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May 23, 1986 - Image 2

Resource type:
Text
Publication:
The Detroit Jewish News, 1986-05-23

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2 Friday, May 23, 1986

THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS

PURELY COMMENTARY

PHILIP SLOMOVITZ

Shocking Revelation Of Prejudiced Treatment Of Fellow Partisans

Jews — and therefore also non-Jews
— have been misled into believing there
was a fraternal spirit in the forests, dur-
ing the resistance against the Nazis,
during the serious mobilization of forces
of all faiths and nationality back-
grounds. It was a misconception and the
exposing of the falsehood must be wet=
corned in the interest of truth in gather-
ing the Holocaust facts.
At last the lie is exposed and the
truth told by a partisan who suffered the
indignities of those who were believed to
be comrades-in-arms. The personal
chronicle revealing the shocking condi-
tions which have not been fully related
hitherto is recounted by Yechiel
Granatstein, who escaped to the forests
as a youngster and became involved with
a Russian partisan group. He recalls the
sad experiences in The War of a Jewish
Partisan, subtitled "A youth imperiled
by his Russian comrades and Nazi con-
querors" (Mesorah Publications Ltd.).
The current volume is a translation from
the Hebrew by Charles Wengrow.
There is a distressing shock in this
partisan's accusation. It is an indictment
of the fellow-partisans in the Russian
ranks who were expected to be compas-
sionate and cooperative and instead
turned persecutors.
Ich hob . gewolt leben was the title of
Granatstein's expose when it first ap-
peared in a Yiddish language volume in
Paris in 1950. The first Hebrew text ap-
peared in 1955 in a translation by Y.
Ginton. It was entitled Yehudi beYaar
(("A Jew in the Forest").
This volume of truth-sharing is so
valuable that the author's experiences
must be shared with the readers.
Granatstein has gained a reputation as
an author during his years in Israel
since the war's end. The Yiddish text of
his book was out of print and he decided
to do another Hebrew translation him-
self. In his own translation and in the
English text there are supplementary
chapters, excerpts from literary supple-
ments of various newspapers in Israel
and abroad.
Granatstein wrote realistically. He
took into account his personal recollec-
tions, granting that in other forests
there may not have been the prejudices
he encountered. He expresses the hope
that: "Somewhere in this great wide
world, I hope, the 16 other Jewish parti-
sans who were set free with me on that
summer day of 1944 are alive and well. I
hope this book will reach them. Together
with me they remain the only witnesses
to the things that happened in our for-
ests."
Because he exposed the unsavory
roles of fellow partisans who were Rus-
sians, a controversy arose when his book
was published, notably in the Yiddish
press, "because I had the impudence,
supposedly, to present the Soviet parti-
san movement in a distorting mirror."
But he was defended in the general
press and in other Jewish sections of
Paris. This is the author's apparently in-
controvertible indictment of the Russian
anti-Semitism in the ranks of the resis-
tance to Nazism in the forests:
By now a wide-ranging litera-
ture, both documentary and re-
search, exists on the partisan
movement. And it is known that
hatred of the Jews was to be
found in the forest not in one lo-
cation alone but in many places.
Known are the names of the par-
tisan brigades and units whose
non-Jewish fighters subjected the
Jews to fright and terror. They
conspired against them, their

own brothers-in-arms, and
against the camps of Jewish
families. When they encountered
Jews on the roads or in villages,
they would confiscate their
weapons, and even kill them in
cold blood.
So the Jew suffered for being
a Jew, not only in the ghetto
where he was confined, but also
after he succeeded in escaping
and reaching the forests of the
partisans. There he exposed his
life to danger no less than the
others in the battle against the
Germans. Yet his "brothers-in-
arms" saw him first of all as a
Jew, and this determined their
relationship to him.
Yechiel Granatstein gives accounts
of murderous acts, indiscriminate killing
of Jewish fellow partisans by brutal Rus-
sians. His tent-mate, Mischa the burly
Russian,'-was an exception. They became
friends. Mischa nicknamed Yechiel, and
the nickname Philip stuck during the
entire tragic war period.
A Siberian beast became one of the
masters of the partisan camp and he at
once robbed Yechiel of all his possessions
— gun, watch, boots — and always
threatened the Jew in his camp. It came
to a point when he threatened his life.
Mischa came to the rescue. It is recalled
at this point that Mischa's life was in
danger on a previous occasion and
Yechiel was his rescuer. Mischa re-
mained Yechiel's protector.
But there were others who fell vic-
tims to the brutalities of Sverdlov and
his like. There is recounted in Yechiel's
record the story of Berl, the master
mechanic who could and always did re-
pair the military equipment of the parti-
sans. Sverdlov and his fellow savages
demanded Berl's gun soon after he joined
Yechiel's partisan group. Berl said he
would part with anything, even his life,
but not with his gun. There was a part-
ing of both at the hands of the partisan
murderers.
Berl's was one of the many incidents
of terror directed at Jews. Especially
shocking and heartrending was the case
of Dr. Zucker who escaped from the
Nazis with his family. Sverdlov and his
gang asked him to join them, when that
family group was discovered, and to
serve them. They made a condition: Dr.
Zucker was to come without his family.
His refusal brought an end to all the
Zuckers at die hanf the Russian be-
asts.
Intermittently, in recording the
tragic experiences, Yechiel-Philip told
about Jewish heroes in the partisanship
experiences with his commandoes. Her-
shel, 13, escaping after his family was
totally annihilated by the Germans,
came to his group and offered help. He
learned how to infiltrate German camps,
stole weapons and clothing and joined in
the shooting frays. He died in action.
Yosef Rachmilovich came to Yeshiel's
associates, also as a last survivor of his
family. He insisted he could arrange to
blow up the German railways near the
partisans' camp. He finally gained per-
mission and with a handful of partisans
accomplished a most difficult task.

There had to come a moment of re-
tribution. Ukrainians who had worked
with the Nazis made their way to the
partisan camp and offered to abandon
their Hitlerite allegiance. In their midst
was another savage, Arkady. During a
drunken brawl, he went into Yechiel's
tent and began an abuse. He threatened
Yechiel. "Philip, we'll get you, Jew!" he
shouted. He spouted hatred, said he was

Jewish partisans in the forests of Byelorussia.

for Hitler, threatened, "We'll annihilate
you Jews." Then he went into a drunken
stupor. Yechiel went to Mischa the camp
commander, and related the experience.
They returned to Yechiel's tent, and by
agreement, Yechiel's bullet ended Ar-
kady's place amidst the partisans and he
was buried in a muddy spot nearby.
The reader will surely wonder why
there wasn't an earlier reprisal to the
anti-Semites, even the Russians, the
Siberians, among the partisans.
Remarkable in these accounts of a
partisan's trials and tribulations are
both the seriousness with which the task
of fighting the Germans was pursued as
well as the poetic manner in which the
story is related. Episode after episode de-
scribes the resistance, the manner in
which German headquarters and opera-
tive centers, including railroads, are
blown up.
There is a deeply moving interlude
when Yechiel-Philip appeals to Mischa,
if he comes out alive, to remember not
only the crimes of the Germans but also
those of the Ukrainian savages and the
Russian beasts like their troop comman-
der, Nikolai Nikolayevich Bobakov, and
the Siberian beast Sverdlov who tortured
and killed fellow partisans.
The new commander assigned to
Yechiel's partisan group, Maxim,
brought relief and compassion. Maxim
was a bright light in the sad atmos-
phere.
Intermingled in The War of a Jewish
Partisan is heroism, including Jewish
women partisans like Sonia who figured
chiefly in the destruction of the German
airfield near Slonim, and similar opera-
tions. The tragic elements find relief in
the courage that was evident in the mass
action rather than the bestialities of the
inhuman among the partisan humanists.
Even the fight in the mud at Pinsky
during a Friday night operation did not
deter the partisan fighters, in one of
Yechie4s experiences.
The partisan camp operated like a
government and there was one incident
especially impressive. Looting of nearby
villages was not permitted and for join-
ing in it the Jewish heroine Sonia was
sentenced to die.
There were Ukrainian pro-Nazis
who defected from the partisans and
joined the German forces. This, too, is
revealing in the Yechiel Granatstein ac-
counts of the partisans' roles.
The gathering of 17 Jewish parti-
sans on the day of liberation, of the Rus-
sian tanks arriving as the German forces
were mopped up, adds glory to a
noteworthy account.

Tributes were exchanged to the fal-
len martyrs in the struggle against
Nazism. But at the last moment there
were revelations for the Jewish partisans
who had been isolated from the world. A
speech by the general of the conquering
Russian forces who addressed the parti-
sans revealed to them for the first time
about the death camps in which millions
of Jews had died. But while the at-
rocities against Russians were recounted,
there wasn't a word about the millions of
Jewish sufferers.
"All were against us. We should
only keep silent," is the heartrending
comment by Yechiel. It was on the road
to Slonim, as freedom from all the
agonies arrived, that he uttered it.
The surviving 17 Jewish partisans
found a sense of unity as they marched
toward Slonim arm in arm. When they
came to the Slonim synagogue they
broke down, finding no consolation.
Yechiel was still standing as a reminder
of his old home there from which his
family had been driven.
The surviving 17 burst into a fearful
reciting of the Kaddish.
There is a finale at the Slonim
cemetery:
"Standing here, at the mass grave of
our fellow Jews, that included perhaps
some beloved kin of theirs,. we — 17
Jewish partisans — swore an oath to
remember them. If they could live on in
our memory, this much life we would
give them. We would never forget them.
Never!"
This is the appropriateness of a
tragic account of partisanship, the record
of which must always remain a part of
the Holocaust history. Yechiel
Granatstein earns appreciation for hav-
ing kept the record for posterity.

Mesorah Publications'
Great Service

Publication of The War of a Jewish
Partisan as part of the Art Scroll History
Series lends credit to Mesorah Publica-
tions as a valuable force in Jewish book
publishing.
Three of Mesorah's newest and most
recent books merit special mention.
The Mishna: Seder Nezikim is the
first of a new scholarly series. It is a new
translation with a commentary, an-
thologized from talmudic, midrashic and
rabbinic sources. A notable addition to
midrashic studies is to be anticipated
from this series.
Then there are two children's books

Continued on. Page 18

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