|
Resistance in the Ghettos and Camps
When the ghettos were first created,
underground activities focused on organizing aid and civil
resistance.
Because of the terrible overcrowding, the main problem was
to secure
food and housing and organize health services and childcare.
It was prewar associations that were primarily involved
in these
activities, such as the Towarzystwo Ochrony Zdrowia
(Healthcare
Association), Centralne Towarzystwo Opieki nad Sierotami
(Central
Society for the Care of Orphans) and ORT. They operated
openly, under
the aegis of the Jewish Social Self-Help (Yiddish, Yidisher
Sotsyaler
Alaynhilf), a department of the national Main Welfare
Council,
established with the German consent. They organized the
distribution of
food, "people's kitchens" providing free soup, orphanages,
assistance
for homeless deportees, and medical care. Modest financial
assistance
and food came from foreign charities (International Red
Cross, American
Red Cross, Commission for Polish Relief, Joint), though the
Germans
confiscated a portion of this aid. Private donations,
primarily from the
wealthier residents of the ghettos, were more significant.
In the
smaller ghettos, the poorest residents were cared for almost
exclusively
by the Jewish councils (Judenrat), with infrequent support
from Jewish
Social Self-Help or Joint.
Most Jewish political parties renewed their activities
underground.
They organized self-help programs and civil resistance
networks, mainly
through "house committees" comprised of the residents of one
or more
buildings. The house committees were of great significance
for
communication, and they distributed the underground press.
They also
monitored residents' needs and the occupiers' activities.
They also hid
people who were in danger of arrest or being sent to do
forced labor,
and maintained contact with other ghettos in various cities.
An equally important form of civil resistance was secret
schooling,
cultural and religious life-all banned by the German
authorities. In
large ghettos, theaters and cabarets existed where-despite
the threat of
informants-Germans were mocked and there were appeals to the
audiences
to be unified and help each other. There were also concerts
and symphony
orchestras. In Warsaw, plays were staged in Polish, despite
bans.
Scientists and scholars persisted in their research, and
historical
and sociological studies were written. Doctors sought ways
of
controlling epidemics, and studies were done on what was
known as the
"Hunger Disease". A secret archive was founded under the
aegis of the
Warsaw Judenrat, at the initiative of E. Ringelblum. The
archive's task
was to document everyday life in the ghetto, and the
resistance and
persecution of the Jewish people.
When the liquidation action began (Holocaust), the
conditions
changed for both legal and secret activities. The Germans
deported most
activists to death camps. Youth organizations then took the
initiative-their aim was armed resistance. These groups made
contact
with the Polish underground and began forming military
structures,
gathering arms and training future fighters. They began
building a
system of bunkers and hideouts within the ghetto itself,
which were used
later to protect the civilian population. (Over ten thousand
people hid
in these places until the end of the uprising in the Warsaw
ghetto.)
Their shared aim led to the unification of the underground
political
parties.
In Wilno, on the basis of an agreement between the
various parties,
the Faraynigte Partizaner Organizatsye (FPO; Yiddish, United
Partisan
Organization) was founded in January 1942. Its members
included
representatives of Ha-shomer Ha-tsair, Ha-noar Ha-tsiyoni,
Betar, Bund
and the communists.
The leader of FPO was I. Wittenberg (1907-43).
Emissaries were sent
to Warsaw and Bialystok, but at first they were not
successful in
establishing any form of cooperation with the resistance in
those
cities. Wittenberg turned himself over to the Gestapo in
order to save
the lives of some hostages, and died after having been
tortured.
After the first wave of large-scale deportations in
Warsaw, three
Zionist youth organizations--Ha-shomer Ha-tsair, Dror and
Ha-noar
Ha-ivri "Akiba", founded the Jewish Combat Organization
(Zydowska
Organizacja Bojowa [ZOB]) on July 28, 1942. It planned to
organize
self-defense if deportations were to begin again. Street
fighting
occurred for the first time on January 18, 1943, when the
Germans
entered the ghetto with the intention of deporting 8,000
people. Only
Dror and Ha-shomer Ha-tsair participated in this action,
during which
several hundred people died. After four days of fighting,
the Germans
withdrew from the ghetto, but deported 5,000 people that had
been
rounded up, which set ZOB's preparations back several
months.
|
The Warsaw ghetto uprising, which broke out on
April 19, 1943, was the first instance of armed resistance
in occupied
Europe. The fighters, warned by the Polish underground about
a planned
deportation action, did not let themselves be taken by
surprise. German
detachments entered the ghetto and were attacked with
machine gun fire,
pistols, grenades and Molotov cocktails.
The heaviest fighting took place in the area of Nalewki
and Zamenhof
Streets, held by ZOB fighters, on the grounds of the
brush-makers'
shop, where the Bundists were fighting, and Muran�w square,
defended by
the Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy (Jewish Military Union. After
several days
of fighting, the Jewish resistance weakened; for the most
part, the
fighting was done by small, isolated groups, resisting in
buildings and
bunkers. On May 8, the Germans surrounded the bunker that
housed the ZOB
headquarters at 18 Mila Street. The members of the
uprising's
leadership who were there, including M. Anielewicz,
committed suicide.
Scattered fighting continued until May 16, when the Germans
blew up the
Great Synagogue Templum on T�omackie Street, which was
supposed to
symbolize their successful crushing of the uprising.
About 1,000 ill-equipped and untrained young people took
part in the
fighting. Over 2,000 soldiers of the Wehrmacht and SS
participated,
commanded by J. Stroop, equipped with tanks and artillery,
supported by
formations comprised of Ukrainians, Lithuanians and
Latvians. The Home
Army detachment was supposed to support the insurgents,
according to the
original plan, proved unable to make it through the wall.
Attempts by
the People's Guard (Gwardia Ludowa, GL) detachment to enter
the ghetto
also failed. Several Polish fighters who managed to enter
the ghetto
also took part in the uprising.
Influenced by FPO emissaries from Wilno, underground
activists in
the Bia�ystok ghetto managed to unite its political
organizations. In
the summer of 1942, "Block A" was founded (Ha-shomer
Ha-tsir, and some
Bundists and communists). In November 1942, M. Tenenbaum
helped unite
Dror, Ha-noar Ha-tsiyoni, Betaru and some of Ha-shomer
Ha-tsair,
creating "Block B". An attempt to cooperate with the Home
Army was a
fiasco.
In December 1942, a Jewish partisan group called
"Judyta" ("Judith")
began operating in the forests near Bialystok. In February
1943, during
a deportation action, Block A made an attempt at defense;
Block B
refrained from participating.
This first armed confrontation in the Bia�ystok ghetto
brought large
losses and did not hinder the deportation: two thousand
people died,
and 10,000 were sent to Treblinka.
In July 1943, the resistance movement united as one
organization,
led by M. Tenenbaum. His deputy was D. Moszkowicz (Polish
Workers'
Party).
On the night of August 15-16, 1943, a second large-scale
deportation
began. SS detachments, assisted by Ukrainian formations,
surrounded the
ghetto. All Jews were ordered to assemble on Jarowicka
Street; from
there, they were allegedly going to be transported to labor
camps.
Though the underground's leadership called for a boycott of
the German
orders, their appeals were ineffective.
About 300 people began fighting in an attempt to break
through the
German forces surrounding the ghetto, so that the civilian
population
could escape to the forest. Several days of skirmishes were
unsuccessful. Most of those fighting were killed. Tenenbaum
and
Moszkowicz committed suicide. The Germans successfully
carried out the
liquidation action there.
Resistance developed in other ghettos as well. In
Krakow, in
mid-1942, a coalition was formed known as He-khaluts
Ha-lokhem [Hebrew,
"Fighting Pioneer", Polish name: Organizacja Bojowa
Mlodziezy
Chalucowej, "Khaluts Youth Combat Organization"]. It was
headed by H.
Bauminger (from Ha-shomer Ha-tsair), A. Liebeskind, S.
Draenger, G.
Draenger (representing Ha-noar Ha-ivri "Akiba") and A.
Lejbowicz (from
Dror).
He-khaluts was a small group of about 100 people, which
limited
their scope for action. It also organized actions outside
the ghetto
walls, primarily in hit and run attacks. In one such action,
a German
pilot and gendarme were shot. The "Todt" organization's
garages were
burned, along with its trucks. The Jewish fighters, together
with a
People's Guard detachment, took part in an action to detach
the rails on
the routes Krakow-Bochnia and Krakow-Katowice that led to
Auschwitz.
The best-known action of the Krakow organization was
throwing
grenades into the German caf� "Cyganeria" on December 22,
1942, killing
more than a dozen people. After that attack, many members
were arrested
and killed; most of the rest died during the final
liquidation of the
ghetto in March 1943.
|
In August 1943, the Germans began the
liquidation of the ghetto in Bedzin. The underground
organization,
despite being small and badly armed, resisted for three
days, holed up
in three bunkers. In Czestochowa, three hundred people took
part in the
resistance, which from the summer of 1942 on was in
communication with
ZOB in Warsaw. In January 1943, they began fighting during
another wave
of deportations. Over 80% of those fighting died; the rest
hid in the
nearby forests.
In the smaller towns, escaping to the forest during the
liquidation
of the ghettos was as a rule Jews' only chance of survival.
Attempts at
armed resistance were seen only in a few towns, for example
in
Krzemieniec, Nieswiez and Tarnow, but these were swiftly
crushed by the
Germans.
If unable to find refuge in Polish homes, the Jews who
managed to
escape usually formed family camps in the forest. These were
established
beginning in the spring of 1942, primarily in eastern
Galicia and in
the Lublin district, more rarely in central Poland. Women
with small
children and older people found refuge there. Some of the
camps grew to
several hundred or even more than a thousand people. They
were in
contact with the Jewish partisans.
Within the Generalgouvernement, the largest family camp
was in the
Parczew forests, protected by J. Grynszpan's fifty-member
partisan
detachment. After that detachment was broken up in the
spring of 1943,
most of those who had been hiding there died.
In the eastern territories, in the Naliboki Forest,
family camps
were aided by a group of partisans led by T. Bielski that
numbered
approximately 1,200 people, and also by S. Zorin's
detachment, which had
about 800 members. Beginning in the spring of 1943, they
were under the
protection of Soviet partisan detachments.
In exchange for this protection and food, the Jews
provided
services, such as repairing weapons, sewing clothes and
making shoes.
The precise number of people who survived in family camps is
not known.
Of the several hundred thousand Jews who managed to escape
to the
forests in the Generalgouvernement, just 2,000 survived in
partisan
detachments and about 3,000 survived hiding independently.
According to estimates, about 25 to 30 Jewish partisan
detachments,
having from 20 to 50 people each, were fighting in the
Lublin and Kielce
districts and in the forests around Radom. Some of the most
courageous
partisan leaders were Grynszpan, A. Amsterdam, S. Gruber and
S. Jegier.
Some of these groups joined People's Guard (later People's
Army)
detachments.
Although the Home Army accepted Jews reluctantly,
several hundred
did fight in its ranks. Many more Jews fought in partisan
groups in the
eastern territories. Large groups of Jews, up to several
hundred people,
joined the Soviet partisans, whose leadership was generally
not
anti-Semitic. In the area of Belarus, from 12,000 to 15,000
Jews fought
in both Jewish and Soviet detachments.
Some prominent partisan leaders in that area were
Bielski, J. Atlas
and H. Kapli�ski. In Volhynia, there were Jewish armed
groups (M.
Gildenman was one of their leaders), with a total of
approximately 2,000
soldiers. In Lithuanian areas, the number of partisans was
smaller,
numbering approximately 850 people.
There was resistance even in the death camps, with armed
revolts
taking place in Treblinka and Sobibor. The revolt in
Treblinka had been
prepared several months before. Its starting date (August
28, 1943) was
determined by preparations that were underway to liquidate
the camp.
Having made extra keys to the weapons storage in advance,
those involved
in the revolt succeeded in killing several guards and
setting fire to
barracks, which allowed prisoners to escape and hide in the
nearby
forests. The group of escapees was decimated as a result of
the chase,
manhunt, denunciations, cold and disease that followed. Of
the 200
people who managed to escape, only 70 managed to survive the
war.
In Sobibor, a revolt broke out on October 14, 1943.
Three hundred
people escaped after the killing of eleven SS-men and
several Ukrainian
guards. Only about fifty of the escapees survived.
In October 1944, members of the Jewish Sonderkommano at
Auschwitz
destroyed one of the gas chambers. All who had participated
in this
action were killed. During the camp's entire existence, a
total of 667
people managed to escape, of which only a few were Jews.
(G.Z./CM)
|
MAIN PAGE