b'BC_5782_2021final_cmyk_Layout 18/8/219:47 AMPage 26Chasia Bielicka, born in Grodno in 1921, joined a Zionist youthmovement when she was 12, and was in Grodno when the Germansinvaded in 1939. The Jews of Grodno were forced into a ghetto. Shelater recalled the day when the Jews were ordered into the main street,and the commander personally hanged one of the young Jewishwomen, along with two men. She made herself stay behind at the siteof the hanging, thinking I must see this so that my hatred will be soChasia Bielicka. intense that I will be able to murder a German with my bare hands.Sent to Bialystok, she obtained a false identity card and worked as amaid for a German officer. At night she smuggled weapons, ammunition and other essentialitems into the ghetto. She used her wits to survive many close calls: on one occasion,encountering policemen while carrying a rifle in a long tube, she casually asked them what timeit was before they had a chance to ask what was in the tube. She remained on the Aryan sideafter the liquidation of the Bialystok ghetto, and prepared a map that was instrumental in helpingthe Soviets capture the city.After liberation, she opened an orphanage for Jewish children in Lodz, and began an odyssey ofalmost two years getting 500 of them to Palestine. She settled there, married, raised three childrenof her own, and wrote a memoir.Speaking many years later, Chasia said of her fellow couriers: Many of our young girls werekilled, and we only survived thanks to the fact that they withstood torture and were prepared todie rather than reveal anything.'