Interviews from the Underground

It is commonly believed the Jewish population of Europe did little to resist the Nazi genocide during World War II. However, in the western Russian city of Minsk (now capital of Belarus) a Jewish ghetto underground and partisan resistance movement emerged to fight against the three-year German occupation. Thousands of Jews escaped certain death in the ghetto to join Jewish partisan groups operating in the forests surrounding the Minsk. The organization, size and length of Minsk's Jewish resistance is unique in the annals of World War II history. In Minsk in 1999, Phillip Alloy filmed 15 men and women survivors of the Jewish resistance for their experiences with the partisans. Two of those interviews are excerpted for this film short. The remaining interviews are forming the foundation of a feature length documentary Mr. Alloy is producing on Minsk's World War II Jewish resistance movement. For more information please visit this film's website at: www.jewishpartisans.net