The Welcome back, everyone to one thousand one heroes, legends, histories, histories,

podcast, and part two of the true story of the Bielski brothers.

Our subtitled today, Hard Choices. This is your host and

teller of history, John Haggardorn, and as we enter part two, the forest camp is growing with new

refugees. Young Aaron has become confident that he could enter most ghettos and holding areas

and come out alive, often with Jews who have decided that living in the woods is a lot better

than dying in a concentration camp.

By the spring of 1942, the brothers have set up camp in the forest outside of their home

in Stankov.

They've received guns from the Russian partisan leader Gromoff, and now they can not only provide

protection for the women and elderly, they can plan

raids for more weapons, food, and supplies. Tuvia, Assel and Zeus, using refugees they have trained

as commandos, will soon be raiding German facilities and caravans for weapons and supplies,

as well as killing known Nazi sympathizers in the region.

At this time they had 23 members total, and their biggest worry was food.

Before, the brothers had relied on kindly villagers to feed them, but now their numbers were growing, and starvation was not an option. There was a dilemma. If they continued to ask nearby

villagers for food, there was only so much to be had.

If they became forceful or asked for too much, those villagers, in order not to starve themselves, might turn them in.

The brothers decided that fear and intimidation would have to be used to obtain food.

They would need to get the word out or the impression out that they were a much larger resistance group than they were, and they would have to be used to obtain food. They would need to get the word out or the impression out that they were a much larger

resistance group than they were, and they would have to range further out of the immediate

area.

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