"The action I am taking is no more than a radical measure to hasten the explosion of truth and justice. I have but one passion: to enlighten those who have been kept in the dark, in the name of humanity which has suffered so much and is entitled to happiness. My fiery protest is simply the cry of my very soul. Let them dare, then, to bring me before a court of law and let the enquiry take place in broad daylight!" - Emile Zola, J'accuse! (1898) -

Saturday, August 30, 2008


For All Those Who Openly Or Secretly Believe “That It Can’t Happen Here And That It Can’t Happen Here”; I Suggest You See This Film When It Opens So0n. It Happened; It Can Happen Again and It Can Happen Here!


Defiance

Based on an extraordinary true story, DEFIANCE is an epic tale of family, honor, vengeance and salvation in World War II. The year is 1941 and the Jews of ... Four Jewish brothers living in Nazi occupied Poland escape into the forest where they join up with Russian resistance fighters in battling the Nazis. Throughout the war they built a village inside the forest and saved the lives of more than 1200 other Jews. Based on a true story.

http://www.defiancemovie.com/




Synopsis
Based on an extraordinary true story, DEFIANCE is an epic tale of family, honor, vengeance and salvation in World War II. The year is 1941 and the Jews of Eastern Europe are being massacred by the thousands. Managing to escape certain death, three brothers take refuge in the dense surrounding woods they have known since childhood.


There they begin their desperate battle against the Nazis. Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber and Jamie Bell star as brothers who turn a primitive struggle to survive into something far more consequential – a way to avenge the deaths of their loved ones by saving thousands of others.


At first it is all they can do to stay alive. But gradually, as whispers of their daring spreads, they begin to attract others – men and women, young and old – willing to risk everything for the sake of even a moment’s freedom.


Tuvia (CRAIG) is a reluctant leader and his decisions are challenged by his brother, Zus (SCHREIBER) who worries that Tuvia’s idealistic plans will doom them all. Asael (BELL) is the youngest – caught between his brothers’ fierce rivalry. As a brutal winter descends, they work to create a community, and to keep faith alive when all humanity appeared to be lost.


DEFIANCE is directed by Edward Zwick (BLOOD DIAMOND, GLORY) from a screenplay by Zwick and Clayton Frohman, based on Nechama Tec’s non-fiction book of the same name.
The producers are Zwick and Pieter Jan Brugge. The team recreating the forest haven includes two-time Oscar®-nominated cinematographer Eduardo Serra (BLOOD DIAMOND, GIRL WITH A PEARL EARRING), production designer Dan Weil (BLOOD DIAMOND, THE BOURNE IDENTITY) and Oscar®-winning costume designer Jenny Beavan (GOSFORD PARK, A ROOM WITH A VIEW).


The prevailing image of European Jews during the Holocaust years is one of helpless victims under a death sentence, unable to fight consignment to the ghettos, to the camps, and to the gas chambers. In fact, many Jews struggled alone or with others against the terrors of the Third Reich, risking their lives against overwhelming odds for the slimmest chance of survival, or a mere glimpse of freedom.

In Defiance, Nechama Tec offers a riveting history of one such group, a forest community in western Belorussia that would number more than 1,200 Jews by 1944--the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Describing the entire partisan movement in the region, Tec shows that while most forest fighters in Belorussia were rifle-carrying young men, the members of this extraordinary community included both men and women, some with weapons but mostly unarmed, ranging from infants to the elderly.

She reconstructs for the first time the amazing details of how these partisans and their families--hungry, exposed to the harsh winter weather, always on the lookout for German patrols--managed not only to survive, but to offer protection to all Jewish fugitives who could find their way to them. Driven by courage born out of despair, they dug wells, set up workshops to repair guns, make clothes, and resole shoes, supplied services to other guerilla units, and even established a makeshift hospital and school in the forest.

Arguing that this success would have been unthinkable without the vision of one man, Tec offers penetrating insight into the group's commander, Tuvia Bielski, and his journey from his life as the son of the only Jewish peasant family in an isolated rural village to his emergence as a leader possessing the charisma and courage to command under all but impossible circumstances.

Tec brings to light the untold story of Bielski's struggle as a partisan who lost his parents, wife, and two brothers to the Nazis, yet never wavered in his conviction that it was more important to save one Jew than to kill twenty Germans. She shows how, under Bielski's guidance, the partisans smuggled Jews out of heavily guarded ghettos, scouted the roads for fugitives, and led retaliatory raids against Belorussian peasants who collaborated with the Nazis against their former Jewish neighbors.

Refusing to turn away the weak or the old for the sake of the survival of the larger group, Bielski would warn new arrivals to the forest, "Life is difficult, we are in danger all the time, but if we perish, if we die, we die like human beings."

A scholar, a writer, and herself a Holocaust survivor, author Nechama Techas devoted the last two decades to studying the fate of European Jewry, recording rare but vital examples of human compassion, resistance, altruism and heroism in the face of overwhelming horror and despair.

Drawing on wide-ranging research and never before published interviews with surviving partisans--including Tuvia Bielski himself two weeks before his death in 1987--she reconstructs here the poignant and unforgettable story of those who chose to fight.

More details
Defiance: The Bielski Partisans
By Nechama Tec
Published by Oxford University Press, 1993
ISBN 0195075951, 9780195075953

Synopsis
A history of the Beilski Partisans, a forest community which was established in 1942 in western Belorussian and numbered over 1,200 Jews by 1944. The group represents the largest armed rescue operation of Jews by Jews in World War II. Tec describes other partisan movements in the region, showing that while most forest fighters were rifle-carrying young men, the members of the Beilski community included both men and women of all ages, some with weapons, but mostly unarmed. Drawing from survivor partisan interviews, Tec discusses the details of the partisans' daily lives, explores the charismatic leadership of Tuvia Bielski, and outlines the internal processes and structures of the community.

Booknews
The history of a Jewish partisan group, a forest community established in 1942 in western Belorussia, that would number more than 1,200 by 1944--the largest armed rescue of Jews by Jews in WWII. Drawing on wide-ranging research and original interviews with survivor partisans--including charismatic leader Tuvia Bielski himself, two weeks before his death in 1987--Tec reconstructs the lives of those in the community and tells how they survived in a hostile environment. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Biography
Nechama Tec is Professor of Sociology at the University of Connecticut, Stamford. She is the author of six books, including In the Lion's Den: The Life of Oswald Rufeisen, the winner of the 1990 Christopher Award, When Light Pierced the Darkness, and Dry Tears, a memoir of her experiences during the years of the Nazi occupation of Poland.

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