Defiance

Utterly inspiring account of three heroic Jewish brothers in WW2 Belarus; hiding from the Nazis in the vast, inhospitable forests, their initial small band of acquaintances rapidly becomes a small town, as more Jews flee the ghettos. Led by the charismatic Tuvia Bielski, his group stands out as one that turned no one away; while other detachments refused the frail, useless and unarmed...and were often guilty of anti-semitism...the Bielskis actively sought out all who wanted to come, their focus on saving lives than attacking the enemy (although there was, pleasingly, some of that too.)
"Bielski was for us what Israel is for the Jews now...an insurance."Through interviews with all the major players in the 1980s, Tec writes a seemingly show more balanced account; the Bielskis had their detractors, moments when maybe things could have been done better. There were confrontations with bands of Nazis, cold and privation, dissent in the ranks, and a need to rub along with the groups of Russian patriots in the area...

Sometimes (not often!) you finish a book so inspired by the character that you think "if I had a son right now, I'd name him after this person." show less

Nechama Tec's Defiance was on my shortlist for my Belarus book for the Europe Endless Challenge. After watching an episode of NBC's Who Do You Think You Are? a couple of of weeks ago that featured actress Lisa Kudrow's family, I was eager to get hold of and read this book. Ms. Kudrow's great-grandmother was one of thousands of Jews executed by the Nazis in what is now Belarus. Defiance is the story of a group of more than 1,200 Jews who survived the Nazi terror in the forests of Belarus.

Tuvia Bielski was the second son of a large Jewish family from a village in what is now Belarus. When the Germans began forcing Jews into ghettos in the larger cities, Tuvia and two of his younger brothers, Asael and Zus, were determined to stay out of show more the ghettos. They tried to persuade family members to join them. Soon their group enlarged to include family friends and their relatives. As the group grew, it formally became one of many partisan groups under Soviet direction. As the oldest brother in the group, Tuvia became its leader.

Most of the Soviet partisan groups accepted only able-bodied men with weapons who were able to fight. In contrast, the Bielski group accepted all Jews, including unarmed men, women, older people, and children. Everyone who reached the Bielski group was assured of food and protection. Tuvia's main goal was to save Jewish lives rather than to fight the Germans. He sent scouts into the ghettos and the forests to invite all Jews who were willing to come. Although other Soviet partisan groups thought the Bielski group was too large and consumed too much hard-to-get food, Tuvia was able to overcome objections to the group's existence by providing some fighters for joint partisan missions, and especially by supplying support to other partisan groups in the form of goods and supplies. Among the Bielski group there were people with skills to repair weapons, to tan leather for shoes, to repair and make clothing, and to provide medical care for the sick and wounded.

The Bielski partisans were not saints. They were survivors who did what they had to do to survive. This included making armed raids on inhabitants of the surrounding countryside. The food parties tried to take food only from those they believed had food to spare. They mostly took items that were considered necessities and mostly avoided taking luxury items. Many women chose to improve their situations by becoming the mistress of a valuable member of the group, such as a fighter or someone in a position of authority. Interestingly, many of these relationships survived not just during the war years, but for decades afterward.

There are other books available on the Bielski group and the Jews who survived in the forests. I chose this one because of the publisher's reputation, and I am pleased with my choice. The book shows evidence of careful and thorough research, including the use of archival sources and the author's own interviews of surviving members of the Bielski group. The author notes that her interviews were recorded, and both the original recordings and the transcriptions are available to other researchers. Where recollections or opinions differ, the author attempts to reconcile these differences and notes the reasons for her interpretation in the end notes. The accompanying material includes eight pages of black and white photographs, a map of the settlement the group built in the Nalibocka Forest, a biographical appendix listing individuals who appear frequently in the book with a brief summary of their lives after the war, an organizational list of officers and heads of workshops, a short glossary, and 56 pages of end notes. Although many sources are listed in the end notes, I would have liked a separate bibliography or selected reading list.

This book is highly recommended to readers interested in the Holocaust, World War II in Eastern Europe, and the Soviet-German conflict. Readers with an interest in leadership studies might find useful material in the author's analysis of Tuvia Bielski's charismatic leadership style. show less

There are two books about the Bielski partisan group that I know of; the other is Peter Duffy's The Bielski Brothers. Both books were good but I found Tec's to be the better of the two. Her writing gave a better sense of what daily life was like in the Bielski camp, possibly because she herself was a "hidden child" Holocaust survivor. Tec was also able to interview Zus and Tuvia Bielski before their deaths, whereas Duffy didn't start writing his book until the brothers (excepting Aron, the youngest, who was only a child during World War II) were all dead.

The story is a fascinating one which deserves to be better known. The Bielski brothers are the closest thing to real-life Robin Hoods that I know of, and there ought to be a movie about show more them. Both books are worth reading but if you can only get one, get Defiance. show less

I was drawn to the book by the Daniel Craig film, but the book, of course rewarded me with a more rich, nuanced, complex tale of an ad-hoc community largely surviving a visitation of hell on earth due to a charismatic and resourceful leader.

This is an epic and amazing story and that's why i gave it 4 stars. It mad me think a lot about the difference between justice and revenge and about those times when there really is no difference. I like it also because it is so counter to the classic image of Jews in WW2 simply going along with the extermination. The bad thing is that i didn't think it was very well written and at times it was just plain boring.

P.S. The movie sucks ass.

It’s not perfectly written by a long shot, but this is an extraordinary story about an extraordinary leader who rose to meet his times. Many lessons here for the past, present, and the ever more dystopian appearing future.

This is not a novelization of the movie, but an actual true story of the Bielsky brothers. The language is a bit heavy, but worth getting through. The book does not idealize the brothers, but shows them as real human beings, warts and all. I was fortunate enough to attend a lecture by Zus Bielsky's son, and he described his father and uncle as "tough guys and sometimes a-holes." Of course they would have to be such to pull off the amazing rescue of Jews right under the Nazi's noses, then protect them and maintain the tough discipline that was needed to survive. This is not a light read by any measure, but a worthy one.