World War II · Film · 2008
Defiance
After their parents are murdered, the Bielski brothers flee into the Belarusian forest and end up protecting a growing camp of Jewish refugees from hunger, winter and German raids.
Where it happened
Follow the story across 3 places.
Stop 1: Novogrudok area
The brothers return home to find their parents killed by local police working for the Germans, and run for the woods.
Stop 2: Naliboki Forest
Key location
Tuvia builds a forest camp for every Jew who reaches them, enforcing hard rules through a winter of hunger, sickness and mutiny.
Stop 3: Marshes of the Naliboki Forest
Hunted by a German sweep, the whole camp has to abandon its dugouts and cross a marsh that seems impassable.
What really happened
Tuvia, Zus, Asael and Aron Bielski came from a village near Novogrudok in western Belarus. After German units and local police murdered most of the region's Jews in 1941 and 1942, the brothers organised a partisan group in the Naliboki Forest that took in anyone who could escape the ghettos, including the elderly, women and children.
By the summer of 1944 the Bielski camp had about 1,200 members, the largest rescue of Jews by Jews in occupied Europe. The film condenses two years into one and invents the final tank battle; historians have also noted accounts that the group killed suspected collaborators, which the film touches on only briefly.
Where to watch
Checking streaming services…
Full details
- Original title
- Defiance
- Directed by
- Edward Zwick
- Countries
- United States
- Languages
- English, Russian, German
- Released
- 2008
- Period
- –
- Theaters of war
- Eastern Front
- Themes
- Holocaust
- Resistance
- True story
