Post by Odin of Ossetia on Dec 20, 2012 19:07:16 GMT -5
Looks like the AKers from Belarus have some serious explaining to do.
Jews and Poles Among Belorussian Partisans
Leonid Smilovitsky, Ph. D.
(Diaspora Research Center of Tel Aviv University)
Translated by Judith Springer
"(...).
The shift in relations between Polish insurgents and Belorussian partisans occurred after the breakdown in diplomatic relations between the USSR and the Polish Government in Exile on April 25, 1943. This was brought about by the approach of the Red Army to Poland's pre-September 1, 1939 borders and the refusal to guarantee its integrity after the expulsion of the Nazis. The tragedy in Katyn was the pretext[36]. After this breakdown, the USSR was declared the enemy of Poland. Polish emissaries from London arrived in the western regions of Belorussia and removed from the leadership of AK detachments the commanders who were in agreement with Belorussian partisans[37].
On May 14, 1943, in Brest Oblast, partisans intercepted a directive from the center of the Grenadiers Party, stating that Germans and Belorussians were the enemies of Poles. Poles were ordered to prepare for an armed rebellion, collect weapons, and discredit Belorussians before the Germans. The directive signed by Captain Dubinski, one of the leaders of the Poles'ye AK District, concludes with the following statement: “Blend with the partisans, win their trust, and, if an opportunity arises, destroy them”[38].
Polish insurgents obstructed the partisans' movement, blocked the procurement of food supplies, and organized ambushes. On July 7, 1943, in the village of Machul'noye, Volkovysk Rayon, Ivan Klimchenya, secretary of the Bryansk Underground Rayon Committee of the Belorussian Komsomol(RK LKSMB), was killed by a shot from an ambush[39]. In Shchuchin Rayon, the legionnaires of Krysia (Jan Borysewicz) and Ragner (Czeslaw Zajaczkiewicz), who commanded 3,000 fighters, organized ambushes on partisans. They searched for forest camps of partisans, killed their couriers, and burned farmsteads and villages in the partisan zone. In Vilnius Oblast in 1943, in clashes with Armia Krajowa, partisans lost 150 people -– they were killed or wounded –- and 100 were missing in action[40]. Partisans of the Shchors Brigade had frequent clashes with Polish detachments. They reported that in Zaslavl' and Dzerzhinsk (Koydanovo) rayons, AK detachments destroyed 11 Belorussian villages, killing 200 civilians, including old men, women, and children. About 1,200 people were killed in the Lida District. Spies were sent to the brigade, inflicting great damage[41].
Anti-Semitism was widespread among the fighters of Armia Krajowa and of the grouping National Armed Forces (Narodowy Sily Zbrojne -- NSZ). Jews were regarded as a “pro-Soviet element” –- they were persecuted and killed. In the spring and summer of 1943, Jews were subjected to all this in Lipichany, Naliboki, Rudensk, Naroch', and Bryansk forests. Reports by the Delegatura (General Sikorski's representatives in the occupied territory of Poland), which were sent to London, referred to Jews as enemies of Polish national interests and robbers. The report of December 20, 1942 noted that bands of Jews, acting in parallel with Belorussian partisans, attacked peasant farms, robbed, raped, and killed civilian residents, and terrorized the population, distinguishing themselves by “special cruelty”[42].
“Jewish bandits” (bandyci Zydowscy) were often mentioned in AK and NSZ reports on the situation in various localities and, especially, in Eastern Poland (western regions of Belorussia). They contained a description of the situation in the ghettos and the attitude of Jews toward the Polish-Soviet conflict. According to the assessments in these reports, 90 percent of the ghetto inmates were pro-Bolshevik[43]. In reality, such assessments were exaggerations and served as a justification to fight Soviet partisans. In Ivenets Rayon in 1943, the 250-strong detachment of Zdzislaw Nurkiewicz (pseudonym “Noc” [Night]), Podchorazy [Cadet Officer] of the 27th Ulan Regiment of the Stolbtsy AK Formation, terrorized civilian residents and attacked partisans. I.G. Ivanov, commander of the Frunze Partisan Detachment, P.N. Guba, chief of a special department, several fighters and Commissar P.P. Danilin of the Furmanov Detachment, three partisans of the Zhukov Brigade, and others were killed.
Another tragedy occurred in November 1943. This time, 10 Jews from Shalom Zorin's detachment were the victims of the conflict. On the evening of November 18, they were stocking up food supplies for partisans in the village of Sovkovshchizna, Ivenets Rayon. One of the peasants complained to Nurkiewicz that the “Jews were looting”. The legionnaires surrounded Zorin's men and opened fire, after which they took away six horses and four partisan carts. They disarmed those who tried to get back the property and beat them brutally: They broke Khaim Sagal'chik's skull and Yefim Raskin's hand. The atrocities continued throughout the night. In the morning, they took the captives to the forest and began to execute them. Luckily, Abram Teyf and Lev Chernyak survived and were able to get to the camp of the 106th Detachment. On December 1, 1943, Belorussian partisans disarmed the Nurkiewicz Detachment[44].
The situation in Western Belorussia became the subject of discussion at the TsK KP(b)B Plenum on June 22, 1948. A letter was sent to underground formations, stating that the existence in Belorussia of various organizations led by Polish “bourgeois-nationalist” centers must be viewed as an illegal intervention in the interests of the Soviet state. Detachments and groups established by “Polish reactionary circles” were to be disarmed[45]. In August 1943, partisans of the Voroshilov Brigade disarmed the AK detachment of Podchorazy Antoni Burzynski (pseudonym “Kmicic”), and partisans of the Frunze Brigade, the detachment of Kacper Milaszewski. In December 1943, in the Volma-Rakov region of Baranovichi Oblast, 120 Polish legionnaires, who refused to disarm, were beaten severely and dispersed, and so forth. However, Nurkiewicz himself managed to avoid arrest[46].
Partisans borrowed the fighting methods of their enemy, at times displaying cruelty toward the civilian population that helped Armia Krajowa. According to the testimony of Mark Tayts, former partisan of the Chkalov Brigade, in 1943 a seemingly elusive detachment of legionnaires operated in the Naliboki Forest. During night inspections of farmsteads, it turned out that men were frequently absent. Brigade commander Frol Zaytsev announced that, if during repeated inspection Polish men were not with their families, the partisans would consider this an attempt at resistance. The threat did not help and farmsteads near the villages of Nikolayevo and Malaya and Bol'shaya Chapun' in Ivenets Rayon were burned down[47]. On September 10, 1943, partisans took revenge on peasants in the village of Stavishchi in Osipovichi Rayon. The latter had informed on fighters Shteyn, Trifonov, and Vasilenko, which led to their exposure and death. They burned the village of Stavishchi to the ground and executed the residents -- young and old alike -- who did not manage to flee to the forest. At the Derevtsy station, they captured two policemen and subjected them to agonizing torture[48].
The bitterness between Polish insurgents and Belorussian partisans reached such heights that the latter began to use “special” tactics when admitting recruits. In the Dzerzhinskiy Brigade, they forced newcomers, who asked to be accepted into the partisan brigade, to dig graves for themselves and then fired shots over their heads. The brigade's handwritten history stated that those who ”could bravely look death in the eyes, did not lose their courage, and preferred to accept death at the hands of their comrades rather than to suffer in disgraceful slavery” were granted life and admitted into the fraternal family of partisans[49].
By the beginning of 1944, the Red Army had approached Poland's borders. The Polish Government in Exile concluded that the time came for the 300,000-strong Armia Krajowa, which stood at ready, to start an uprising. It was assumed that Western allies, not Soviet troops, would liberate Poland. On January 4, 1944, the Red Army crossed the Polish border near Sarny and on January 11 TASS came out with the statement that the fate of Belorussian and Ukrainian land had been decided by the 1939 plebiscite. At the same time, it was pointed out that, after the war, territories in the north and the west, which Germany had seized by force from Poland at one time, would be returned to it and that the new Soviet-Polish border would pass along the Curzon Line.
The Polish Government in London did not agree with this and in February 1944 approved the Burza (Tempest) plan for the expulsion of German troops from Poland before the approach of the Red Army. At the same time, the struggle against the partisans intensified[50]. On March 1, 1944, in London, General Tadeusz Komarovski, chief commander of Armia Krajowa, reported that “defense against the hostile Soviet partisan movement and Jewish communist bands” was put in the forefront. From January through July 1944, the scale of the fratricidal war increased manifold. Military, action, and situation reports and memorandums of partisan detachments and brigades were replete with examples of the struggle. Let us take one of them: “Report on the fighting and sabotage work of partisan formations in the Lida zone in February-March 1944”[51].
The entry recorded on February 10, 1944, described the clash between the partisans of the Kirov Brigade and Polish legionnaires in Yuratishki Rayon. On February 12, four partisan detachments of this brigade engaged in battles with AK detachments in Lida Rayon. On February 18, nine demolition partisans of the “Sibiryak” Detachment, who were returning to their base from a combat mission at the Lida-Molodechno railroad, fell into an ambush of the Poles. In response, on February 24, Bol'shevik, Sibiryak, Roshcha, Aleksandr Nevskiy, and Chkalov detachments carried out an operation against the AK formation in Molodechno Rayon. In March 1944, partisans from the Baltiyets Detachment, who were stocking up on food supplies, and fighters from the Oktyabr' Detachment were subjected to an attack by Armia Krajowa. As a result, Tomashevskiy, the detachment chief of staff, was killed[52].
The documents of partisans and their field correspondence, combat orders, leaflets and appeals to the population were replete with special terminology. They referred to Armia Krajowa as a “band,” “White Poles”, “national fascists”, “Polish-Hitlerite detachments”, “belated followers of General Sikorski”, and so forth. This was a kind of legacy of the hostile relations between the USSR and Poland in the 1920s and 1930s. The mentioned terminology was actively used during the period of unfounded mass repressions, whose victims included many Poles. The Polish Government in Exile had every reason not to trust the Soviet Union and to fear its entry into Poland. It was not only a question of territorial losses, but also of a change in Poland's entire sociopolitical system. Stalin's treachery was fully manifested in the fall of 1939 when, after Soviet expansion, repressions, arrests, and deportations of the civilian population were carried out on a mass scale[53]. However, while resisting Soviet pressure, the AK High Command and its local representatives went to extremes: They cooperated with the Nazis. The first contacts began to be established in the summer and fall of 1943, after the breakdown of relations with the USSR. In December 1943 and February 1944, Captain Adolf Pilch (pseudonym “Gora”), commander of one of the AK detachments, met with SD [Security Service] and Wehrmacht officers in Stolbtsy, requesting urgent assistance. He received 18,000 units of ammunition, food, and uniforms. During the eight months of its existence (September 1943-August 1944), the “Gora” Detachment did not engage in a single battle with the Germans, whereas it waged 32 battles against Belorussian partisans. Andziej Kucner (“Maly”) [“Small”]) followed his example until he was transferred to Ashmyany Rayon by order of the AK District Headquarters. The Nazis' attitude toward cooperation with “Akovtsy” [AK members] can be judged from German trophy documents. In February 1944, SS Obersturmbanfuhrer Strauch reported: “Cooperation with White Polish bandits is continuing. The 300-strong detachment in Rakov and Ivenets proved to be very useful. Negotiations with Ragner's (Stefan Zajaczkiewicz) 1,000-strong band have been concluded. Ragner's band is suppressing the territory between the Neman and the Volkovysk-Molodechno Railroad and between Mosty and Iv'ye. Contacts with other Polish bands have been established”[54].
First Lieutenant Jozef Swida (Vileyka Oblast), commander of the Nadneman AK Formation in the Lida District, also cooperated with the occupiers. In the summer of 1944, in Shchuchin Rayon, Polish legionnaires gained control of the small towns of Zheludok and Vasilishki, where they replaced German garrisons. For the purpose of fighting partisans, they were given four trucks and 300,000 cartridges[55]. Some sub-units of Armia Krajowa displayed great cruelty toward the civilian population suspected of sympathizing with the partisans. The legionnaires burned down their homes, drove away their livestock, and robbed and killed the families of partisans. In January 1944, they shot the wife and child of partisan N. Filipovich, killed six members of D. Velichko's family in Ivenets Rayon, and burned their remains. In March 1944, AK members burned 28 farmsteads and the village of Bol'shiye Berezovtsy in Vasilishki Rayon, executing 30 peasants. In Zaslavl' and Dzherzhinsk (Koydanovo) rayons, they set fire to 11 Belorussian villages and killed 200 civilians[56]. Along with Belorussian peasants who assisted partisans, AK legionnaires persecuted Jews. In the winter of 1943/1944, partisans of Aleksandr Matrosov and Kotovskiy detachments rescued more than 70 Jews (women and children) –- members of partisan families –- from AK members. They took them across the Neman and hid them in the partisan zone of Shchuchin Rayon[57].
Armia Krajowa undermined trust in it to such an extent that, when in the summer of 1944, the legionnaires began asking for a ceasefire and announced their readiness to turn their weapons against the Germans, the partisans considered this to be a military ruse. Nevertheless, the offers became more and more persistent. On June 27, the commander of the “Iskra” [Spark] Partisan Detachment in Baranovichi Oblast reported to the command of his brigade that he received an appeal from Armia Krajowa in Novogrudok, stating that Poles always wanted to be friends with “the great Slavic nation related to them by blood” and that the “shed blood points to us the way to mutual understanding”[58]. In Lida Rayon, the offer of a military alliance was transmitted to the command of the Kirov Brigade and in Bialystok Oblast, to secretary of the underground oblast party committee Samutin. Confirmation of the intentions of the Polish side to abandon confrontation and to move toward interaction with Belorussian partisans was noted in the directives of the Government in Exile in London. The telegram of July 4, 1944 pointed out that, as the front drew nearer, AK commanders were obligated to offer military cooperation to the Soviet side[59]. However, the initiative was lost. On July 21, 1944, the Polish National Liberation Committee (Polski Komitet Wyzwolenia Narodowego -– PKWN) was formed in Moscow[60]. In January 1945, General Leopold Okulicki (Bear), commander of Armia Krajowa, announced the dissolution of Armia Krajowa and on August 16, a treaty on the Soviet-Polish state border established along the Curzon Line was signed in Moscow[61].
(...)."
www.jewishgen.org/Yizkor/belarus/bel129.html