marysia57
06.12.07, 04:30
Holocaust hero Bielski accused, denies swindling 93-year-old
neighbor in Florida
By The Associated Press
Tags: Bielski brothers, Holocaust
In Eastern Europe during World War II, Aron Bielski and his three
older brothers mounted what was, by most accounts, the biggest armed
rescue of Jews by Jews during the Holocaust.
The Bielski brothers were acclaimed as heroes, and their exploits
were chronicled in books, a documentary and a Hollywood movie coming
out next year. But now, the sole surviving Bielski brother is being
called something far different - a con man.
Now 80 and known as Aron Bell, he has been arrested on charges of
swindling a 93-year-old woman, a Catholic survivor of the Holocaust.
Bell and his wife, Henryka, 58, are accused of tricking the old
woman into giving them control of more than $250,000 in various bank
accounts.
According to police, the couple then convinced the woman they were
taking her on a vacation to her native Poland, and instead put her
in a nursing home there and returned to Palm Beach.
The charges against the couple carry up to 90 years in prison.
Bell's attorney has strongly denied the allegations and said the old
woman was going senile.
During the 1941 Nazi invasion of what was then the Soviet Union in
which they thousands of Jews were killed or imprisoned, the Bielski
brothers fled their home near Stankiewicze, now in Belarus, and hid
in the forest.
Over a thousand armed fighters and Jewish families joined the
brothers' encampment and a resistence movement emerged.
"To save a Jew is much more important than to kill Germans," Tuvia
Bielski would tell his followers, differentiating the Bielski
movement from the majority of partisan groups.
Relatives said they are shocked at the charges against Aron Bell. "I
don't believe it," said Zvi Bielski, 56, of New York City, Zus'
son. "It's totally out of character."My dad was like his father
during the war. I can't imagine what happened," he added.
Authorities said the Bells befriended the elderly Janina Zaniewska,
who was once imprisoned by the Nazis alongside Jews in Poland. She
lived in the same Palm Beach condominium complex as the Bells.
The couple persuaded her to give them power of attorney over her
bank accounts, investigators said.
In May, the Bells flew with Zaniewska to Poland under the guise of
taking her to visit old friends, police said. The Bells dropped her
at a nursing home and returned to Palm Beach.
Police were contacted in August by a bank manager who wondered why
the Bells were withdrawing Zaniewska's money. Police eventually
found Zaniewska at the nursing home.
"Thank God you found me," police said she told authorities. She
returned to the U.S. in early October and prosecutors charged the
Bells with scheming to defraud Zaniewska, exploitation of the
elderly and theft.
"This whole notion that the Bells sent this poor lady to Poland so
they could steal her money is just preposterous," said the couple's
attorney, Steven Gomberg, adding that the Bells were financially
comfortable and intended to aid Zaniewska with her finances as her
mental capacity diminished.
"We have people here, elderly people, in their 90s who are losing
their faculties and have financial assets that need to be preserved
and unfortunately have nobody else," Gomberg said. "There was
nothing stolen. She's not lost a penny," he added.
Ewa Chyra, director of the nursing home in Poland, said Zaniewska
was aware of where she was, what was going on, and who brought her
there but showed some confusion. "Zaniewska told various stories, so
one could doubt some of what she said," Chyra said. Zaniewska's
attorney, Robert Montgomery, said she has all her faculties but fell
victim to the Bells.
"They stole money from her, there's no question about that, pretty
much cleaned her out," Montgomery said. "She was taken advantage
of," he said. Aron Bell did not return repeated telephone messages.
Zaniewska's number is unpublished and efforts to reach her at her
condo were unsuccessful.
