Defiance: The Bielski Partisans (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust is one of helpless victims, but in fact many Jews struggled against the terrors of the Third Reich. In Defiance, Nechama Tec offers a riveting history of one such group, a forest community in western Belorussia that would number more than 1,200 Jews by 1944--the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Tec reveals that this extraordinary community included both men and women, some with weapons, but mostly unarmed, ranging from infants to the elderly. She reconstructs for the first time the amazing details of how these partisans and their families--hungry, exposed to the harsh winter weather--managed not only to survive, but to offer protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them.

Read the Foreword
Writer and director Edward Zwick reveals the challenges and personal significance of making a film adaptation of Nechama Tec's Defiance. Among his extensive film credits, Zwick is best known for his direction of Blood Diamond and The Last Samaurai.

An inevitable rite of passage in any Jewish child’s informal initiation to adulthood is to study, with grim fascination, the grainy, out-of-focus images of hollow-eyed survivors in striped pajamas, the amateur photos of corpses piled high in freshly dug pits, or possibly the 16 mm handheld GI footage of living skeletons clinging to barbed wire during the liberation of the camps. Such grisly iconography of passivity and victimization was, during my childhood, and probably is still today, not only an article of faith, but also a source of secret shame. As an assimilated suburban kid growing up in the Midwest, I had thrilled to World War II stories about John Kennedy and PT 109 (Cliff Robertson in the movie version), the leatherneck marines at Guadalcanal (John Wayne), the flying fortresses over Germany (Gregory Peck), and so many more. In feeble contrast, Jewish heroes were the ancient biblical warriors evoked by uninspired Sunday school teachers--Bar Kochba and Judah Macabee wielding spears and jawbones, or young David with his little slingshot.

So when my friend and collaborator, Clay Frohman, came to me with a book called Defiance, I was skeptical. "Not another Holocaust movie," I said. What was to be accomplished, I asked myself, in telling yet another story of familiar and unspeakable horror, especially when an entire canon of literature, not to mention films both documentary and fiction, have already dramatized it in the most exacting and harrowing detail? What’s more, the greatest historians and philosophers of our time have devoted entire careers to plumbing the roots and magnitude of its evil. What could I possibly add?

But Clay was insistent. Here, he said, was something fresh and utterly provocative. And so, somewhat grudgingly, I plunged into Nechama’s Tec’s remarkable book and found myself deeply moved. That was ten years ago. And the feelings I had upon that first reading have only grown stronger with time. To read of the Bielski brothers and their fight to create a safe haven in the midst of a hell-on-earth evokes in me something utterly primitive and deeply personal, a roiling wave of fear, awe, humility, and admiration. And outrage, too--that such a story was not better known.

Here, clutching captured Schmeisser submachine guns and "potatomasher" grenades, were Jewish fighters whose deeds were as stirring and brave as any I had ever encountered. And what’s more, it was all true. In an age when the term "hero" has been so overused as to become meaningless, the Bielskis remind us that real heroism is not the stuff of comic books. Rather, it is a set of decisions, sometimes impulsive, often made by simple men of whom nothing of the sort could ever have been expected. Their story is not simply one of courage or fortitude in the face of adversity; it includes any number of daunting moral decisions--whether to seek vengeance or to rescue, how to re-create a sense of community among those who have lost everything, how to maintain hope when all seems forsaken. Read more

Edward Zwick
Santa Monica, Calif., 2008

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--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

From Publishers Weekly

Tec ( When Light Pierced the Darkness ) relates the suspenseful and inspiring story of Jewish partisans who fought the Germans from their base in the Nalibocka Forest in Belorussia. Their leader, Tuvia Bielski, was an uneducated man who--though he had lost his parents, brothers and wife to the Germans--put efforts to preserve the lives of Jews above revenge. The partisans worked to rescue Jews in hiding and to smuggle Jews out of nearby ghettos, but also to punish Jewish collaborators. By the end of the war, Bielski had gathered more than 1200 Jews of all ages into the forest. That they suffered a loss of "only" 5% is remarkable, given that their refuge was virtually surrounded by Germans. Bielski died in 1987 and was buried in Jerusalem in a ceremony reserved for Israel's national heroes. Photos.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 304 pages
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA (December 8, 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0195093909
• ISBN-13: 978-0195093902
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 5.9 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (36 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #290,713 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

59 of 62 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This Book is Absolutely Amazing, April 6, 2004

By	M. Sean Silk (Atlantic City, NJ) - See all my reviews

In her book, "Defiance: The Bielski Partisans", Nechama Tec depicts an amazing tale of Jewish resistance and rescue on the eastern front during World War II. At the pith of this movement was one Tuvia Bielski, the commander of the large Jewish partisan outfit that roamed the Belorussian woods, constantly trying to avoid contact with the Germans. Tuvia, along with his brothers Asael and Zus were responsible for the salvation of over 1200 Jews, many of whom were elderly, female, or juvenile. Taking in such refugees in an extremely volatile environment was a huge risk. Without Tuvia's willingness, or determination to take on such risks, many of these people would have otherwise perished to the Nazi barbarity that was ubiquitous in the region. As a professor of sociology, the author Nechama Tec offers a unique perspective on this historical phenomenon. Her expertise brings into focus the social dynamic of partisan camps in World War II.

Rather than succumb to the popularly accepted view that Jews were passive victims who simply laid down and allowed the Nazi aggressors to do their bidding during the Holocaust, Tec attempts to elucidate the under-documented, untold side of the story. That is, despite the widespread annihilation and extermination that Jewish citizens faced in Europe, there were pockets of resistance to the Nazi menace that deserve laudatory recognition. Tec takes the sentiment that there is a necessity to educate people on the unmentioned and tries to fill in the gap she believes is left by mainstream historians. Her effort to do so indeed deserves the very same laudatory recognition that she sets out to bestow upon the Bielski partisans.

Tec makes the interesting suggestion that, contrary to popular belief, the Eastern European Jewish population was chock-full of resilient human beings. Human beings who were not only perfectly capable of surviving harsh physical conditions of the Belorussian woods, but also endowed with enough self respect to openly defy and resist the malevolent psychological conditions brought about by the Nazi occupiers.

The evidence that Tec employs is abundant. She relies heavily on personal interviews with people who lived in, and survived with Tuvia Bielski's partisan group. Obviously, such interviews can be considered primary text evidence, and are therefore integral to any comprehensive historical study. However, the question of the reliability of such sources needs to be raised. Having conducted the interviews nearly fifty years post hoc, Tec leaves the question of their accuracy wide open. Many times, in the years that pass after a traumatic event, people who have lived through that event have a tendency to romanticize it. This skepticism is in no way meant to take away from the tremendous effort and commendable activity of the Bielski partisan organization. It is merely a suggestion that the facts offered by the various interviewees need to be taken with a grain of salt. The accuracy of the overall picture is not what should be questioned, only the minute details. Despite the possibility of these petty hair-splitting ambiguities, the nature of the evidence that she employs makes her argument a believable one.

As one tarries along the path that is the study of the Second World War, one continually stumbles upon certain recurring themes. Perhaps one of the most intriguing of these themes is the duality of hope. Hope was such a major factor in so many peoples' lives during this turbulent time in Eastern Europe, regardless of their religious beliefs. There is no doubt that hope for freedom, hope for equality, hope for a better life, and hope for a liberated post war Europe was the underpinning of the exemplary actions of the Bielski partisans. Such hope supplied this sui generis group of Jews with something to live for, something to long for. However, hope has a darker side as well, a side that many choose to ignore. At the very same time that hope was motivating the Jews to defy, resist and survive, it was providing legitimacy to the atrocities committed by Nazi collaborators. If hope was drawn on a continuum, the Bielski partisans, as limned in Nechama Tec's "Defiance", should be placed on one extremity, epitomizing the good that can come from hope. On the opposite extremity should be the various collaborators depicted in Tadeusz Borowski's "This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen". These people absolutely epitomized the evil and nefariousness that hope can breed. When studying the Holocaust it is important to understand that hope is not always a virtuous attribute. It is essential for one to comprehend the paradoxical qualities of hope during this pestilent period of Nazi occupation.

Overall, Nechama Tec does a wonderful job recounting this story. Her sociological perspective helps to illuminate the organizational dynamics of partisan groups in Nazi occupied Eastern Europe. This organizational understanding is not always available from strictly historical authors. From a Jewish standpoint, it is particularly difficult to read her book, and not swell up with pride when learning about the messianic determination of Tuvia Bielski to save his people. Perhaps messianic is a bit too strong of a word for this situation. Still, Tuvia's work was highly meritorious. If one word could be used to describe the manner in which Jews are portrayed by mainstream History it would be compliance. If one word could be used to describe the manner in which Jews are portrayed by Nechama Tec it would be, and is Defiance. Her title is an apt one indeed. Ultimately, her work is a must read for anyone wishing to broaden their understanding of the Holocaust, Jewish history, or European history. Thusly, her book is recommended with the highest amount of adulation.

62 of 66 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars review from a Bielski, November 9, 2000

By	ALAN BELL (POUND RIDGE, NY USA) - See all my reviews

Being the son of Aron Bielski the youngest of the 12 Bielski children I must say Ms.Tec did a wonderful and accurate job.Since Defiance was published there has been a great amonut interset raised on the Bielski Brothers.The book is informative and suspensful, it tell stories previously only known to the family and members of The Bielski Brigrade.

53 of 57 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent, October 9, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: Defiance: The Bielski Partisans (Hardcover)

I am the the son of two of the members of the Bielski Partisans. For many years my parents would not talk about their role in the war. However, since getting this book, they have become more responsive to my questioning. Is there anyway that i can in touch with the author to find out more information? I guess, because of my background, I've always been interested in this period. I could not put this book down. As a result of reading this book, I've gotten a hold of the other books by Mrs Tec. They are just as riveting as Defiance.