Aron Bell

 Aron Bell (born Aron Bielski) died on September 22, 2025 in Palm Beach, Florida at the age of 98.

He was the last surviving member of the Bielski Brothers.

Aron was born on July 21, 1927 in Stankiewicz, Poland (today Belarus.)

He was the youngest of 10 Brothers and 2 Sisters

His Family were Millers and Grocers. They were the only Jewish Family in their Town.

From September 1939 until June 1941 the area was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union (which was allied with Nazi Germany.)

In June 1941 the Germans invaded and occupied the area.

His 2 Brothers  Abraham and Yankel, were murdered in the Village, and his Parents, David and Bella, were murdered in a mass killing there in December 1941.

The Germans ordered the 10,000 Jews of the area into the Novogrudok Ghetto, but Aron and 4 of his Brothers (Tuvia, Alexander and Asael) refused to go into the Ghetto and instead lived in the forest.

Aron, who was 14, would go into the Ghetto to try and convince the People there to go to the forest to survive. 

The Bielski Brothers Resistance Group eventually had 1, 236 People (70% of them Women, Children and the Elderly.)

They turned no one away.

They lived in underground dugouts in the forest and their camp would eventually have, a School, a Kitchen, a Mill, a Bakery, a Bathhouse, a Medical Clinic and Workshops.

They survived until the Soviet Red Army entered the area in the Summer of 1944 and disbanded the Group.

Tuvia Bielski (the Leader) went to the US in 1956 and ran a Trucking Company in New York City for 30 years. He died in 1987 at the age of 81.

Alexander Bielski first moved to Israel and then to the US in 1956. He ran a Taxi Company and helped with his Brother’s Truck Company in New York City. He died in 1995 at the age of 82.

Asael Bielski was forced into the Soviet Red Army in 1944 and died during the Battle of Königsberg in February 1945 at the age of 36.

Following the war, Aron Bell immigrated to British Mandate Palestine and served in the Army during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. 

In 1954, he moved to the United States where he married his first Wife, Judith, with whom he had three Children.

Aron Bell is survived by his Second Wife Henryka, his Children, Grandchildren, and Great-Grandchildren.

The Bielski Brothers Story came out in Nechama Tec’s 1993 Book “Defiance: which is how I learned of them.

The Book was made into a Movie in 2009 and stars Daniel Craig, Liev Schreiber, Jamie Bell and George MacKay as the Bielski Brothers.