Displaced from their home in Belarus during World War II, a then-teenage Gitla Doppelt and her family joined bands of forest-dwelling resistance fighters who worked to protect themselves and other Jewish noncombatants from their country’s Nazi occupiers. The story of one of those groups, led by former Polish Army corporal Tuvia Bielski and his brothers, is told in the film Defiance, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber.
One night after a Library screening of the Oscar nominated movie, Doppelt discusses its depiction of the events that came to define her life.
One of her brothers, Chiya, was killed in the fighting. Doppelt, now 91 and among an ever-smaller number of Holocaust survivors in the Kansas City area, made it through the ordeal with another brother, Israel, whom she credits with saving her life. They were separated from their parents while evading the Germans but reunited after the war.
