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Heroes of Israel

Tuvia Bielski

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Who

Tuvia Bielski · Heroes of Israel

What

Led the Bielski partisan camp in the Naliboki forest, where more than 1,200 Jews survived the Holocaust under armed protection.

When

8 May 1906, Stankiewicze, near Novogrudok, Russian Empire (now Belarus) — 12 June 1987, New York City, United States

Where

Naliboki forest, western Belarus

Biography

Tuvia Bielski is recognized among Israeli contributors to Heroes of Israel — Led the Bielski partisan camp in the Naliboki forest, where more than 1,200 Jews survived the Holocaust under armed protection.

How & why

Tuvia Bielski and his brothers Asael, Zus and Aron fled to the Naliboki forest in western Belarus in 1941 after German forces killed their parents and much of their community. Rather than form a purely fighting unit, Tuvia made the deliberate decision to accept anyone who could reach them, including the elderly, women and children, and built a forest encampment with workshops, a school, a hospital and a nursery, defended by armed patrols. The group operated for more than two years and more than 1,200 Jews survived the war in it, making it one of the largest armed rescues of Jews by Jews during the Holocaust. He emigrated to Israel in 1945, served in the 1948 war, and later settled in New York.

Sources & external links

Verify and go deeper with these external references.

Source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-bielski-partisans

Contributions & Sources

Led the Bielski partisan camp in the Naliboki forest, where more than 1,200 Jews survived the Holocaust under armed protection.

1941-1944

Source: https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/the-bielski-partisans