Documentary exhibition project of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus «Jewish Resistance to Nazism during the Holocaust»
On April 18, 2023, the Belarusian State Museum of the History of the Great Patriotic War hosted a ceremony to commemorate the victims of the catastrophe and heroism. For this commemorative event, the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus prepared a documentary exhibition project “Jewish Resistance to Nazism during the Holocaust”.
The main organizers of the event are the Embassy of the State of Israel in the Republic of Belarus, the Nativ-Israel Cultural Center.
The event was attended by the Head of the Department of International Cooperation of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus Anna Sergeevna Dynovskaya, Deputy Director of the Department for Archives and Records Management of the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus Aleksey Yevgenyevich Tsvetkov, Director of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus Andrei Konstantinovich Demyanyuk.
The partisan movement in Belarus during the Great Patriotic War was multinational in its composition. Among the thousands of citizens who took up arms for the struggle were representatives of many peoples, including Jews. At the same time, many aspects of Jewish resistance to Nazism still remain poorly understood.
There was almost no ghetto in Belarus where underground patriotic groups and organizations did not operate. The resistance of the prisoners took on various forms: the distribution of leaflets, sabotage, sabotage, the collection of intelligence information, the organization of escapes, the provision of economic and financial assistance to the centers of the underground and partisan movement, training and leaving for partisan detachments, saving the inhabitants of the ghetto. The Jews were not only ordinary partisans, but also leaders and organizers of the partisan movement, commanders, commissars and chiefs of staff of partisan brigades, detachments and regiments. So, in July 1941, in David-Gorodok, a partisan detachment was formed under the command of Berenstein, numbering 40 people. The partisans attacked German convoys, destroyed bridges and crossings, blew up warehouses with ammunition, weapons and fuel, collected intelligence data, and disrupted communication lines.
The most numerous Jewish partisan detachment in the territory of occupied Europe, which had been operating since June 1942 in the Novogrudok region, received particular fame. The detachment commander Tuvia Belsky, a native of the local village of Stankevichi, accepted everyone into the detachment, including those who were not able to take up arms, giving everyone a chance to escape. In conditions of war, when a human life (especially a Jew) was practically worthless, he put the salvation of one life above the destruction of ten enemies. This goal distinguished the Belsky detachment not only in the partisan movement in Belarus in general, but also in the Jewish resistance of the whole of Europe. In total, during the war years, more than 1,300 people passed through the Belsky detachment, of which about 1,200 remained alive. The film “Righteous” directed by Sergei Ursulyak was also filmed on this topic, the release of which is expected in the near future. In the center of the story is the fate of political instructor Nikolai Kiselyov, who leads a group of Belarusian Jews to the rear under the most difficult conditions.
The exhibition presents unique documents from the archives of the National Archives of the Republic of Belarus: a list of the personnel of the Belsky detachment of the Baranovichi region, a personal sheet on the registration of partisan personnel on Pechersky Alexander Aronovich, Zorin Semyon Natanovich, a report by political instructor N.Ya. Kiselev to the Secretary of the Central Committee of the CP(b) of Belarus P.K. for the salvation of Jews, memoirs of a member of the Minsk party underground Mayzles Yenta Peysakhovna about the struggle of a group of communists living in the Minsk ghetto, a list of Minsk ghetto underground workers who died in the fight against the German invaders, acts of sabotage carried out by the partisan detachment of Belsky, a separate partisan detachment named after . M.I. Kalinin, Baranovichi region, information from the command of the partisan detachment named after. S. Ordzhonikidze on the organization of the Jewish partisan detachment of Belsky and other documents.
