The Legacy of the Bielski Brothers
Following liberation, the Bielskis returned to Lida, where the brothers found positions with the Soviet government. Tuvia and Zus were required to prepare a report of all their unit's activities. Asael was drafted into the Red Army just after learning his wife, Chaya, was pregnant. In February 1945, Asael was killed in battle.
Tuvia and Zus went to great lenghs to get their families to Palestine and after six months, they finally succeeded. In 1948, Tuvia, Zus and youngest brother Aron, fought in the Arab-Israeli War to preserve the newly-created state of Israel. They lived in Tel-Aviv until 1955 when the two families moved to the United States, settling in Brooklyn. Tuvia worked as a cab driver; Zus had a trucking business.
For many years, there was little recognition of their incredible efforts during World War II to save Jews. Holocaust scholar, Nechama Tec, writes in the preface to her book, Defiance, that during her research, she realized how neglected the story of the Bielskis had been:
| The ommission is the conspicuous silence about Jews who, while themselves threatened by death, were saving others. The distortion is the common description of European Jews as victims who went passively to their death. |
Moreover, the Bielskis are role models: amid incredible odds, they not only saved their immediate families and relatives, but more than a thousand men, women and children. Tuvia, Asael and Zus Bielski are upstanders.