Yosef Brojda's "Memoirs of a Jewish Partisan in the Forests of Brańsk" (Translated from Massuah)

Josef Brojde, Jewish commander of a partisan company in Belorussia.

Massuah.  Volumes 7-10.  Massuah (the Institute). 1979. pp. 223-225.

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Massuah (the institute).  

Yitzhak Alprowitz: "The Jewish partisans in the forests of Brańsk".  

In his book "Memoirs of a Jewish Partisan in the Forests of Brańsk", Yosef Broida [Brojda] unfolds before us in an easy and fascinating style the supreme affair of the fighters of the town of Brańsk, (in Bialystok [Białystok] district) in all its power and exclusion.  This is the first time that a large-scale literary work has appeared that reviews the origin, history, life and fighting of a Jewish partisan company, which operated in the forests of Brańsk. 

In this book by Yosef Broide, who was the commander of the aforementioned company, we find a wonderful and fascinating description of the armed Jewish resistance in a narrow section of the Bialystok region, from which we learn how starving youths retained the strength to take up arms after a period of unparalleled death and suffering, and how the boys of Brańsk carved out  Courage and courage to stand up against the mighty Nazi war machine.  

Many young Jews could have escaped, but they hesitated, procrastinated and finally remained stuck and followed the deadline;  But not so a handful of guys from Brainsk.  They decided, dared and even managed to escape, although even then it was already late.  

In the crowded and closed ghettos were the Jews, and also the young people inside them, depressed, broken and scared, but when they crossed the barrier of fear and reached the forest - they organized themselves into fighting units, they felt free and able to fight.  - The young men from the Brańsk ghetto, upon arriving in the forest, injected new blood into the depleted ranks of the avengers and encouraged the desire for increased action and battle initiative.  

For many months, Yosef Broida's group wandered around the forests of Brańsk until they began to initiate combat operations against the enemy.  

Each chapter in the book is full of stormy events, accompanied by descriptions of situations and events full of dangers.  Broida describes in his book the enormous scope of the battles fought by the partisans of his company, we watch their path full of suffering and get to know their bitter struggle against the enemy.

Broida also recounts in an interesting way the stories of his company and the case of the Jewish partisan fighting as a whole.

The characteristic feature of the book is the combination of objective evidence with a strong expression of the author's experiences during his stay in the forest.  There is no past in the depths of his soul in terms of the past only, but it is alive, vibrating, pulsating and bursting forth as it is happening just now;  And when we read the book, we understand the motivation for the rebellion, the motives to raise a hand and attack the Nazis, the murderers of the families, despite the hardship and loneliness the Jews were subjected to.  And here we come to another point: the actions of the boys that make them heroes.  Holocaust and heroism are inextricably intertwined...

Yosef Broida arrived in the forest as a teenager and with very little experience in combat, who did not yet have the knife for a direct and unmediated battle with the enemy who lay in wait for his soul before he reached adulthood, but necessity taught him the art of war.  He did not study at a military college in the forest, he arrived without leadership experience, that is, an ordinary and average boy, but the need and the reality stood before him in all their horrors and in them he hardened like steel and took on the sacred task of protecting Jewish lives. 

The young Broide led his comrades to the struggle and to successful operations: his boys set fire to German warehouses for their equipment, uprooted poles and disrupted the enemy's telephone connection, set fire to bridges and carried out acts of revenge against collaborators.  Among other things, Broida recounts how an act of revenge was carried out against the murderers of Jews - the forest rangers Kuszek, Franciszek Dzester and others, whose hands were covered in Jewish blood, and it is natural that these actions evoked strong echoes in the local population and the Jewish partisans of Broida blamed many murderers.  The value and importance of the Jewish partisan grew day by day and from the tiny group, with few weapons, a solid body, organized and with wonderful fighting ability.  The fighting joints in the book breathe the heat of battles in which the best boys and girls of Brainsk and the surrounding area fell.  The brave lads: Harshla Rubin Moshe Klajnat Yeshayahu Tabak and others can be used as an example of heroism and devotion, they fought to the last drop of their blood and fell as heroes on the battlefield. 

Yosef Broida was noted by the Soviet command with high marks of excellence for excellent and effective leadership in the fight against the bitter enemy.  A very interesting chapter in the book is the description of the family camp, which became a shelter for a large number of survivors of death, old men, women and children. 

The Jewish company under the command of Yosef Broida took under its protection the defenseless Jewish brothers, the forest wanderers who were in danger of death and took care to provide them with food and clothing.

In the outstanding book that relates the bitter fate of the Jewish partisan who, in addition to his difficult war against the German enemy, had to wage ceaseless battles against the A.K.  The Polish, is the "Armia Krajowa" (the national army that was under the command of General [Tadeusz] Bór-Komorowski).  They murdered Jews mercilessly and even after the liberation they continued murdering Jews.  This is how the members of the A.K. killed  In a horrible way, already after the liberation, his brother and other Jews in Brainsk and the surrounding area. 

The Jewish company under the command of Yosef Broida was noted by the Soviet command with high distinctions and the commander himself was noted for excellent and effective leadership in the fight against the enemy.  His company was recognized by the Soviet headquarters as a special Jewish unit (yevreyskiy otriad  - еврейский отряд) headed by Yosef Broida.  After that, Broida served as the commander of a military unit, tasked with guarding the partisan brigade headquarters. 

The partisans under the command of Yosef Broida fought against the enemy and showed great bravery even though they had no chance of victory.  It was heroism without accounts, heroism that comes from inner recognition.  They got to taste the taste of victory and revenge on the enemy, but they achieved it after a long and bumpy road of desperate fighting, and most of them got to reach Israel. 

Before us is a book by a young warrior, imbued with an atmosphere of tension and elation.  An important book has been added to the literature of the Holocaust, which faithfully describes the fighting Jewish company of boys from a small town in Brańsk in eastern Poland... It is written with great skill, and contains authentic photographs taken by the author at the beginning of their stay in the forest.

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See:

The Partisans: Stories of Jews Who Saved Jews

The Zhukov Partisan Unit.

In the summer of 1942, Jews from the Ghettos of western Byelorussia fled into the forests south of Minsk. They served as the nucleus of the Zhukov Partisan Unit, commanded by Lyuba Giłczyk. The unit attracted Jews from the Ghettos in the region and accepted them even if they did not bring weapons. Its fighters mined railway lines, attacked police stations and freed some 250 Jews from the Świerżeń labor camp. In the winter of 1943, when the Germans began a major campaign to crush the partisans, the Zhukov fighters and associated family camp withdrew into the marshes of Polesie. In advance of the Soviet offensive in 1944, the unit moved to the Baranowicze district and participated in the fighting there. At liberation, in July 1944, the unit’s 270 surviving fighters emerged from the forest.