ENG 111 WTL “to-be” Verb Activity
Excerpt from the book Defiance: The True Story of the Bielski Partisans by Nechama Tec
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z7VZ2NXGHYA
Tuvia was not interested in military glory. His only goal was to live, to keep his people
alive, and to bring more Jews into the forest; these were his goals. It was common for him to avoid
talking to non-Jewish partisans about his main preoccupation: the saving of lives. To them he was
a guerrilla fighter and continually repeated that he was in the forest to wage war against the
enemies of the Soviet Union, the Nazis.
At this early stage of the resistance movement, all forest dwellers were united in their
hatred toward the Nazis and their collaborators. These feelings of hostility were supported by
equally strong ideas that it was important to fight their common enemy, the Nazis.
Russian partisans were very belligerent when they talked about their enemy—killing Nazis
was equated with patriotism. Hero worship was common. How much of a hero a person was
dependent on how daring and life-threatening the person’s opposition was to the Nazis. But this
high value placed on fighting the enemy did not correspond to actual combat; their belligerence
was merely verbal. Inevitably, however, these favorable ideas about guerrilla fighting came with a
devaluation of those who could not wage war. Non-fighters were subjected to ridicule and
contempt. There were many disheveled and hungry ghetto runaways coming to the forest and
many were greeted by Russian partisans with a sneering, “Why did you work for the Nazis instead
of fighting?”
The forest dwellers began to be overcome with ideas that fighting and causing damage to
the Nazis and their collaborators was good. Even young ghetto runaways, after they were accepted
into a Russian fighting group, soon were strong advocates of the “wage a war ethic.” In their case,
as with others, anti-Nazi fighters were admired, and there was a strong disapproval of nonfighters.
23 “to be” verbs = 7% (more importantly, “to be” verbs drive most sentences.) 303 words
Assignment: Rewrite two of these paragraphs with no “to be” verbs.