New York, January 26, 2020
Watching this diverse gathering - people chatting animatedly with each other although many met for the first time, it was easy to imagine Forest Jerusalem - a Jewish partisan camp in the Naliboki dense forest where life was also in full swing in 1943-44. Friedberg, Kushner, Reznik, Vilensky, Leibovich, Berkovich, Israelit, Yoselevich, Skakun, Kaganovich, Kolachek - these and many other names sounded at the meeting.
They came from different cities of the United States at the invitation of the Museum of Jewish Resistance in Novogrudok, Belarus. Children and grandchildren of Tuvia and Zus Bielski, the youngest of the brothers Aron Bell with his wife, daughter and great-grandson, daughters of Yehuda Bielski and Taiba Belski-Dzentelski, also came to the meeting.
All participants in the meeting are descendants of the Jews from Novogrudok and the surrounding area who survived the Holocaust. Most of them are connected to the story of the unique Jewish partisan detachment organized by the Bielski brothers during WWII with one aim - to survive and recue other Jews. More than a thousand people survived the war in the Belarusian forests hanks to them.
Children and grandchildren of the partisans gathered to discuss the idea of creating a Memorial on the site of the Bielski detachment in the Naliboki Forest, where more than a hundred descendants of the Bielski partisans from around the world visited in July 2019. They arrived in Novogrudok on the 75th anniversary of the liberation of the town from Nazi invaders to celebrate their parents and grandparents’ victory, the victory of life over death, and to pay tribute to courage and heroism of those Belarusians and Poles who helped them survive the horrible years of the war.
Many years after the events the history of the Bielski partisan detachment continues to inspire. Ariel Lucky and his brother, having visited the forest on the other side of the Neman during their visit to Lyubcha and being impressed by the story and the forest in which the partisans operated, composed music. Ariel played a tune at the meeting, that miraculously transferred those present to the Belarusian shtetl and the Bielski camp.
Novogrudok and Belarus are not empty words for all these people. They have their roots in this land. They want to come here and bring their children and grandchildren. In the video by Sharon Rennert, Tuvia Bielski’s granddaughter, about the meeting in Novogrudok and in the forest last July which she prepared specially for the meeting in New York, there is a moment when she and Matt, Zus Bielski’s grandson, put a mezuzah on a tree in the partisan camp. This forest was home to Jewish partisans, and they, the third generation, also felt at home here.
Everyone who has a wish and possibility to support the idea of a memorial on the site of the Bielski detachment in the Nalibokski Forest in order to preserve this unique story of ordinary courage of ordinary people, please, contact Tamara Vershitskaya, curator of the Jewish Resistance Museum in Novogrudok, e-mail: Wtamar@mail.ru or Novogrudok Museum of History and Regional Studies, director Anna Turovich, e-mail: ukngkm@mail.ru
Your ideas and financial support will be received with gratitude.
