Aron Bielski (front and center) in a portrait at Yad Vashem. Photo: wiki commons.

The Bielski brothers were made famous by the 2008 film, Defiance, starring Daniel Craig and Liev Schreiber.

Following the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union during World War II, numerous Jewish communities in Eastern Europe were wiped out and several relatives of the Bielski brothers were murdered by the Nazis. The brothers responded by rescuing hundreds of Jews and waging a guerilla war against the Nazis and their collaborators from the forests of Belarus.

When the Soviet Union recaptured the area from the retreating Nazis in the summer of 1944, 1,250 Jews had survived under the protection of the Bielski brothers.

Aharon Bielski, the youngest of the Bielski brothers, visited the IDF’s Galilee Division as a honored guest last week where he told the Israeli soldiers that “No army in the world conducts itself as humanely as you do”.

He also expressed surprise and satisfaction at the number of IDF soldiers who wear  Kippot (Yarmulkes).

Aharon Bielski, served in the 51st Battalion of the Givati Brigade as a field radio operator during Israel’s War of Independence.