Living Memorials

From Tamara Vershitskaya
Novogrudok, Belarus

Dear Friends,

I’m happy to tell you that we are heading towards our Living Memorial project and would like to invite you to join us. I know some of you would have gladly come and here is an opportunity for you to be with us in the Bielski camp again.
Please, see the attachment. You’ll find a short description of the project in the Call and instructions how to participate in the Annex.
My partners and I will be grateful for everything you can share with us. We, in our turn, promise to update you in the course of the project and provide the effect of presence, if the Internet works in the forest:) Otherwise, there will be a 26 min. movie available which will give you an idea about what we do in the forest.
Warm regards from Novogrudok
Tamara Vershitskaya
Call for digital Participation_International exchange project LIVING MEMORIALS_Germany_Belarus_2021_2022 (2)

The Annex

ANNEX_Your contribution_ LIVING MEMORIALS_2021

Naliboki KehilaLink

kehilalinks.jewishgen.org

Museum at Dyatlava School

My visit to Dyatlava with Tamara Vershitskaya in 2018

Zhetl, Slonim and Zelva

With Tamara Vershitskaya and Elena Radomskaya in Zhetl in June 2018

Meeting Phil and Aldona Shapiro  in Birzh, Lithuania  in June 2019.

With Aldona and Phil and Gennady
With Phil and Aldona on our walk to Holocaust Memorial outside Birzh
With Aldona and Emanuelis Zingeris, Lithuanian MP

  

Birzh Commemoration – A Reflection In The Stone!

 

Bielski Reunion in Novogrudok 2019

8 July 2019, Novogrudok

A Day with the Bielskis – Day 1

Arrival in Novogrudok

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at the RC Church where some of us lodged

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the ceremony

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Some short video clips

The Memorial 

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Robert

Lunch

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Arriving for the concert

The Concert

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Some short clips

 

Tamara with Aron Bell

My presentation – almost!

WHERE TO FROM HERE!

WE ARE HERE! For Upstanders

Bielski Partisans

A Human Rights project for Upstanders, funded by the United States Government, starting in Australia in August.

Source: wah.foundation

The Novogrudok KehilaLink

Bielski Reunion in Novogrudok 2019

 

8 July 2019, Novogrudok

A Day with the Bielskis – Day 1

Arrival in Novogrudok

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

at the RC Church where some of us lodged

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

the ceremony

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some short video clips

The Memorial 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Robert

Lunch

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Arriving for the concert

The Concert

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some short clips

 

Tamara with Aron Bell

My presentation – almost!

WHERE TO FROM HERE!

WE ARE HERE! For Upstanders

Bielski Partisans

A Human Rights project for Upstanders, funded by the United States Government, starting in Australia in August.

Source: wah.foundation

The Novogrudok KehilaLink

Bielski Reunion in Novogrudok 2019

 

8 July 2019, Novogrudok

A Day with the Bielskis – Day 1

Arrival in Novogrudok

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

at the RC Church where some of us lodged

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

the ceremony

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some short video clips

The Memorial 

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Robert

Lunch

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Arriving for the concert

The Concert

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

Some short clips

 

Tamara with Aron Bell

My presentation – almost!

WHERE TO FROM HERE!

WE ARE HERE! For Upstanders

Bielski Partisans

A Human Rights project for Upstanders, funded by the United States Government, starting in Australia in August.

Source: wah.foundation

The Novogrudok KehilaLink

Bielski Reunion in Forest Jerusalem 2019

 

9 July 2019, Naliboki Forest

A Day with the Bielskis

9:00 – All the guests are brought to the village of Naliboki by minivans. 

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11.00  â€“ meeting Alexander Pilinkievich, the chairman of the village council of Naliboki, who takes care of the Bielski camp.

Presentation by Alexander Pilinkievich

Presentation by Alexander Pilinkievich

Alexander, the chairman of the village council of Naliboki, makes a presentation to the Israeli Ambassador to Belarus. 

Source: youtu.be/2GrL4Ju4H7A

A memorial stone to the Jews of Naliboki.

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12.00– 18.00 – at the Bielski camp site in the Naliboki Forest

  • Tour around the camp with Tamara Vershitskaya and Alexander Pilinikievich
  • Introduction to the Naliboki Forest and how to survive in the forest (Ales Biely)
  • Workshop â€˜Tell your parents’ story and Your Own Story’ led by Bella Rubin, senior lecturer at Tel Aviv University.

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Violin Performance

Violin Performance

by Sevil Uluchan-Weinstein (Bielski) of Turkey

Source: youtu.be/i5J81aj7_f0

Violin Performance

Violin Performance

by Sevil Uluchan-Weinstein (Bielski) of Turkey

Source: youtu.be/v9E4pJ7FdsM

Asaela Bielski’s Message for the Kaplinskis

Asaela Bielski’s Message for the Kaplinskis

Source: youtu.be/jzl4hlGLKYE

Guidelines to the participants on how to be part of the story telling and discussion by Shachar Rubin of Israel.

Dancing in Naliboki Forest led by Shachar Rubin

Dancing in Naliboki Forest led by Shachar Rubin

Source: youtu.be/QtL0KDtdKtc

Guests tell stories about the partisan life as told by their parents. 

  • Commemoration of the last victims killed in the camp on the day before liberation (July 9, 1944) and buried in the camp.
  • Kaddish by Rabbi Grigory Abramovich from Minsk
  • Lament of Israel performed by Mikhail Dvilyanski
The Partisans’ Song in the Naliboki Forest

The Partisans’ Song in the Naliboki Forest

Introduced by Eli Rabinowitz. Sung in Hebrew

Source: youtu.be/3_b4V9Us_Z8

  • Partisan lunch
Performance at lunch

Performance at lunch

Source: youtu.be/P8Ff-yxMibk

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Le Chaim At Lunch

Le Chaim At Lunch

Source: youtu.be/Fz2FrtyaUHY

Farewell 

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Forest Jerusalem – 2018

Forest Jerusalem

My visit to the Naliboki Forest in Belarus on 16 May 2018, with Tamara, Alexander and Ivan. This is where the Bielskis and many other partisans had their camps in the latter part of WWII. Aptly nam…

Source: elirab.me/forest-jerusalem/

The Naliboki KehilaLink

Home

Source: kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/naliboki/Home.html

WE ARE HERE! For Upstanders

WE ARE HERE! For Upstanders

Bielski Partisans

A Human Rights project for Upstanders, funded by the US Government.

Source: wah.foundation

Mir, Belarus

The Jewish Cemetery

Mir Kehilalink

Mir, Belarus

Source: kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/mir/Home.html

 

  

Victor’s Private Museum 

Tamara Vershitskaya reading  records of the Cynkin family of Mir 

 

Video

Video

Descendants of Shlomo Yosef Cynkin

Descendant Chart Shlomo Yosef Cynkin

Yiddish music

Video

More museum Jewish exhibits

My accomodation at the guest house attached to the museum

With Victor, owner of the museum

Mir Castle

The Town Centre

Farewell 

Former Synagogue Buildings

    

Now the Mirski Posad Hotel

    

The Town Square

The Orthodox Church

    

 

Road signs

 

Litouka

If you ever get to Novogrudok in Belarus, be sure to visit this most unusual homestead owned by Sergei Koval who initiated and sponsored a memorial sign to Michle last year and now patronizes the Jewish Resistance Museum.  Amazing art!

Navahrudak Tunnel – Statue of Michle

Navahrudak Tunnel

Source: elirab.me/navahrudak-tunnel/

A memorial sign to all the Jewish children from Novogrudok who perished during the Holocaust was unveiled at the Jewish Resistance Museum in Novogrudok on September 26, 2017. The monument was sponsored by Sergei Koval, a local Jew, who according to his own words ‘fulfilled the wish of the girl’. 

Michle Sosnowski whose picture is in the exhibition of the Museum served as a prototype for the monument. The picture was provided by Jeannette Josse from London who visited Novogrudok in 2005 searching for her roots. Two years later Jeannette sent a book to the Museum in which she incorpoated old pictures into the new ones made during her trip. 

Michle happened to be in her family album because she was her mother’s friend. Together with Sheindel Sukharski they tried to escape from the labour camp in Novogrudok but were recognized in the street, denounced, arrested and taken to prison from which they never came out.

It’s a monument to the child whose greatest wish was to live. Dressed up for Purim she will dance forever next to the Tree of Life which incorporates the Star of David from the Novogrudok synagogue.    

The ceremony was followed by a panel discussion on Remembrance and Commemoration dedicated to the blessed memory of Jack Kagan, a survivor from Novogrudok and a Bielski partisan, whose efforts to preserve the history of Novogrudok Jews and their unprecedented resistance to the Nazis were recognized by awarding him a title of the Honorary Citizen of Novogrudok in 2011.  

With Tamara and Sergei

We Remember Novogrudak

Video

We Remember Novogrudak

Novogrudak School #4

Source: youtu.be/PDIGVhRKH3E

 

The Bishop welcomes us

 

 

  

  

  

 

  

, M

With Tamara and the Bishop

The artist 

Litouka Surprise

Video

Litouka Surprise

Advance Australia Fair

Source: youtu.be/jv-FV_soK6s

Navahrudak Tunnel

NavaHrudak Jewish Partisans’ Tunnel

Video

Navarudok Jewish Partisans’ Tunnel

Tamara Vershitskaya 14 May 2018

Source: youtu.be/iB1okmue4fg

 

We Remember Novogrudok

Video

We Remember Novogrudak

Novogrudak School #4

Source: youtu.be/PDIGVhRKH3E

Museum of the Jewish resistance

Novogrudok, Belarus

Source: kehilalinks.jewishgen.org/navahrudak/Museum_of_History.html

Lenin

Monument to mark mass ghetto escape unveiled in Novogrudok | Press releases, Belarus | Belarus.by

Monument to mark mass ghetto escape unveiled in Novogrudok | Press releases, Belarus | Belarus.by

Official press releases, Belarus

Source: www.belarus.by/en/press-center/press-release/monument-to-mark-mass-ghetto-escape-unveiled-in-novogrudok_i_0000065139.html

 

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