Belarus’

My grandfather on my father’s side was a partisan in Belarus’. The partisans were parachuted into a Nazi-occupied area and lived in small communities in forests. Their goal was to disrupt local Nazi operations — a mission they continued to fulfill until the main forces liberated Belarus’. (On this map, green areas were under control of partisans and were mostly in the forest-rich Belarus’, Northern Ukraine and Western Russia. Partisan missions went as far as Russia, Southern Ukraine, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia and Eastern Poland.)

They constantly hunted the Nazis and were constantly hunted by them. They could be betrayed at any moment by the civilians and oftentimes were. In many cases, partisans burned down the villages of suspected collaborators, while Nazis burned down villages of suspected partisan sympathizers.

There were people who could betray you among your closest friends, and there were people among Nazis whom you could make contact with. And there were people who were playing on both sides or suddenly changing sides. In other words, nobody could be trusted.

My father said that his father never talked about what he had to do during the war.

This scene from a recent Russian serial film shows a group of partisans taking a Nazi-occupied fortification and headquarters in order to recover documents regarding chemical weapons. Another group is working on stopping a train carrying these weapons and blowing it up. This is all happening next to the town of Baranovichi, which is prominent in Chassidic history.

What is interesting to me is to observe how cheap a human’s life was during a battle. Your friend with whom you shared the same spoon and the same tent could fall right next to you, and you had to keep on going — or share his fate.

The whole episode is interesting, in my opinion. I find the very last scene fascinating.

“Understand, Gavrilov? This is a game. Cat and mouse. You think you’re a cat. And someone else is a mouse. And then it turns out you’re a mouse and someone else is a cat. It is scary to be a mouse. Sad and painful.”

 “In this game there are no winners. Only dead people and losers.”

“I look in your eyes. I only see war in them.”