Skip to main content

Video

Safe from the Nazis

Former Jewish partisan Aron Bell contemplates the accomplishments of the Bielski brothers.

Video Length

00:41

Subject

History
Social Studies

Language

English — US

Updated

May 11, 2016

Save

Print

What they accomplished? Well, they accomplished a hell of a lot. They saved 1,200 people. Those 1,200 people by now may be 100,000. There are children, grandchildren. And they were very unique. It's a very unique family.

All you heard up till now is how people went to the slaughterhouse. But here's a totally different story. Here is two men which the Nazis never laid a finger on them. Never.

Credit:

© 2016 Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation, www.jewishpartisans.org

1) Website use only

Collection

Find interview transcripts, historical overviews, and primary source documents about a particular Jewish partisan or country.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

Unit

Explore the stories of Jewish partisans that stood against Nazi oppression, genocide, and antisemitism during World War II.

Russian partisans, one of them photographer Faye Schulman, gathering together in the forest, Naliboki Forest, Belarus, December 1944. The Molotava Brigade was a partisan group made up mostly of escaped Soviet Army POWs. The woman pictured is Faye Schulman, a Jewish woman who fled into the Naliboki forest with her camera equipment and joined the Molotova Brigade. For two years in the forest she photographed the partisan's activities, worked as medical aid and participated in the partisans raid's.

Lesson

Students view the film, analyze a primary source from the Oyneg Shabes archive, and consider why it matters who tells the stories of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto.

A man rolling up a scroll.

Assessment

Students will apply the lessons they have learned about the intersecting histories of wartime North Africa and the Holocaust as they create an artifact that explains the context of the found poems they wrote in Lesson 3.

An educator leans over a desk speaking with four middle school students.

Mini-Unit

Explore the impact of the Holocaust and World War II on Jewish communities in North Africa in this 3-lesson mini-unit.

A group of people walk down a street in Casablanca.

Lesson

Students connect themes from the film to Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie's concept of “single stories," and then consider what it would take to tell more equitable and accurate narratives.

View of people on a city street.

Mini-Unit

Invite students to reflect on why it matters who tells our stories as they view a documentary film about the profound courage and resistance of the Oyneg Shabes in the Warsaw ghetto.

Hands rolling up a scroll.

Lesson

Students explore the strategies, risks, and historical significance of the 1963 Chicago school boycott, while also considering bigger-picture questions about social progress.

Crowd fills LaSalle Street between City Hall and building housing Board of Education as hundreds of demonstrators marched in Chicago on Oct. 22, 1963 following a one-day boycott of public schools.

Mini-Lesson

Provide students with historical context for understanding the protests against the Thirty Meter Telescope on Maunakea and help them explore the reasons why many Native Hawaiians oppose its construction.

Demonstrators gather to block a road at the base of Mauna Kea

Mini-Lesson

This mini-lesson uses the story of the Robert E. Lee monument to help students consider the power of symbols and explore the summer's protests through the lens of voice, agency, and solidarity.

John Lewis Projected on Lee Monument in Richmond

Lesson

Students explore the life and choices of anti-lynching journalist Ida B. Wells and learn about the long tradition of Black resistance to racial terror and violence.

Ida B. Wells (1862-1931) was an African-American journalist and early civil rights activist.

Lesson

Students identify continuities and changes between Emmett Till’s murder and today’s Black Lives Matter movement, and they reflect on the ways they can contribute to the movement for racial justice.

George Floyd mural outside Cup Foods at Chicago Ave and E 38th St in Minneapolis, Minnesota

More Like This Teaching Resources Learning & Events

Most teachers are willing to tackle the difficult topics, but we need the tools.

— Gabriela Calderon-Espinal, Bay Shore, NY

Subscribe to our email updates