Peter Duffy on the Bielski Naliboki massacre charge.

Hi all;
Demonizing The Bielski Heroes,Peter Duffy
THERE MIGHT JUST BE TRUTH in the assertion that some elements of the Bielski offensive "Ordzhonikidze" unit were involved. Speaking strictly as a neutral...so what? It was the most savage war in the history of the world and terrible things were happening all throughout the occupied territories, and the Armij Krajawa (AK) can hardly claim to have had clean hands in the massacre department. AK and the Reds were at war and that is that. I don't mean to sound callous, but it is just plain silly for people at this safe remove to pass judgement on the the desperate peoples of Eastern Europe who found themselves in the most impossible of situations. And there was no people in a more desperate situation than the Jewish populations of NAZI occupied Eastern Europe.
JeffinMNUSA
PS. The "Defiance" movie was a good flick-but a fictionalization. I particularly liked those awesome East European forest shots and the "Zus with the Reds" sections though.

 

It is unfair to call german army "nazi". Why then wouldnt we call american soldiers in iraq republicans?

 

Kol;
You are of course correct-most German soldiers were just regular people being blown along like leaves in a terrible wind. It was the political leadership that really poisoned the situation. Poor Eastern Europe-to be caught between Hitler and Stalin! Refer to the table at the bottom of this screen; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II_casualties . Poland shows 23%. The demographic in Belarus were the most horrendous of all-estimated between 1/4 to 1/3; http://www.belarusguide.com/history1/WWII_partisan_resistance_in_Belarus.htm The demographic losses for the Jewish population of Belarus were statistically 100% .
JEffinMNUSA
PS. AK chose "none of the above" in the choice between Hitler and Stalin-a heroic decision. That they ended up fighting the Bielski Partisans is a pretty clear case of "Good Guy vs. Good Guy" warfare but the Bielskis were Reds and the situation complex.

 

Hi all;
There is really nothing much to incriminate Bielski's Ordzhonikidze unit in any ill doing during the Partisan Wars-and doing so is rather like "handing out tickets at the Indy 500" given the hideous nature of the time and place any how. So what? Only Jewish racers get tickets? These anti semites are one incredible pack of lunkheads!
Now the Kovner all Jewish Red Partisan brigade is a WHOLE different matter! http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375705298&view=rg These people were up to their elbows in blood and even were responsible for the mass poisonings of German POWs in the immediate aftermath of the war. The anti semites have found some new grist for their mills with Kovner allright. And once again they utterly fail to account for the savage nature of the War in Eastern Europe and the effect it might have had on all parties concerned.
JEff
MN
USA

 

Unfortunately history shows that war is a good time to settle old scores. WW1 Turkey and Armenians and more recently Yugoslavia and Iraq come to mind.

 

Oleg;
And it seems that most of europe has finally gotten past the endless cycles of violence and retribution. We can hope so anyhow. I was reading one writer this morning that was blaming "Da Jewws" for all the ravages of communism. Stalin must be laughing in his grave. What percentage of humanity do you suppose it is that has some form of mental illness? 33%? Growing up in multi ethnic Minnesota I never understood what it was about Jews and Jewishness that makes them such a special case. Why not Estonians? Or Catholics? Or people with floating earlobes? The phrase "the feast of unreason" comes to mind.
JeffinMNUSA

 

There was a lot of Jews who were leading revolutionaries in Russia. Hitler always referred to struggle against Bolshevik Jewry. Anti-Semitism has always been strong in Europe.
Unfortunately I do not think it is a mental illness, even we could think it is.
To answer your question we have to go back to biblical time, or even earlier.

 

The "Jews caused communism" argument is illogical-there were Jews amongst the Bolsheviks-there were also Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and etc. They were all FORMER Jews, Catholics, Orthodox, Muslims and etc once they joined the party as the Bolsheviks were officially atheist. The real culprit would logically have to be atheism but as you say, anti semitism has a long history in Europe.
And no anti semitism is not a mental illness per se-but most of anti semitics I have met have definitely "had issues." The foot soldiers in all the extremist causes in history tend to be the "mentally less fortunate and angry about it" section of humanity. This newer "Jews were perpetrators of the Red Terror" argument is also faulty-for certain their were groups like the Kovner Red Partisan brigade involved in some gory debacles-but the iron fist that fell on Eastern Europe in the wake of the Red Army was wholly an instrument of the Stalinist state and that state was becoming rabidly anti Semitic.
JeffinMNUSA

 

Stalin planned a purge of the Jews and died on the verge of its execution. Apparently some Russian communists were anti-semites too.

 

Jews were a large part of Big Red Terror in 1937-1938. Of top NKVD commanders in 1934 (Commissar of National Security) that were promoted to General (Rank 1, 2 and 3 class), out of 37 – 20 were Jews (54%).
By 1941 out of those 37 only 2 were left alive.
The Red Terror that took place in Ukraine, Belorussia and later in Baltic countries, that was initiated by NKVD Jews leaders, led to the population of these areas being in most part content to the extermination of the Jews by Nazis and Local Police Units.

 

Oleg;
Respectfully I disagree; the evidence seems to read that yes there were large numbers of people of Jewish orgin caught up in the social madness that was Communist ideology-but there were a lot of other ethnics running down the same path. Communism came with some pretty great promises- but as it turned out? Not such a workable system. I think it just plain wrong to hold one group of people accountable for the sins of the many.
Jeff
MN
USA

 

Yes Sir,
You are correct – it was evil to blame Jews for terror NKVD perpetrated in the early years of Soviet State. It is however a situation that took place.

Nazi propaganda and old hatred contributed to that situation. I remember seeing an old German leaflet (Beat Jew Commissar with a brick); these leaflets were dropped on retreating Soviet Troops.

Holocaust that took place in ex-Soviet controlled territory was far more horrific than in Central Europe. There was only three Large Concentration Camps build in the previously Soviet Controlled Zones. In the west Nazis had to build many more of them to hide the Genocide from the general public. In the East murder was done in the open for all of the population to see or know about. Most of that population was indifferent to the Genocide taking place, with 2% actively supporting it.

So I can not place blame on anything an armed group of Jews did in the forests while fighting to stay alive.

 

Oleg;
If the peoples of the Axis occupied territories rallied to the Reds it was mostly for the reason that Hitlerian policies were MUCH WORSE than the Red terror. I recall reading somewhere that Hitler's plan was to kill off half of the population of the USSR and enslave the rest? The Jews were a special case in Der Fuhrer's mind for some unfathomable reason and were slated for total annihilation. I believe that the country of Poland suffered the worst but it's possible that it was Belarus that felt the most horrendous of demographic losses. Against this background of starvation and mass murder people did what they had to do to survive. Were the Bielskis involved in war crimes? I guess I would be surprised if they were not...
JeffinMNUSA
PS On a related subject; http://www.forward.com/articles/7832/

 

Yes Jeff, the Germans planned to starve most Russians to make room for the Arryan colonists. If possible, Slavic races would be de-literated so that they would have no written language beyond the minimum required for low-skill labor. The Ukrainians welcomed the Germans with open arms--until they heard that the German policy was to keep the system of collective farms, increase grain requisition quotas, suspend spending on roads and demolish all secondary schools. I also recall that according to interviews with Soviet citizens after the war as well as SD's own reports, the massacre of the Jews in Belarus was so horrendous that the populace was turned against the Germans.

Oleg,
I think the over-representation of Jews in the communist party might be the result of two things, the anti-semitism of the Russian Empire and the high literacy rate of Jews which would both incline them towards revolutionary activities.