Artigo Revisado por pares

Jewish Women Partisans in Belarus

2011; Duquesne University Press; Volume: 46; Issue: 4 Linguagem: Inglês

ISSN

2162-3937

Autores

Tamara Vershitskaya,

Tópico(s)

Historical Geopolitical and Social Dynamics

Resumo

They are strong when they think they have no more energy. Against all odds they persevere in loving, dreaming, and battling for a better world. --Clarissa Pinkola Estes, Women Who Run with the Wolves In spite of the fact that leaders of Soviet partisan detachments were reluctant and often refused to accept Jewish women in their detachments, the latter comprised 26.5% of the total number of Jewish partisans according to the lists of partisans in the National Archive of the Republic of Belarus, that is, 2,268 women. (1) The percentage of women of all nationalities in non-Jewish partisan detachments was five to six percent in 1942-43 and sixteen percent by the end of the war in 1944, out of the total of 282 500 partisans. (2) Most of the Jewish women partisans were in the detachments that operated in Western Belarus. The number of women in Jewish family detachments was three to four times greater than in non-Jewish ones. Jewish family detachments in general were not inspired by the partisan command. On the contrary, they were organized on the initiative of individual commanders. Tuvia Bielski and his brothers Zus and Assoel were the first to express the idea of giving refuge in the forest to every Jew who reached them, including women. The Bielski detachment that operated in the area of Novogrudok and the dense Naliboki forest was unique in many respects and presents an exceptional experience of women partisans. The percentage of women in the Bielski detachment was the highest (35.7% or 364 women out of the total of 1,018 partisans, according to the list of partisans from January 17, 1944). (3) The second biggest Jewish partisan detachment in Belarus, led by Sholom Zorin, operated in the same area. There were 558 partisans in the detachment, including 137 fighters and 421 people in the family group, including 150 women and 250 children. (4) The main motive for women to go to the forest was seeking refuge from the Nazis. Upon leaving the ghetto, Jewish women encountered many life-endangering problems on their way to the partisans. They could be recognized as Jews and reported to the police; German occupation authorities established payment for every Jew caught. They could be killed by non-Jewish civilians because of Antisemitism, which grew stronger once the occupation began, as the German policy in the occupied territory of Belarus was based on the principle of benefiting from the controversies between different nationalities. Jewish women could be eliminated by Soviet partisans as well because of the suspicion that they were German spies sent to the forest to undermine the partisan movement. Vasili Tsariuk, representative of the Partisan Movement Central Headquarters, explained the death of a group of Jewish women killed on the bank of the Nieman River: were warned from reliable sources that the Gestapo had sent a group of women to poison food in our cauldrons. We are at war, nothing could have been done. (5) Women could be simply raped and killed, as the forest abounded in bandits. Sometimes partisans were also guilty of robbery and violence. Though the decision to escape to the forest was demanding, it was the only chance to survive. As a rule, escapes were arranged by the partisans or their messengers and well planned in advance. While in the forest, the greatest problems most women encountered were loneliness and lack of protection, which made them feel psychologically uncomfortable. In addition they--mostly town and shtetl residents-experienced a lack of the means necessary for survival: clothes, shoes, and food. In most cases, this preconditioned their dependence on men except for the rare occasions when women served as doctors and nurses and, in still more rare cases, when they became fighters. Not many women in the Bielski detachment had guns or knew how to use them. It was an unwritten law that guns were for men, as they were scarce. The third problem was a difference in social background between women--former town residents, most of whom were more educated and had had far higher aspirations and better perspectives in their pre-war life--and men in the forest, some of whom could hardly read but had guns and without whom these women could not survive. …

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