The prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims, but in fact many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. In Defiance, Nechama Tec offers a riveting history of one such group, a forest community in western Belorussia that would number more than 1,200 Jews by 1944-the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Tec reveals that this extraordinary community included both men and women, some with weapons, but mostly unarmed, ranging from infants to the elderly. She reconstructs for the first time the amazing details of how these partisans and their families-hungry, exposed to the harsh winter weather-managed not only to survive, but to offer protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them. Arguing that this success would have been unthinkable without the vision of one man, Tec offers penetrating insight into the group's commander, Tuvia Bielski. Tec brings to light the untold story of Bielski's struggle as a partisan who lost his parents, wife, and two brothers to the Nazis, yet never wavered in his conviction that it was more important to save one Jew than to kill twenty Germans. She shows how, under Bielski's guidance, the partisans smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, scouted the roads for fugitives, and led retaliatory raids against Belorussian peasants who collaborated with the Nazis. Herself a Holocaust survivor, Nechama Tec here draws on wide-ranging research and never before published interviews with surviving partisans-including Tuvia Bielski himself-to reconstruct here the poignant and unforgettable story of those who chose to fight. "The saga of the Bielski partisans is one of the most elevating and inspiring stories in the chronicle of death and despair that is the Holocaust...Defiance is an accomplished and startling work of Holocaust documentation." --Los Angeles Times "Powerful and meticulous. This story is like almost no other." --Leon Wieseltier, The New Republic

Table of Contents

FOREWORD BY EDWARD ZWICK, FILM DIRECTOR; NEW PREFACE BY THE AUTHOR; 1. Before the War; 2. The Russian Occupation; 3. The German Invasion; 4. The Beginning of the Bielski Otriad; 5. Escapes from the Ghetto; 6. The Partisan Network; 7. Rescue or Resistance; 8. Eluding the Enemy; 9. The Big Hunt; 10. Building a Forest Community; 11. The Emergence of New Social Arrangements; 12. The Fate of Women; 13. Keeping Order; 14. The End of the Otria; 15. From Self-Preservation to Rescue; NOTES; BIOGRAPHICAL APPENDIX; ORGANIZATION OF THE BIELSKI OTRIAD; GLOSSARY; INDEX

Reviews

Tec ( When Light Pierced the Darkness ) relates the suspenseful and inspiring story of Jewish partisans who fought the Germans from their base in the Nalibocka Forest in Belorussia. Their leader, Tuvia Bielski, was an uneducated man who--though he had lost his parents, brothers and wife to the Germans--put efforts to preserve the lives of Jews above revenge. The partisans worked to rescue Jews in hiding and to smuggle Jews out of nearby ghettos, but also to punish Jewish collaborators. By the end of the war, Bielski had gathered more than 1200 Jews of all ages into the forest. That they suffered a loss of ``only'' 5% is remarkable, given that their refuge was virtually surrounded by Germans. Bielski died in 1987 and was buried in Jerusalem in a ceremony reserved for Israel's national heroes. Photos. (Aug.)