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Last update - 19:27 07/02/2008
Man credited with saving Jews in WWII to repay survivor he allegedly swindled
By The Associated Press

A man credited with helping save hundreds of Jews during World War II has agreed to repay a fellow Holocaust survivor that he and his wife were accused of swindling out of about $260,000.

Aron Bell, 80, and his wife, Henryka, 58, were charged last year with scheming to defraud 90-year-old Janina Zaniewska, exploitation of the elderly and theft.

In a plea deal, the Bells agreed to repay Zaniewska $260,000, according to court documents released Tuesday. Authorities said prosecution will be deferred if the Bells stay out of trouble and repay the money.
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Zaniewska claimed the Bells kidnapped her and left her in a nursing home in Poland last year, then returned to Palm Beach and spent nearly all her money. The three lived in the same condominium complex.

The Bells have said they were merely helping their neighbor with her finances as the elderly woman grew frail and mentally unstable. They said Zaniewska, who is Polish and was once imprisoned by the Nazis alongside Jews, wanted to return to her native country. She has since returned to Palm Beach.

As a young boy in Eastern Europe during World War II, Bell, then known as Aron Bielski, helped his three older brothers in what has been described as 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 set to come out later this year.

As the Nazis invaded what was then the Soviet Union in 1941, killing or imprisoning Jews by the thousands, the Bielski brothers fled their home near Stankiewicze in what is now Belarus and hid out in the forest, determined to resist and fight. They saved about 1,200 Jews.

Bell's three brothers often receive most of the credit since they were much older and ran the operations. Bell, who was only about 11 or 12 at the time, served largely as a messenger in the forests around the brothers' hidden encampment.

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