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Julian Bilecki was born in 1928, eleven years before the start of WW2. His father's name was Yevgenyi Biletskiy, and his sister was Anna Kifor (née Biletskaya). He had a cousin name Roman Biletskiy, who played a key role in hiding the Jews with him.

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On the eve of Shavout, with the liquidation of the ghetto the next day, 120 Jews escaped, after being attacked by Ukrainian Nationalists only 23 were left.The Bilecki's decided to take them in and with their family and the few strong, able men in the group decided to build a bunker in the woods and camouflage it with twigs and branches.
A survivor Mrs. Grau Schnitzer, recalled how a young Julian Bilecki would jump from tree to tree in to deliver necessary items to his Jewish friends in order to avoid leaving tracks in the snow.

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Genia Melzer, another survivor, was 17 then and was left for dead by the Nazis in a pile of corpses after a mass shooting.

"I lay down on the floor with my head down, and my little cousin, 9 years old, lay down on my right side. They started shooting, but I wasn’t shot. They thought I was dead but when the little girl coughed, they came with an ax and started chopping".

Genia survived the second assault, too, still pretending to be dead.

"They took us to this mass grave and they threw all the people into it and I was on top".

Genia Melzer crawled out from among the bodies and ran to the woods near Podhajce, where Julian Bilecki found her covered with blood and took her in.

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Hershko Grau ,Shake Zisser Three Rozman Sisters Ridkis Family Feldberg Family Chaim Weintraub (pharmacist) Izio Loeb Mina Blumenfield Sabina Schinster Three Zilber Siblings Gilta Fink

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Zawalow, Poland... June 1943 - In June 1943, on the eve of Shavuot, the Podhajce ghetto was liquidated. Only a handful of Jews managed to escape. Seeking shelter in the woods, the Jews realized that they could not survive alone. Help was sought from the Bilecki family whom they had known before the war. Genko, Lewko, Julian, and Roman Bilecki agreed to help them. Genko and Lewko showed the Jews where to build a bunker in the woods and for almost a year provided them with food. The bunker was discovered not once, but twice, forcing the Jews to flee. Each time they had to flee, the Bilecki family showed them where to build their new bunker, and they helped to move the desperate Jews to another part of the forest. In the spring of 1944, the area was liberated by the Soviet army. The courage and commitment of the Bilecki family saved the lives of 23 Jewish men, women, and children. In 1998 the JFR reunited Julian and Roman with six of the Jews they saved.

To read more about the Bilecki Family click here.

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Reunion 1998 - The Jewish Foundation for the Righteous

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Zawalow, Poland... June 1943 - In June 1943, on the eve of Shavuot, the Podhajce ghetto was liquidated. Only a handful of Jews managed to escape. Seeking shelter in the woods, the Jews realized that they could not survive alone. Help was sought from the Bilecki family whom they had known before the war.

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Resistance movements during World War II occurred in every occupied country by a variety of means, ranging from non-cooperation, disinformation and propaganda, to hiding crashed pilots and even to outright warfare and the recapturing of towns.