves himself out of the slime and says to the other one, 'Y'know, I can't get it through my head that it's Friday already.'"

In western Belarus during World War II, there were no jungles, but there were forests or "puschas" to which Jews in the ghettos of Lida and Novogrudek—if they dared—could try to escape their planned mass murders by the Nazis.  From these puschas, Soviet partisan units often operated close enough to the road and railroad line through the region to be able to harass the Nazis.  As mobile strike forces, these partisan units were necessarily small in size—and often did not welcome outsiders, especially Jews. 

Early among those Jews who fled to the puscha with their families were three Bielski brothers—Tuvia, Asael and Zus.  What was particularly remarkable about these brothers was that they were not content to simply save themselves.  They sent word to the ghettoes that any Jew who cared to join them, any Jew, would be welcome.  That included not just men and women of fighting age, but senior citizens and infants.  Little by little, as they recognized that the Nazis planned to kill them all, some Jews from these two towns escaped the ghettos at night and found their way to the forest.

Caring for the refugees was a logistical problem, and often conflicted with the Bielskis' desire to strike back at the Nazis.  But the oldest brother and commander of the operation, Tuvia, asserted an important maxim: Better to save one elderly Jewish woman than to kill five Nazis.  To feed and care for the growing number of people in their charge, the Bielskis—whose family had operated a mill before the war—regularly requisitioned foods from Polish farmers they had known all their lives. Some were glad to help; others resented the Jews or informed upon them.  The Bielskis did not hesitate to kill the informers, who placed the lives of hundreds of refugees at risk.  It became understood throughout the region that the Bielskis were not to be betrayed.

But so large a group was bound to be discovered, and one day barely escaped annihilation by a force of soldiers sent out by the Nazis.  That's when the Bielskis on a stealthy journey that lasted days led 800 people deeper and deeper into the forest, through a swamp, and to the island called Krasnaya Gorka.. This place was at first only a temporary refuge, but later, stripped by the Soviet authorities of most of his fighters, Tuvia Bielski led the refugees back to the island  And there, with winter approaching, they chopped down trees, and built large communal shelters, a communal kitchen, workshops, and gradually created a town in what seemed the middle of nowhere.  It grew to 1,200 people and its workshops repaired guns, sewed clothing, fixed watches, and did whatever could be done to help the fighters.

The Nazis remained a threat, but there were others that Tuvia also had to contend with.  Soviet partisans were ever suspicious of anyone who did not swear loyalty to Comrade Stalin, so Tuvia and his fellow Jews made a great show of their loyalty to the Soviet state.  The Nazis meanwhile equipped local anti-Semites to form their own anti-partisan groups in the forests.  And there were internal challenges to the Bielskis' authority.  But for all that, the village that the Bielskis created deep in the forest was an oasis of freedom, where many Jews could go about their lives, smile, even tell jokes, and wait for the day when the Nazi war machine would be defeated by the Soviet Army, aided by the Bielski partisans.

Brother Asael, drafted into the regular Soviet forces, died in battle near the end of the war.  Tuvia and Zus emigrated from Eastern Europe to Israel and later to the United States, where they led unremarkable lives until their deaths.  Author Duffy notes that the Bielskis never received the accolades that industrialist Oskar Schindler received for saving so many Jewish lives.   But if the saying is true that "to save a life is to save the world," then they were the rescuers of a universe.  And may their names always be cherished in Jewish memory!