"These are the flowers. The fruit is still to come."

We watched Bielski Brothers: Jerusalem in the Woods  last night, and I came away from it thinking that every Jew in the world should be required to know this story, this history of Jews who saved Jews. and fought the Nazi Germans.

 Poland 1943: Jews from the Bielski partisan unit (Yad Vashem photo archive)

.... At its height, the Otriad camp consisted of long, camouflaged dugouts for sleeping, a large kitchen, a mill, a bakery, a bathhouse, two medical facilities, a tannery, a school, a jail, and a theater. Tailors, seamstresses, shoemakers, watchmakers, carpenters, mechanics, and experts in demolition provided the 1200-member community with necessary skills, and about sixty cows and thirty horses provided food and transportation....

 

Tuvia Bielski reflects on a visit by Soviet Partisan General Platon:

At the time of our visit, Bashitz the blacksmith was busy manufacturing the upper parts of rifle breeches, very delicate work indeed. This made an impression on Platon and he asked for more information about the work.   Then Platon interjected: "Many breeches Comrade, to attack the German fascists!" We stopped next to the empty jailhouse, and the visitor wanted to know if there was anything else to see in the camp.  "No", I told him, "these are the flowers. The fruit is still to come." I took him to see the tannery, where Orkovitz from Baranovitch was in charge. His assistant was Muksay, and they worked with a dozen people. There were six wooden tanks full of hides. With the final product we produced soles and other leather goods. Platon was amazed at the ingenuity - and all within the confines of the forest.   Then we moved to the bakery where the ovens were full of bread. Mordecai Gershovitz from Lida, a noted baker, was in charge, but Platon was even more surprised when he saw our sausage factory. So I said to him, "Visit us often and we will be glad to share our bounty with you." From there I took our guest to show him our food stores, where we had a three-day supply of bread, meat, and two kilograms of rusks per person. Small bags of dried produce were hanging on the walls. The guest sampled several of  the products. Then we moved on to the soap-making workshop, and he requested that we send soap to his headquarters. From there we went to the slaughterhouse. There were two ritual slaughterers, Rabbi David Brook from Novogrudok and an old man from Varnuva. They had prepared the knives and they deemed them completely kosher.   We moved to the flourmill and met with the miller Reznick. Finally, the last stop - where we witnessed the production of resins from the barks of the fir trees for use in the tannery. Shmuel Mikolitzky from Novogrudok was the expert in charge of the process.    "Is it possible that you are making vodka here?" Platon asked.

 

To these extraordinary human beings, to the estimated 20,000 Jewish partisans who fought the Nazis from the forests of Eastern Europe, Yad Vashem devotes little more than this single page, where the Bielski brothers take up a whole paragraph.

 Yad Vashem is famous as one of the most important and impressive memorial sites in the world.

I can't say for certain that the Holocaust was the greatest intentional destruction of humanity in the history of the world, but nothing quite comparable springs to mind.

Germany became a "genocidal state." Every arm of the country's sophisticated bureaucracy was involved in the killing process.

• Parish churches and the Interior Ministry supplied birth records showing who was Jewish;
• the Post Office delivered the deportation and denaturalization orders;
• the Finance Ministry confiscated Jewish property;
• German firms fired Jewish workers and disenfranchised Jewish stockholders;
• the universities refused to admit Jews, denied degrees to those already studying, and fired Jewish academics;
• government transport offices arranged the trains for deportation to the camps;
• German pharmaceutical companies tested drugs on camp prisoners;
• companies bid for the contracts to build the crematoria;
• detailed lists of victims were drawn up using the Dehomag company's punch card machines, producing meticulous records of the killings....

[Saul] Friedländer argues that this makes the Holocaust distinctive because antisemitic policies were able to unfold without the interference of countervailing forces of the kind normally found in advanced societies....

"Not one social group, not one religious community, not one scholarly institution or professional association in Germany and throughout Europe declared its solidarity with the Jews."

I find "distinctive" too attractive a word for such an unspeakable as this; I would rather have said "salient," meaning "prominent or conspicuous."  But the underlying point is well taken indeed.

Watching the documentary last night and listening to the testimony of the actual living survivors, I was struck by -of all things- their pronunciation.  In the movie Defiance the leader of the resistance, the oldest Bielski brother, is called "Tuvia."  But when the survivors speak of him, they say "Tevyeh."

Google {Tevya} and you get not Tevye Bielski, but the dairyman and father in Fiddler on the Roof.

The original Broadway production of the show, which opened in 1964, was the first run of a musical in history to surpass the 3,000 performance mark. Fiddler held the record for the longest-running Broadway musical for almost 10 years until Grease surpassed its run. It remains Broadway's thirteenth longest-running show in history. The production was extraordinarily profitable and highly acclaimed. It was nominated for ten Tony Awards, winning nine, including Best Musical, score, book, direction and choreography. It spawned four Broadway revivals, a successful 1971 film adaptation, and the show has enjoyed enduring international popularity. It is also a very popular choice for school and community productions.

 

Relative to this legend, the movie Defiance enjoyed a limited run and lukewarm reception.

At the Rotten Tomatoes website, the film got an 84% positive response from the community of viewers, but only 50% from "top critics."

Consensus: Professionally made but artistically uninspired, Ed Zwick's story of Jews surviving WWII in the Belarus forest lacks the emotional punch of the actual history.

Lacks emotional punch? Maybe... if you are a stone.

There is a lesson in this disparity, boys and girls. The world likes its Jews tragic or comedic, or in some combination thereof. The preferred view of our history is one of pathos, not heroicism or magnificence, although we have indeed exhibited both of these. 

Even we Jews ourselves particpate in this same slant. We build great monuments to the victims, but the miracles of the living? We hardly know them.

We all raise our children on The Diary of Anne Frank, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's also nothing wrong with honoring the Righteous Gentiles.  What is wrong is that we and our children don't know who Dora Yarmulkovska was. Or Aba Kovner. 

Most people are familiar with the work of Leni Riefenstahl, but who among us knows about Rabbi Michael Dov Weissmandel?

 

This disparity is something we can easily rectify... even in just our spare time. Make a reading list for yourself, get the books, insist that your library carry them, donate them if you must. Read them to your children, give them to your in-laws. Watch the movie, watch the documentary, recommend them at minyan, Hadassah meetings and to your children's teachers. Get yourself a gun and learn how to defend yourself.  If you don't have courage, learn it. Fake it til you make it, if you have to. Call yourself a Jew, instead of Jew-ish.

Like learning to ride a bicycle, you may have to practice pride and the will to live until they come more naturally. Educate yourself to keep the stories of the living alive, as well the stories of the dead, may Gd avenge their blood.

It is not for us, but only for the Six Million, to forgive... or not.  But it is for us to decide upon the inheritance we will leave for future generations. Will you leave them only Anne Frank and Yad Vashem?  Doubtless they will come to know the tune of "if I were a rich man," but it's up to you whether they will know about The Other Tevye(s), the Bricha, and the free and independent ... Jewish ... state of Israel.

"The fruit is still to come," so put some effort into tending your trees.

Comments

[Jay]

The Bielski Brothers-The True Story of three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Built a Village in the Forest, and Saved 1,200 Jews—Defiance is their movie (defiancemovie.com). Just to fill in on some details; I grew up after the War with Zus and Tuvia; I'm Zus and Sonia's son. I am named after my father’s brother and my mother’s brother, both Yaakovs, who were murdered by the Nazis, I am Yaakov; how fitting. Defiance captures the impulsivity of Zus and the wisdom of Tuvia. None of the Bielskis were petty criminals prior to the War that was made up in the movie as an explanation why they had, and still propagate via their children and grandchildren, aggressive skills. The reality was that they lived in a small village and had a mill which converted wheat and other products into cooking fares (breads). Growing up they had to defend themselves and their business from the locals. They were always a family team, 9 brothers and 2 sisters, and also had many non Jewish friends who helped them during the Holocaust. They developed a reputation before the War that "you shouldn't mess with the Bielskis because you are sure to lose" a quote by Aron Bell Bielski. As the environment grew more hostile against Jews and the Bielskis in particular, the ante was raised and so was their response to it, ruthlessness and compassion. The Defiance movie did not show Bielskis' enemies’ heads being axed (Jerusalem in the Woods, The History Channel 11/06). The Bielskis gave the death penalty to captured Nazis by grenades as each Nazi watched his fellows get blown up knowing that he will be next. "It was very smelly" said Shula Rubin in The Bielski Partisans a documentary by Kumar 1996. Many unmentionable acts were done without remorse by the Bielski Otriad (excluding the massacre fallacy of Naliboki, which falsely accuses the Bielski of killing civilians unnecessarily). Remember what would you do if they killed your mother and father, your brothers, your wife and daughter? Zus never considered his revenge disproportionate nor did he consider Israel's responses to the killing of Israelis ever disproportionate. He told me many times, THEY, will only understand the stick. The THEY change over time in the Jewish experience, was our response to Egyptian slavery disproportionate, after all many died of the plagues and sea? I think that whether by choice or coincidence Mr. Zwick prioritized Tuvia as the Moses figure and Zus as David, of Goliath fame. This inadvertently (?)points to disproportionate responses are necessary to maintain Jewish life. Between me and you if the Bielskis’ Defiance movie has any positive influence on Israeli gov’t a more assertive and permanent solution would already be in place both politically and militarily. Defiance was not intended to directly comment on Israeli policies it intended to show that all Jews are capable and obligated to live and be defiant to anyone who threatens our existence, anytime, anywhere. ‘I am Bielski’

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I find "distinctive" too attractive a word for such an unspeakable as this; I would rather have said "salient," meaning "prominent or conspicuous.

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This inadvertently (?)points to disproportionate responses are necessary to maintain Jewish life.

[Safti]

Awesome...that the son of Zus Bielski has commented on your blog. That is a zchus...that you so rightly deserve. My dear holy sister, YOU are a tzaddeikis.