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The Bielskis were the only Jewish family in their tiny village of Stankevich, and while Jews in Belorussia were persecuted under tsarist rule, the family managed to maintain a successful mill. In June 1941, when Nazi Germany invaded its former ally the Soviet Union, conditions for Jews worsened immediately. Jewish ghettos were established in the nearby cities of Novogrudek and Lida, which early in the war were the sites of several mass killings of Jews. Nazis combed the countryside, and the Bielski parents and two siblings were taken to their deaths.