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Notes from the book:

Behaviour of Jews during holocaust
It gives a lot of insight into the behaviour of Jews during the holocaust. It explains how the Nazi party executed most the Jewish leaders early on, and that trapped a remainder as part of the Judenrat, assuring them they would act is intermediaries but de facto leaving them in a position that they would be shot unless they did as told. Thus these Jewish leaders would tell residents of the ghetto to stay in the ghetto.

Jews who survived the initial wave of mass murders believed/hoped that they had been spared, and would be spared, because they were useful to the state. There would then be sporadic aktion's within which people in the ghetto would be rounded up and killed. Security would then increase around the ghetto, increasing the cost of trying to escape. It is clear that their chances even if they escaped were slim, as the population was likely to denounce them, yet they would be dependant on the peasantry to obtain food and shelter. In the early years, it was not well known that Jews could find shelter in the forest.

One story is reported at p134, about a Jewish grandmother who came from the Lida ghetto to the Otriad, with a two year old. She couldn't stand life without a bra though, and so they returned to the ghetto. Where they were murdered.

Were the jews that survived intellectuals?
The book is clear that this was not the case. Most intellectuals and leaders were shot as soon as the nazi's entered Poland. It is also implied that most intellectuals were city folk who couldn't bear to leave the Ghetto to go and live in a dirty forest. On p189 it is noted that the vast majority were poorly educated.

Society within the forest
Useless eaters a.k.a. Malbushim
It is clear that not all members of the Ostriad welcomed the mission to save lots of Jews, and that they just wanted to survive themselves. In particular, many people were opposed to taking in 'useless eaters', i.e. the elderly and those without guns. There appears to have been clear status heirarchy that emerged, with many intellectuals falling too the bottom because they were not as rough/brave as the working class fighters. None the less, the community did still have a historian (a professor who had been rescued from a nearby ghetto).

Feeding so many people became almost the fulltime work of all people in the Otriad, which meant that little effort could be dedicated to fighting the Germans. This upset some of the younger members.

Leadership within the Otriad
At one point (p120) a group of men requested to dig their own bunker further away from the group, this wish was granted. They then requested to exclude all useless eaters from the bunker, and that they wanted to control their own food supply. They wound up at arms with Tuvia. The Russian partisan general was called for support (he happened to be there) and they were disarmed and cast out of the Otriad, with the threat they woudl be shot if they stayed.

Various other people wound up getting shot for disobedience, includng one political commisar. One uprising involved a patient who developed typhoid fever. Fearing a pandemic where they did not have medical facilities (p138), an armed group arose called for the man to be shot. The rebellion was put down.

Communist political commisars
A number of active communists became involved with the Ostriad during the war. Initially the Ostriad had been entirely informal, but as the Russian war effort became more organised, they setup airstrips within the forest and would operate missions through the Russian partisans. As such, the Ostriad had to become affiliated as a party of the Russian partisans movement. Early on, a communist agitator tried to overthrow Tuvia Bielski because he didn't believe he was sufficiently politically active. They would try to setup rumours and report to the nearby Russian generals, that Tuvia had been stealing money intended for the partisan movement etc, or that they had confiscated luxury goods from the neighbouring peasants.

Interactions with Russian partisans
The Russian partisans are depicted as being clearly anti-semitic. It is clear that it was a great misfortune for a small and defenceless group of Jews to encounter Russian partisans. Apparently some Jews did get accepted into Russian partisan groups, but this would generally be because they had guns that made them valuable to the group. Men would almost never be able to take their wives/children with them into a group of Russian partisans though, and they would either be refused or sent to live in the Bielski otriad. At p81 it reports one group of intellectual jews who setup an encampment in the forest, were befriended by Russian partisans, who then took the men on a hunting trip and killed them.

On p145 it is noted that one practical reason the Russian's disliked the Jews was because they required a lot of food from the peasants to support all the useless eateres, which made it harder for them.

Interactions with Polish partisans
The Polish partisans are noted as having been associated with the Polish government-in-exile in London and are described as fascist. It is noted that they wound up basically at war with the Russian partisans, particularly towards the end of the war. At the start of the war it is noted that the Bielski brothers got on well with a nearby group of partisans

Jewish family camps
One of the reason's that they wound up having ~1000 people within the Ostriad was strength in numbers. Many people would initially try to survive just with their family camping on their own, but it seems they would generally die at the hands of Russian partisans who would kill their either because of anti-semitism or to steal their guns.

Women in the Otriad
Sex sounds like it was very rough, and men would often just get into bed with women in the Otriad unless beaten away (this is not to say they were raped). Most unaccompanied women would wind up entering a partnership with a man to survive, as otherwise they were defenceless and uanble to get much food (p228).

Survival tactics
How did the partisans get food?
They would go on 'food missions' during which they would go to wealthy farms, surround the house with armed men, knock on the door and collect their share. Some peasants were seemingly happy to support the partisans. Others were less happy to help the Jewish partisans. Others would try to report to the Nazi party about them, and there are several stores in the book of when groups of Jews would get shot because a farmer would send a relative off to get the police while they were collecting food.

In the initial period when it was just a small group in the forest, they relied on local knowledge of who had farms in the area that were likely to have food. By the time they had 1000 people, they would take 14 day round trip journeys, travelling by back roads with wagons (p148).

Defence through retaliation
If a peasant was discovered to have been collaborating with the Germans, their whole family would be shot. Signs would be left so all in the neighbourhood knew what had happened, to warn them off working with the germans.

How did they supply 1000 people in a forest?
In the final year, once they reached ~1000 people, they had built a whole series of workshops along a highstreet. They acted as a supply centre for the surrounding network of more actively militant Russian partisans. They had a blacksmith, a watermaker who became a gun smith, carpenters etc. They built houses that were mostly underground, which housed roughly 40 people each. They had a barber. They had a flour mill and a bakery. While all these services were supposed to be provided free of charge under communist principles within the camp, Malbushim were at the bottom of the priority list, and unless someone could pay they got a second rate service.

How did they defend the camp?
Everyone participated in sentry duty. They setup two rings around the camp. One several hundred meters away, a second several kilometers away. Passwords were required to pass. Shots would be fired to alert of danger. At some point rogue retreating Germans broke in and trashed the place, because all the sentries had gone off to hunt retreating germans.

On p139 it is reported that german soldiers once found the camp by following a trail of chicken blood in the snow. They shot a sentry who hadn't been paying enough attention. The shot warned the inhabitants, who fled into the forest. The german's destroyed the camp, then left. To avoid their return visit, the camp moved 15 kilometers overnight.

It seems that towards the end of the war, the forest area was de facto recognised as being under Soviet partisan control. The Russian partisans controlled access to the forest.

Tuvia Bielski
After the war ended, he fled to Palestine to escape the Soviets who viewed all the Partisans as too independent. In Palestine he became a taxi driver. He later moved to the United States of America but again did not amount to much there.