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Some potential casualties of World War 2 successfully fought the German invaders of Russia. In June 1941, 3 million German Wehrmacht soldiers invaded the Soviet Union in three army groups codenamed operation Barbarossa. The Bielski brothers from Stankievichy, modern day Belarus, were determined to remain free at all costs. They hid in the forests. In December 1941, they discovered the Jewish ghetto of Novogrudok had been liquidated with 4,000 murdered, some were relatives and friends.

Determined, Tuvia Bielski (played by Daniel Craig [James Bond] in the film Defiance, released the first week of January 2009), and his brothers Zus and Asael, set up camp in their childhood playground in the extensive Naliboki forest and formed the Bielski Ozriad a partisan group with the dual aim of disrupting German army operations and saving as many civilian Jewish lives as possible.

Tuvia, physically tough and a natural born leader, soon became the commander of the Bielski Partisans (Bielski Ozriad). Tuvia, born in 1908 and the third eldest of 12 siblings, was a Polish army veteran. The Bielskis created a sanctuary for Jews endangered by the murderous Nazi occupation with some 1,000 displaced refugees living in the encampments which were known as 'Jerusalem in the Woods.'

Tuvia Bielski set out to save lives and did not want the group to behave like animals. Tuvia and Lillka, his forest wife, survived the war and remained together for the rest of their lives. The Bielskis showed no mercy towards captured Nazis and collaborators with summary executions by the partisans commonplace. Zus Bielski (Jamie Bell) left the Ozriad to join the Krasny Voyennoi (Red Army) partisans where the man with the big moustache (Stalin) led the fight against the man with the small moustache (Hitler). The Red Army did not care about the Jews and the Bielskis.

Tuvia faced a leadership challenge when laid low by a lung infection, he promptly shot his opponent. A bounty of 100,000 Reichsmarks on Tuvia's head did not tempt his followers. The retreat of German armed forces in 1944 allowed the Bielskis and 1,200 other malnourished Jews to emerge from the forests safe and well.

This story only became known in 1992 when a Polish born Professor in New York unearthed the details from some of the survivors. These were the Jews who fought. Isael Bielski joined the Red Army in 1944 and was killed in action within six months. Tuvia and Zus emigrated to Israel and then to New York where they ran a trucking business for three decades. The Bielskis never sought recognition for what they achieved.

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