The four Bielski brothers, Tuvia, Alexander (also known as "Zus"), Asael, and Aron, fled into the nearby forests after their parents and other family members had been killed in the ghetto on 8 December 1941.

In addition, several utility structures were built: a kitchen, a mill, a bakery, a bathhouse, a medical clinic for the sick and wounded and a quarantine hut for those who suffered from infectious diseases such as typhus.

Artisans made goods and carried out repairs, providing the combatants with logistical support that later served the Soviet partisan units in the vicinity as well.

Tailors patched up old clothing and stitched together new garments; shoemakers fixed old and made new footwear; leather-workers laboured on belts, bridles and saddles.

A tannery, constructed to produce the hide for cobblers and leather workers, became a de facto synagogue because several tanners were devout Hasidic Jews.

[10] The Bielski partisans' targets also included the Germans and their collaborators who had betrayed or killed Jews, such as Belarusian volunteer policemen and local inhabitants, as well as their families.

At the beginning of 1943 German planes dropped leaflets in the area promising a 50,000 Reichsmark reward for assistance in the capture of Tuvia Bielski; this figure was subsequently doubled to 100,000 RM.

[13] The communities around the Naliboki forest were devastated, the Germans deported the non-Jewish residents fit for work to Germany for slave labor and murdered most of the rest.

Prior to the manhunt, homeless refugees were mainly Jews who had escaped the ghetto, but in the fall of 1943 non-Jewish Belarusian, Polish, and Roma who managed to flee roamed in the forest.

[14] The Bielski partisans eventually became affiliated with Soviet organisations in the vicinity of the Naliboki forest under General Platon (Vasily Yefimovich Chernyshev).

The first group, named Ordzhonikidze (a famous Georgian communist), was a 180 mainly Jewish fighting detachment (commanded by a non-Jew Lyushenko).

[18] In total, the Bielski partisans claimed during the war to have killed 381 enemy fighters (in part, jointly with Soviet groups) and to have lost 50 members.

In August 1943 the Germans conducted a large-scale operation in the Naliboki forest, inflicting losses on civilians, Polish Home Army units, Soviet partisans, and the Bielski group.

[21][22] Following the German action, in which the Home Army unit lost 120 men and was forced out of the forest, Miłaszewski was replaced with Adolf Pilch, who was placed in charge of the Stolpce battalion.

[26] According to Kazimierz Krajewski, in May 1944, the village of Kamień in Stolpce was attacked by a force including Bielski partisans; 23 Home Army soldiers and 20 civilians were killed.

A unit member, Stepan Szupien, suggested to the Soviets that they arrest and execute Bielski, accusing him of confiscating money under the pretext of buying weapons.

[28] The Soviet command, concerned about the unit's leadership, began an internal investigation into an alleged protection racket conducted by Bielski.

[30] In the summer of 1944, following the Soviet Operation Bagration which allowed them to regain control over Belarus, the Kalinin unit, numbering some 1,200 of which 70 per cent were women, elderly and children, marched into Nowogródek.

[23] The NKVD started interrogating the Bielski brothers about the rumors of loot they had reportedly collected during the war and about their failure to "implement socialist ideals in the camp".

Yehuda Bielski, their first cousin and fellow partisan, moved to Israel initially to fight in the Irgun and then as a lieutenant in the IDF in the 1948 Arab-Israeli war.

In 2006, the History Channel aired a documentary titled The Bielski Brothers: Jerusalem in the Woods, written and directed by filmmaker Dean Ward.

[36] A book (January 2009) in Polish by two reporters from Gazeta Wyborcza, Odwet: Prawdziwa historia braci Bielskich (Revenge: The True Story of the Bielski Brothers) was accused of consisting of plagiarism[37] and withdrawn.

It stars Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and George MacKay as Tuvia, Zus, Asael and Aron Bielski respectively.