In conjunction with history teacher James Lucot, Jr. and Classrooms Without Borders, the Cranberry Public Library is extremely honored to host Mr. Aron Bell on Monday, April 24 at 6:00 PM.

 

Aron Bielski (born July 21, 1927) is a Polish-American Jew and former member of the Bielski partisans group, the largest armed rescuers of Jews by Jews during World War II. He was also known as Arczyk Bielski. The youngest of the four Bielski brothers, he is the only one still living.

 

The Bielski family were farmers in Stankiewicze near Navahrudak in present-day Belarus, an area that at the beginning of World War II belonged to the Second Polish Republic. In September 1939, the area was seized by the Soviet Union, which was then allied with Nazi Germany. After the Germans launched Operation Barbarossa, the invasion on the Soviet Union, Aron's brothers created a notable resistance organization, the Bielski partisans group. Aron became a member of that group.

 

After the war, Bielski returned to communist-dominated Poland but soon afterward immigrated to the British Mandate of Palestine. In 1954, he settled in the United States of America, where he joined his surviving brothers and their families. He drove and then owned two trucks in New York City. Aron is the only member of the Bielski family to have changed his family name.

 

George MacKay portrayed Aron in the film Defiance (2008), which has been criticized in Poland due to its omission of the alleged involvement of the Bielski group in a massacre of Polish civilians conducted by Soviet-aligned partisans in Naliboki. The Bielski partisan group was the subject of an official inquiry by the Polish Institute of National Remembrance's Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation after witnesses testified that Bielski partisans were among the perpetrators of the Naliboki massacre; however, the investigation found no conclusive evidence linking the Bielski group to the crime.

 

Registration is required to attend this program. Please click the link below to register or call              724-776-9100.