Resistance

by Tec, Nechama

  During the next Slonim ghetto Aktion, many of the deportees, some of them prominent Poles, objected that they were not Jewish. Their claims fell on deaf ears. The anti-Jewish attacks became a reality only several days after the arrests of the members of the Polish intelligentsia were completed.10

  Helping the SS men who had participated in collecting the prominent Poles and ghetto inmates were Lithuanian collaborators. The Jews suspected that these Lithuanians had come to collect them rather than the Polish elites, many of whom had already been taken away.11 The Jews had spied on the newly arrived Lithuanians and saw that at 4:00 in the morning a large contingent of them came out of their dwellings fully armed and ready for action. The ghetto inmates knew that they should hide. The Shefets had in fact two hideouts—the one located in their yard and another under the floor of their home. Hidden in the yard was an uncle with his infant daughter and a grandmother. The presence of the baby diminished the safety of this hideout. The rest of the family disappeared into the shelter located underneath the Shefets’ living quarters.

  The entire family group consisted of about twenty. Before they moved into their hideouts, they left some of their clothes and eating utensils in disarray. They wanted to leave the impression that they had left in a hurry. However, it seems that the Lithuanian collaborators were well informed about the number of Jews who lived at specific places. Since they found no one they waited, watching closely each ghetto home, including the Shefets’ places. Because the Lithuanian collaborators could not find those they were looking for, this Aktion lasted two weeks. In the end, when waiting failed to produce the desired effects, they announced that they were going to burn the entire ghetto. The threat of a spreading fire forced many of the hidden Jews out.

  The Shefets’ living quarters were at the edge of the ghetto, which afforded an advantage—it meant that the fire set to the ghetto would not reach them until the evening, when they could leave under the cover of darkness. Thus, they were able to safely escape. Hoping to connect with partisan groups, they aimed at reaching the surrounding woods. Eventually, they came to the Pruszkov forest. They had heard that this and other forests housed various partisan groups. After a good night’s sleep, the Shefet group began to plan for their future. They selected two men to negotiate with Russian partisans for acceptance into their group.

  They had no trouble finding such groups, who were willing to accept anyone who was armed. In addition to the possession of guns—which were rare, since only Germans and their collaborators could have them, and anyone else was shot—certain other skills also assured entrance into partisan groups. Doctors were among the most valued professionals.12

  While the “negotiators” for the Shefet group were away, those left behind discussed their chances of finding arms. Some noted that the Red Army soldiers might have thrown away some of their weapons while fleeing their enemies. Some suggested that rather than wait passively for the return of their negotiators, they should search for some of these hidden arms. After all, there was no risk in doing that. Thus, dividing into small groups, they went to look for weapons. Zvi found a shotgun. None of the others were as lucky.

  Soon their two negotiators returned, announcing that only those with arms would be accepted into partisan detachments. Since these two negotiators owned guns, they were preparing for departure. Before they left, they exchanged one of their guns for the one Zvi had found. His gun was in better shape than the one they left him. When Zvi pointed this out to the two men, they assured him that they would help him and also promised to tell the commander how resourceful Zvi was. They were convinced that their support would result in his speedy acceptance into their detachment. Zvi never heard from either one of these men again.

  The group continued to roam around the area. One of the Shefets’ relatives, an aunt, grew up in one of the nearby villages and was therefore able to collect food from some of the local peasants. Although helped by these offers of food, the group felt compelled constantly to change places. There were young shepherds around and they were fearful that they might denounce them to the authorities. By that time the Germans had murdered about 20,000 Slonim Jews. The Shefets heard that 800 Jews continued to live in the small ghetto. Some of their group considered returning to the ghetto, but the majority opposed taking such a drastic step, and eventually, the idea was dropped.

  Gradually, cracks appeared in the cohesion of this group. Not all of them had experienced the German occupation in the same way, and the pressure of the moment had made them brittle and uncertain. Nonetheless, they were bonded by their circumstances—in particular the shortages of weaponry and ammunitions.

  Forest dwellers and the German authorities knew about the potential values and dangers of unattended weaponry and ammunitions. The Germans were determined to take control of the scattered portions of armaments. In western Belorussia, the authorities had established several centers that specialized in the collection and restoration of abandoned parts of weaponry and ammunitions. The biggest and best known of these centers was called Beutelager. Located close to the Slonim ghetto, Beutelager functioned as a combination of storage center and factory. Many young and able-bodied Slonim ghetto inmates worked in the Beutelager. Their job was to collect, clean, and sort the accumulated weapons parts and ammunition, regardless of what kind of shape they were in. Jewish slave laborers were charged with the restoration of these items to their optimal conditions. All along, the presence of Beutelager led to unanticipated consequences, both for the Jews and non-Jews who were directly and indirectly involved in these undertakings.

  Zvi Shefet, with the rest of his family, continued to search for more permanent solutions and felt that “something was happening within our group which was unpleasant.” When I asked Zvi what he meant by “unpleasant,” he replied that some “dealings” had originated in the composition of their group. Zvi’s uncle, his father’s brother, had joined the Shefet group with his wife and several preteen children. In addition, the couple had two older sons who had worked in the Beutelager establishment. Through Beutelager, these two young men had accumulated weapons and ammunitions for the emergent Slonim ghetto underground. Significantly, too, with their access to arms, ammunitions, and other goods, these cousins established close contacts with Soviet partisans, most of whom were former POWs. In fact, they had supplied Soviet partisans with arms, medications, and other valued goods. When these two young men had escaped into the surrounding forests, they were automatically accepted into a Soviet partisan detachment—effectively “repayment” for past services that these Jewish youths had rendered to these early Soviet partisans. These exchanges, however, were not openly discussed.

  An alert observer, Zvi could not help but notice that each visit by his two partisan cousins came with assurances that Zvi’s uncle, his wife, and their young children would have a special place in their partisan detachment. But in order for this to happen the uncle, his wife, and the children had to try hard to stay away from the rest of Zvi’s group. In short, the invitation to join the particular detachment did not extend to the rest of the family, which included five individuals: Zvi, his sister, both parents, and a twenty-eight-year-old woman, a relative of the family. Probably in order to not hurt his parents’ feelings, Zvi had not revealed to them this uncle’s and his family’s plans.

  Zvi had hoped that their group of five would come upon Soviet partisans who would accept them. He also thought, correctly, that his father’s familiarity with this part of Belorussia was an asset for the Soviet partisans, most of whom were strangers to the region. He had hoped that their encounters with Soviet partisans would yield mutually desirable benefits. Prompted in part by these expectations, this group of five detached itself from Zvi’s uncle and his family.

  With this split behind them, Zvi’s group moved in the direction of Kosovo, a town where supposedly the Jews were treated well. Jews continued to cling to any and all positive rumors, even when they had no connection to reality. Nevertheless, as Zvi’s group continued
to explore their surroundings, they made some promising encounters. At one point, Zvi recalled, “We came to a house of a forester who insisted: ‘as Jews you have only one possibility for saving yourself, only by joining forest partisans. Away from the forest no Jew will stay alive.’” This decent man offered them good advice and clear directions to the partisans. Zvi remembered that when they stopped in one of the designated villages, they came across two men, “more or less in Soviet uniforms.” He continued:

  We were glad to meet them and asked them if we could join their partisan unit. They told us that they could not take us without the permission of their commander, suggesting that we should meet at a specified place in the forest. One of them said that we should meet at this place by noon and they would give us an answer. My father took out his watch [and] looking at it he said that in two hours we will be back. One of the partisans replied: “Give me the watch, I don’t have one. This way I will know when to come to you.”

  This was the last time anyone in their group saw either these partisans or the watch. Having lost several hours in waiting and searching, the group of five moved in the direction of the village Okinowo, a village they heard was close to the forest and to various Soviet partisan groups. On the way, they met a Jewish man from Slonim who mentioned that Zvi’s uncle and his family were already a part of a Soviet partisan unit.

  Soon this group of five had reached one of the forest partisan centers, a place from which former POWs coordinated the activities of various partisan groups. Here, after several days, Zvi was accepted into a fighting unit. His parents and the rest of their group were assigned to a family detachment. Membership in such a detachment was often contingent on having a relative who belonged to a fighting unit. Sixteen-year-old Zvi was that relative.

  It took Zvi no time to recognize how pervasive anti-Semitism was among the Soviet partisans. The detachment he joined, in fact, was undergoing a transformation. Referred to as Detachment 51, this unit previously refused to admit Jews, regardless of their qualifications. When the policy to reject Jews had come up for discussion, several of the commanders pointed out that Detachment 51 had benefited from supplies of indispensable goods, which they received because of Jewish efforts. Such arguments, however, made no impression upon the other members of this group. As more voices were added in support of including Jews, the anti-Semitic members of Detachment 51 stood up in protest and resigned.

  A so-called “compromise” was reached. A new partisan group was formed, consisting exclusively of Jewish partisans. This unit kept the name Detachment 51. Zvi readily accepted a position in this newly created group. Zvi noticed some other changes that followed, particularly the arrival of an officer from the Soviet Union. “He was Jewish, his name was Yefim Fiodorowicz. As a newly appointed commander of Detachment 51, he made out of his partisans excellent fighters. The best! We also had a few women who were armed and who, with men, had participated in food expeditions. When the Germans continued to persecute the Gentile populations, more women reached our forests.”13

  Although widely publicized and backed politically by the Soviets, in reality women’s participation in the Russian partisan movements was limited. The estimated proportion of women in the Soviet partisan movement ranges from 2 to 5 percent. In contrast to the pro-female governmental propaganda, the Soviet commanders argued that this small proportion of women was all the forest partisans could absorb. For women who were members of partisan groups, proper treatment was hardly a norm.14 If women could not or would not satisfy the sexual demands of Soviet commanders, they had a hard time. These women were assigned to humiliating jobs and were discriminated against in a variety of ways. One of them, Judith Graf, a native of Slonim, struggled to stay in some of the Soviet partisan groups. It seems that the relationships that Judith probably had with one or more of the high-ranking partisans deteriorated and she was dismissed and persecuted by a particularly vindictive commander. Most of her forest existence was characterized by continuous exposures to abusive and painful rejections. Judith was fortunate that the war came to an end at an “appropriate” time. In her case, timing might have saved her life.15

  Women’s escapes into the Belorussian forest were motivated by a mixture of fear about impending death by the Germans, death by starvation, and by varied humiliating pressures on women’s daily existence. More so than their Gentile counterparts, Jewish women lived with these realities. Yet most forest women shared the desire to join the partisans, to avenge the cruelties and humiliations that were an integral part of the German occupation.

  In most wartime forests, anti-Semitism and opposition to Jewish women’s involvement went hand in hand. Some partisans saw all women as “service givers,” there to attach herself to a partisan and to sexually satisfy him. A woman who had no male protector faced grave problems.16 There were differences and similarities in the fate of Gentile and Jewish women who had reached the Belorussian forests. Gentile women were more likely to come to the forests because they wanted to fight the Germans. That is, they were there by choice. Jewish women, on the other hand, escaped into these forests to avoid being murdered. For many of these Jewish women, acceptance into a partisan unit was contingent upon their willingness to become mistresses of partisan commanders. These partisans’ ability to accept women into their unit depended on the amount of power they had. In the forests only the powerful partisans could acquire mistresses. Most women did not qualify as mistresses. Some were accepted into a partisan detachment because they were good cooks, nurses, physicians, or simply morale-boosters.17 Nonetheless, male partisans had little respect for women, and Jewish women were less respected than Gentile women. Since Jewish women were often the cooks, men who wanted to be fed well had to treat them kindly; but all women had less power than men and were treated with less consideration.

  In part, a woman’s status depended on the position of the man to whom she was attached. For example, a woman married to a doctor had a higher status. This was apparent in Mina Volkowisky’s case, whose husband was a physician. The Volkowiskys came to Belorussia because of their families. As a recent graduate of the French medical school in Paris, Dr. Volkowisky found work in a hospital close to the Żyrowice estate. Several villages and patches of forests surrounded their temporary dwelling.

  For Mina and her husband, the 1939 Soviet acquisition of half of Poland came as a surprise. Even more unexpected to them was the German attack upon the Soviet Union. Confronted by a rapid German expansion, the Volkowiskys relocated to Slonim, to be closer to their families. Shortages of physicians facilitated the doctor’s employment in a local clinic. Mina and her husband moved to her parents’ home, only to be relocated again to the newly established ghetto. This in turn was followed by an Aktion. Among the victims was Dr. Volkowisky’s brother, who left behind a young wife known for her intellect and communist leanings. She, too, moved into the modest home shared by Mina’s family.

  Dr. Volkowisky worked in the ghetto clinic, as did Mina’s mother, a dentist. For a while her father continued to run the family’s tannery. Except for Mina, all the adults were employed. Mina wondered why the Slonim Jews refused to accept the obvious—that the Germans were determined to destroy them. As the only one in her family who was not working, Mina closely observed her surroundings and was surprised how detached the Slonim Jews were from the circumstances around them. For example, Mina’s mother met a Jewish woman who had survived a recent German execution by managing to crawl out of the collective grave. She reached the hospital, begging for help and telling whoever would listen about what had happened. Her freedom did not last. Denounced, the woman was arrested and never heard from again. Despite the rising tide of human sufferings, the ghetto inmates continued to dismiss what they were facing.

  Mina noticed that some of the people who left the ghetto for outside work failed to return. When Mina shared her observations with her husband, he tried to reassure her. As a doctor he was extremely busy and overwhelmed by the suffering he saw around him and by his ina
bility to improve the situation. Still, with time, he was comforted by the limited help he offered. Mina learned that her beautiful sister-in-law had worked at the Beutelager and suspected that she had supplied newly emergent partisan groups with things she stole from there. One day this sister-in-law left the ghetto, only to resurface after the war.

  Mina was good friends with a communist sympathizer named Dr. Slonimski. From Slonimski Mina heard that her sister-in-law had joined a group of Soviet partisans who she had over time supplied with valuable goods she stole from Beutelager. Mina confided in Slonimski that she was also eager to join a Soviet partisan detachment. The doctor discouraged her, arguing that she and her husband would not fit into a partisan unit because they were too bourgeois. He advised her, instead, to find a safe place with a peasant who would hide her and her husband for the duration of the war. But Mina was not interested in hiding. “I had too much life in me.” She goes on:

  Another friend told me about a relative of ours in the woods who, if we would reach the Andrejewskie forests, would help us join his group. . . . This appealed to me. . . . Later on a policeman I knew suggested that we should leave the ghetto and join partisans who would protect us. He was willing to help. When I shared this information with my family they were angry with me. They were convinced that in the end this policeman would denounce us. Slowly, in contrast to these reactions, my husband went along with my ideas. What helped us also was the news that a group of partisans attacked a small town, Kosovo, released some Jews, and brought them to the forest. This was a known and positive incident.