Jewish Partisans:
The True Story of Armed Jewish Resistance During World War II
The Jewish Partisans Feature Documentary Film Project will tell the extraordinary story of Jews who fought back against the Nazis during World War II as told by those who personally fought and lived the history. Through powerful candid interviews, eyewitness accounts, and vivid archival footage and photographs, our documentary and the educational materials that accompany it will add an essential and little-known chapter to the common understanding of Holocaust history here in the United States and around the world, helping to dispel the myth of Jewish passivity by bringing to life stories of spiritual and armed resistance in the face of annihilation.
NOWHERE TO TURN
“We were forced to live in a continuous state of fear and despair, stripped of our possessions, expelled from our homes, herded into ghettos, subjected to witness atrocities beyond our worst imagination.” “None of us had weapons.” “We had no allies, and no safe passage out of Nazi controlled territory.”
In 1942, rumors began to circulate in the ghettos about small encampments, entire villages hidden deep in the forests, filled with Jews, even families with children and the elderly. “We were told they were guarded by armed Jewish fighters.” Many who had escaped risked their lives to return to the ghetto to encourage others to join them in the forest. “I returned to bring members of the Jewish underground to the forest.” “We traveled for three days and two nights.” “It was my deepest hope, by proof of my life, that my sister would escape with us to the forest.”
Deep in the primeval forests of Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and the Ukraine, over 20,000 Jews lived and fought against the Nazis and Nazi collaborators. From as many as 100 tiny encampments, some as small as a handful of Jews, they literally fought willingly and spirited to the death from holes in the ground. “The Talmud says, ‘He who saves a life, saves the world.’ We were fiercely devoted to survival and to the assertion that, in a world where all was lost, we could still choose how we would live, and how we would die.”
From other secret bases throughout the forests, thousands of other Jewish fighters – some barely teens – aggressively resisted the Nazis. These groups were known as the Partisans. On military style missions they blew up trains, bridges, police stations and telegraph lines. Most of them had witnessed the slaying of their families and friends before seeking refuge in the forest. They carried out their missions with total abandon.
In the Naliboki forest in Western Belarus, on a small island at the center of a nearly impenetrable swamp, 1200 Jews lived out the Nazi slaughter in what was called a “family camp.” The Bielski camp, named after the brothers who risked their lives to build it, operated like a small village complete with dormitories, workshops for carpenters, a hospital, gunsmiths, a school, bakery, soap factory, tailors, shoemakers, a tannery that doubled as a synagogue, and a large herd of cows and horses.
“Our history must not contain only tragedy,” wrote a young, partisan women. “We cannot allow that. It must also have heroic struggles, self-defense, war, even death with honor.” Ultimately the story is outside of history, larger than Germans and Jews and individual families. In the face of certain death, how does one live one’s life? Where does courage come from? This is a timeless story of extreme loyalty, leadership, and endurance. A celebration in the commitment the Partisans made to saving lives in the face of human brutality, a story of soulful bravery.
CREDITS
Director/Producer: Julia Mintz
Writer/co-producer: Maia Harris
Film Advisor/creative consultant: Dan Sturman
Editor: Tricia Reidy
Director of Photography: Buddy Squires
Cinematographer: Allen Moore
Composer: Phil Marshall
Media Advisor: Peter Heady
ACADEMIC ADVISORY BOARD
Omer Bartov
Michael Berenbaum
Mitch Braff
David Engel
James M. Glass
Brana Gurewitsch
Allan Levine
Velvel Pasternak
Antony Polonsky
Alexander B. Rossino
Nechama Tec
ABOUT THE FILMMAKER
Julia Mintz is completing production on California State of Mind: The Legacy of Pat Brown a feature documentary film slated for broadcast in Fall 2010. Mintz post produced and associate produced the multi award-winning documentary Soundtrack For A Revolution, about the civil rights movement, and post produced the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning feature documentary Nanking. She has produced programs for NASA, PBS and NHK and worked as Post Production Supervisor for Discovery Channel, National Geographic, THINKFilms, and Miramax. Recent projects include, A Son's Sacrifice; The Life and Times of Frida Kahlo; The Killer Within; and Billy Strayhorn: Lush Life. Mintz is an award winning creative director and an accomplished multi-grant recipient. She has held an adjunct faculty position at LIU in NYC and is the co-founder of Full Res Productions, a high definition production company.
MORE ABOUT THE FILM
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TO SUPPORT THE PRODUCTION OF JEWISH PARTISANS
Send your contribution by check to made to The National Center for Jewish Film with "Jewish Partisans" written in the memo line.
Send to: The National Center for Jewish Film
Brandeis University, Lown 102 MS053
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Donations are tax deductible. Gifts over $250 will receive a letter for tax purposes.As a fiscal sponsor, The National Center for Jewish Film serves as a non-profit tax-exempt umbrella organization that accepts and administers contributions made to select film projects. Fiscal sponsorship allows filmmakers to solicit and receive tax deductible donations from individuals and gifts from foundations without having to create a 501(c)3 non-profit corporation.
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