Tuvia Bielski

He grew up in the only Polish Jewish family in Stankiewicze, a small village in Eastern Poland (now Western Belarus) located between towns of Lida and Navahrudak. He was the son of David and Beila Bielski, who had twelve children: ten boys and two girls. Tuvia was the third eldest. His brothers Asael, Alexander ('Zus') and Aron were later to become members of his partisan group.
During the First World War, he served as an interpreter for the Imperial German Army, which were occupying the western territories of the Russian Empire. Already a speaker of Yiddish, he learned to speak the German language.
In 1927, he was recruited into the Polish Army, where he eventually became a corporal in the 30th Infantry Battalion. After his military service was over, he returned home. In an effort to add to his family's income,
When Operation Barbarossa broke out, Tuvia, Zus, and Asael were called up by their army units to fight against the Nazi German occupiers. After the units disbanded, the Bielski brothers fled to Stankiewicze, where their parents lived. In early July 1941, a German army unit arrived in Stankiewicze and Jewish residents were moved to a ghetto in Nowogr?dek. The four Bielski brothers, Tuvia, Alexander ("Zus"), Asael and Aron Bielski managed to flee to the nearby forest after their parents and other family members were killed in the ghetto in August 1941.
During World War II, Tuvia Bielski led a group of Jewish refugees. They saved more than 1,200 Jews by hiding them in forests. Although always hunted by Nazis, the numbers of the refugees continued to grow. In their camp, they built a school, a hospital, and a nursery. The refugees lived in the forests for more than two years. As leader of the Bielski partisans, his aim was not to attack railroads and roads that the German Nazis were using as supply routes.
He is portrayed by Daniel Craig in the 2008 film Defiance.