The Three Heroic Brothers

“The Three Heroic Brothers”

Three brothers risked their lives to provide a safe haven for Jewish people. Before World War II the Bielskis lived in a village called Stankevich where they were the only Jews living there. Their parents and other relatives were murdered during a massacre. After this tragic event the three brothers left to the Belorussian forest. They decided to help save Jews, and by the end of the war they saved 1,200 Jews.

The Bielskis life before war was challenging. They were the only Jews living in a small village: “The Bielski home stood separate from the main section of the community…The Bielskis were the only Jews in town” (Duffy 1). The three brothers Tuvia, Asael, and Zus lived with their grandparents on a farmland in the forest. Being the only Jewish people in town they were alright with it. Their neighbors did not have a problem with them being around. Once the family got settled in “…the tsar issued another string of anti-Jewish decrees, including one that made it illegal for Jews to buy, sell, manage, or lease rural property” (Duffy 2). The tragedy between the Jews and the Germans were beginning, but the tsar were slowly taking their rights away from the Jews. Since Jews were not allowed to own their own property the Bielskis had to try to keep their home from being taken away. They lived in a forest on a farmland, so that means they took care of the farm, and knew their way around the forest surrounding their home. The brothers did have an education, but they didn’t learn everyday it varied. They sometimes go to a local school or they would be homeschooled. They were smart guys and understood three different local languages which would be useful for them later on. Although Tuvia was not that interes...

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...to get caught otherwise they would be executed. The Nazis would drive them to a ditch outside of the ghetto, and made them take their clothes off and face the ditch and shoot them.

Works Cited

Anflick, Charles. Resistance: Teen Partisans and Resisters Who Fought Nazi Tyranny. New York: Rosen Pub., 1999. Print.

Duffy, Peter. The Bielski Brothers: The True Story of Three Men Who Defied the Nazis, Saved 1,200 Jews, and Built a Village in the Forest. New York: HarperCollins, 2003. Print.

Levy, Patricia. Survival and Resistance. Austin, TX: Raintree Steck-Vaughn, 2001. Print. The Holocaust.

"The Bielski Partisans." United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. United States Holocaust Memorial Council, 10 June 2013. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.

"The International School for Holocaust Studies." CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF PHOTOGRAPHS AS HISTORICAL SOURCES. N.p., n.d. Web. 16 Apr. 2014.