In 1995 I won a Freedom Support N.I.S. grant (only one in NYS and 1/35 nationally). Brent Beemer (now in State Dept.) and Russian Ministry of Education were advisors. I raised $20,000 to take nine Lewiston-Porter C.S.D. students to Minsk, Gymnasia Francisk Scorina. We spent 3 weeks there, and they then brought 10 Minsk students to Lewiston-Porter. We took them to NYC. In 1999, I won a $25,000 Rotary grant for the Blind Kindergarten 353. I also sent them my poem for "Belarus".

Point: while there, I met with Dr. Felichs Lipski M.D. of the Jewish Resistance Brigade and video taped a long interview, which he did in English. I have the tape. He told me the whole story. I was invited to a reunion but had food poisoning from the local meat market. Still, I got the story about hiding in the forest, shooting from behind birch trees, blowing up bridges, machining Nazi discarded equipment in a forest machine shop, etc.

They did not just follow Nazis to die in trenches or in camps, they fought!
N.B. Hitler was so angry at delay in Belarus that he ordered that two-week delay which allowed the Russian winter to intervene!

I am pleased to see that we now have a motion picture on this operation.
Harasha! Cnaceebo!

We need a motion picture on the entire Operation Barbarossa!
I write, and I would love to work on that!
vgagee@roadrunner.com