Chasia Bornstein-Bielicka

Chasia Bornstein-Bielicka (; January 16, 1921 – July 15, 2012) was a member of Hashomer Hatzair, who took part in the underground Jewish resistance in the Grodno and Białystok ghettos during the German occupation of Poland during the Nazi era. After the war, she ran a home for surviving Jewish children, with whom she immigrated to Israel, and then helped found Kibbutz Lehavot HaBashan. She wrote about her experiences in her book One of the Few: A Resistance Fighter and Educator. The opening ceremony of the holocaust memorial day, at "Yad Vashem" in Jerusalem. in the photo, holocaust survivor Hasia (Belizka) Burnstein lighting a memorial torch.

Early life Bornstein-Bielicka was born in Grodno, Poland in January 1921 as the second daughter of a family of four children. Her father, Yehuda Biletzky, owned a soft drink factory and did accounting and her mother Deborah worked as a factory worker and opened a small grocery store from the window of their house to help support the household.

Her father tried to immigrate to Argentina in order to improve their economic situation and examined the possibility of relocating the family to America, but these attempts failed. Due to financial difficulties, Bornstein-Bielicka attended a vocational school from the World ORT network, and not a Jewish private school like her brother. There she learned sewing which would help her during the war.

At the age of 12 in 1933, Bornstein-Bielicka joined the Hashomer Hatzair movement, which instilled in her Zionist and socialist values. She would spend every afternoon with her movement members, and in her adulthood even became the movement's representative at the Central Movement Conference.

Beginning of World War II As Grodno was in the eastern part of Poland, the city was occupied several times. When the war broke out on September 1, 1939, it was occupied by the Germans, who imposed a curfew on all residents, restricted the distribution of food and encouraged harassment and abuse of the city's Jews. A few weeks later, as part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, the city was passed into the hands of the Red Soviet Army.

The Soviets did not differentiate between Jews and Christians and focused their struggle on capitalism. They banned all political association, and took over all powers. During their control, activities of the Hashomer Hatzair movement were not allowed. Bornstein-Bielicka and her friends continued to hold secret group meetings in order to continue to conduct social movement activities.

Nazi Occupation In June 1941, at the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, Nazi Germany's invasion of the Soviet Union, Grodno was once again occupied by the Germans. Immediately after their conquest, the Germans imposed decrees on the Jews. They imposed a curfew and distributed food stamps to all the residents, but the Jews were usually pushed to the end of the line and did not receive their share.

Bornstein-Bielicka, who appeared Polish, used to stand in line for bread, where she would take off the mandated Star of David to not be identified as a Jew. To raise money for food, other than bread, for the family, she began working for Polish neighbors in sewing jobs.

In November 1941, all the city's Jews were ordered to move to two ghettos which were located in a crowded area in the city center. Bornstein-Bielicka and her family moved in with her childhood friend's grandmother, along with another family. They experienced severe hunger. Her father and brother worked in forced labor camps, and she began working outside the ghetto in a brick factory. She befriended the Poles who worked with her and began to do sewing work for them, in return she received food and brought it to her family. Later she also worked in beet fields, a very hard job that hurt her, but earned her additional food rations.

Resistance Under the curfew and the difficult living conditions in the ghetto, Bornstein-Bielicka and her friends from Shomer Hatzair began to organize an active underground leadership that made decisions about the nature of the movement's activities in the ghetto. This organization created alternative educational frameworks for the children and youth in the ghetto, which brought them together and allowed them to play, talk, learn and help each other. They guided groups of different ages in both ghettos and in the city.

After making home visits to the children in the ghetto, Bornstein-Bielicka and other underground leadership decided to create a network of mutual aid in the ghetto. They moved between the houses and attempted to get food, clothes, and shoes for families who were in dire straits. They were aided by members of the Dror youth movement and communists in the ghetto. Their first activity was to prepare the area - creating passages between yards, streets, houses and alleys, in order to create usable roads. They then worked to create cold weapons, obtain firearms from nearby villages, and even set up a laboratory to forge certificates and documents.

The underground members wanted to fight the Germans, even though it was clear to them that they would pay for it with their lives.

Meanwhile, the other members of the underground were few and their weapons were scarce. The two main actions they took were a failed assassination attempt on Starblov, the ghetto commander, and an attempt to free the Jews gathered during the last liquidation in the synagogue, an unsuccessful attempt due to lack of Jewish cooperation and lack of weapons. The underground fighters were the only ones who escaped and found refuge with a Polish farmer, but were murdered in their sleep after Polish neighbors reported them. Bornstein-Bielicka entered the ghetto to fight the Germans with members of the underground, but the commander of the uprising, Mordechai Tenenbaum, ordered her to return to the Aryan side so that she could provide them with additional weapons if necessary.

In her book, "One of the Few", Bornstein-Bielicka notes German residents who assisted her and the other liaisons on their way and formed a German cell in the underground. Among them was Arthur Schade, a German communist who also assisted many Jews and took part in underground activities, and Otto Bossa, a German who assisted many Jews, with whom Bornstein-Bielicka worked. Bossa became a spy and a significant partner of Bornstein-Bielicka in her activities. "And so it was. For almost a whole year, until August 1944, the man did not stop helping. At one point he was no longer just an assistant, but became a partner and an entrepreneur."