Belorussia

The Germans first stormed through the cities of the Soviet states of Belorussia and Ukraine.

Having narrowly escaped, Miriam’s group set off for the only place that offered real hope to the Jews interned in ghettos in the former Soviet-occupied territories of Poland and Belorussia: the forest.

It referred to Belarus as Belorussia, a Soviet-era designation that was dropped nearly three decades ago but is still widely used in Russia.

He had fought in the summer of 1941 in the forests of western Belorussia and Ukraine.

And it gives him a sensibility—that’s why he can identify with these hopeless causes in Belorussia or wherever.