What’s occurring in Ukraine at this moment, is retraumatizing to Holocaust survivors, because it’s reminiscent of trauma they have gone through more than 80 years ago. While the suffering of Ukrainians’ has drawn an outcry of help and sympathy, Jews in the Nazis’ path (the Holocaust) were largely on their own.
From the safe confines of his West Palm Beach home, Aron Bell, sat alongside his wife, Henryka, while sharing the story of his early life trying to survive in Nazi-occupied Poland.
Overcome with emotion, Aron talks of a life that began on a wheat farm in Stankiewicze, Poland, a rural area outside of Novogrudok, known as “White Russia” or Bellorussia (now the independent country of Belarus). According to Aron, they were the only Jewish family in the village.
His parents were David and Beila. They had 12 children (10 sons and two daughters), of which Aron was the youngest. Aron, the only surviving sibling, is turning 95 in July.
Most of the family remained in Poland, except for Aron’s oldest brother Walter, and (second oldest) of the brothers, Nathan, who both moved to America before the war began. Another brother, Yehoshua, a rabbi, went to Siberia during the war.
In Poland, some people that had been longtime, loyal neighbors turned against the family. This was a warning sign that things were about to get worse.
Henryka retold Aron’s story of how a German policeman who was a neighbor broke his father’s ribs.
In July 1941, the German army arrived in Stankiewicze and endangered the lives of the region’s Jewish inhabitants by imprisoning them in a ghetto.
Tuvia, Asael and Zus, the three oldest brothers, refused to go into the ghetto and fled to the nearby forest.
Two other brothers, Abraham and Yankel, were unable to escape to the forest, and were arrested and jailed.
Their mother was convinced that if she gave gold to the Germans, her sons would be released. They took the gold, but would not release the boys.
As Aron and Henryka next told of the two brothers’ fate where they were murdered by the Germans, they were both overcome with tears.
After the murder of two of his brothers, Aron became mute by shock and could not speak.
When he was apprehended by the Germans, he was told to dig his own grave with his hands and teeth, and then was forced to lie down in the grave. After frightening Aron, he was allowed to run home.
This was perhaps “An act of God!”
Aron’s parents remained at the farm and were murdered in a mass killing in December of 1941.
Aron and his brothers always remembered what their father told them: “Run to the woods. You will survive. The war will not be forever.”
The only chance for Aron’s survival was escaping to the forest and helping his older brothers in their partisan efforts.
Under the leadership of the eldest, Tuvia, the Bielski Brigade knew its mission was to save the lives of their fellow Jews. They encouraged and helped Jews in nearby ghettos escape. In all, 1,200 Jews were hidden in the forest and all of them miraculously survived for the next four years until the end of the war. Today, their descendants number in the thousands.
Aron became an invaluable part of the Brigade’s success. His youth and agility allowed him to travel and sneak into the ghetto undetected. By himself, he was credited with bringing around 40 people into the forest. He was assisted by some nearby villagers. A righteous gentile named Kozlski aided Aron, but paid the ultimate price and was hung in his own stable. He also stayed for a while with a Russian family, and was never captured.
It also helped that Aron never wore the yellow Star of David.
“It gave me the opportunity to walk into places that no Jew could,” he recalled.
“God was always watching me.”
Once in the woods, everyone had to follow rules. Holes in the ground, and tree branches provided places to hide and to sleep.
Their nourishment consisted of cows providing milk for children, eggs, potatoes, fruit, and tree leaves that were cooked and eaten.
When the war finally ended, nine of Aron’s brothers and sisters survived the trauma.
“We were liberated by the Russian army. Everybody went where they wanted to go. I came to the city, sat down on the sidewalk and thought ‘What now?’ My parents were butchered. My brothers were all married. My oldest brother came to America before I was born. One sister was with us; one was in deep Russia. All the rest were killed.”
Aron realized he was hungry and needed to work. He went and worked for whoever needed help. Whatever he was told to do, he was happy to do it.
In 1946, Aron left Poland and emigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine, where he fought in Israel’s War of Independence.
He left Israel for France in 1952, but found the country difficult to live in without papers.
In 1954, a rabbi bought him a ticket to Montreal. Amazingly, at the Canadian synagogue, he reunited with survivors from the forest.
That same year, Aron moved to America, where he has lived ever since. He made a living operating a taxi business in New York City for several years.
In 1992, Aron and Henryka met while both were vacationing in the Catskills, and got married in 1995. The couple has resided in West Palm Beach since 1998.
Henryka was born in Poland in 1939. Her story is nothing short of a miracle as well. She survived the war by living in a hole with her mother for five years. Her father was a survivor of Auschwitz.
The heroics of Aron and his brothers has been the subject of several books, as well as the 2008 film, “Defiance,” starring Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, and George MacKay, who portrayed Aron. He also authored “Forest Scout: Reminiscences” with the assistance of a member of the New Synagogue of Palm Beach, Stuart Schulman.
Chabad of Palm Beach Gardens is another of the local synagogues that has honored Aron in the past.
Rabbi Dovid Vigler, who hosted the event said, “this story is a great way to showcase a leader and hero. The only reason the Jewish people have outlived all our enemies is because of our conviction to our faith and to our fathers, and to the Torah.”
Unknown to Aron, a man in the Chabad audience knew the “Defiance” story firsthand. Willy Moll walked over to Aron and told him that he was one of the 1,200 people he and his brothers saved in the woods.
Photographs, momentos and plaques throughout the Bell’s home impressively display Aron’s life and heroics.
Among them are a “Jerusalem Post” newspaper article showing Aron being honored by Russian President Vladimir Putin.
This is quite incredible considering the current world events taking place in the Former Soviet Union.
“Putin is protecting Jews,” said Henryka. “God wants to show Jews that they have no right to be in Ukraine.”
At 13, Aron carried a rifle instead of having a bar mitzvah. The bar mitzvah would be another of his late life honors, when he celebrated the coming-of-age event at 83.
“What happened was much worse than the movie portrayed,” Aron said. “One had to be there to believe it.”
