Most people remember the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as a revolt that was launched after destruction had come. It was the last act by a group of people with nothing to lose. During the seminars that I lead, when I ask teenagers and young people why the Jews of the ghetto revolted, their answers vary from "because they had nothing to lose" to "to die with dignity." Many students do not know that there were many opportunities for personal salvation, and that the decision to revolt by resistance leaders such as Mordechai Anielewicz and Zivia Lubetkin was a conscious one. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was not a singular event. The Warsaw uprising was the largest of many different resistance efforts that thousands of Jews engaged in against the Nazis during the Holocaust. Such efforts included mutual aid institutions, illegal meetings between various political parties, internal ghetto communications networks, underground education, the smuggling of Jews to neutral countries, and forging ties with the Polish resistance. Hope that the Jews could weather the storm until the war ended motivated these efforts. By the time news spread that the Nazis were exterminating Jews at Chelmno and Vilnius, Zionist youth groups were drawing the conclusion that the Nazis had sentenced the entire Jewish people to death. No other major institutional Jewish body agreed with that conclusion at the time. But, spurred by the increasingly harrowing reality that the Nazis were spreading across Europe, the youth movement's leaders were inspired to organize a resistance force. The first and most difficult battle the resistance fought was to win over the minds of the Jewish public, a seemingly impossible mission under the repressive, isolating restrictions of the ghettos. Only after some 90 percent of the ghetto population was decimated did the remaining Jews decide to recognize the underground leadership, instead of the Judenrat. The Jewish Combat Organization united the majority of Jewish political movements and public organizations under the banner of resistance. The Jewish Military Union provided fighters from Betar. Together, the two organizations staged the revolt. The rebellion was more than just general resistance and a few scattered fights. The resistance fought in a series of battles over two months, thanks in large part to the alliance between resistance leaders and thousands of Jews in the ghetto. Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, a resistance leader, said in a 1976 interview with journalist Ram Evron, "I don't think that there's any need to dissect the military elements of the uprising ... No one had any doubts about the actual outcome. It's not something to study in military school. Not the weapons, not the operations, not the tactics. If there's a school to study the human spirit, that's where the [uprising] should be a major focus." Most of the Jews living in the Warsaw ghetto fell during the resistance or immediately thereafter, including the fighting organizations. Some fighters, including Zuckerman, continued efforts to rescue European Jews and fight the Nazis until the end of the war. Zuckerman said he hoped that "the values and ideals of the resistance will educate the nation and its offspring for generations to come." Zuckerman's teacher from the underground, Auschwtiz survivor Chavka Folman-Raban, said, "It was a resistance against human evil, against social injustice and the devaluation of individuals and mankind." And what were resistance fighters fighting for? Antek answered, "We had one other weapon: a great ideal, willingness and devotion to our cause." In the resistance, a wonderful combination was forged of Zionist ideas, socialism and belief in humanity on the one hand, and simple friendship and fellowship on the other. That combination did not disappoint. It is that which we must remember, and also continually renew.
The Warsaw Ghetto: resistance of the human spirit
מערכת היום
מערכת "היום“ מפיקה ומעדכנת תכנים חדשותיים, מבזקים ופרשנויות לאורך כל שעות היממה. התוכן נערך בקפדנות, נבדק עובדתית ומוגש לציבור מתוך האמונה שהקוראים ראויים לעיתונות טובה יותר - אמינה, אובייקטיבית ועניינית.
