Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Flashcards
Most of the leadership of Jewish youth movements fled from Poland to the east.
Left leadership vacuum
Many arrived in vilna why?
Strong Zionist base
Post 1939 Vilna annexed from Poland to independent Lithuania
Mix of communist, Zionist and revisionist
Goal of this who fled was to reach Palestine
Many returned to Poland why?
Felt responsible for members back home
They return with international connections set up networks of knowledge in occupied Poland
Youth movement leaders and armed resistance
Mordechai anielewicz
Leader of uprising Warsaw Ghetto
Aba kovner - vilna
1942 - call to resistance
“We shall not go like sheep to the slaughter”
Uprising in the ghetto never happened they saw arm resistance as a death sentence , he encouraged to go fight as partisans in the forest
Dolek liebeskind - kracow dec 1942
Fighting pioneer resistance group decided to bomb establishments where nazis met - cyganeria cafe 12-13 Germans killed
“Fighting for 3 lines in history”
Mordechai tanenbaum - Bialystok
“We will die an heroic death and in our death we will not die”
Background
April 18 1942 - nazis enter ghetto and kill 52 people on the street
Random number of Jews killed every night
Great deportation July - sep 1942
Herman Hofle Tel czernikow ghetto to be liquidated and he kills himself July 23
Leaves 2 notes:
Wife - will not be hangman of Israel’s children
Cannot live knowing the future hopes his deed
Will be an inspiration
5-6,000 people deported daily
90% deported over next few months
At its height 480,000 now officially 35,000 remain 10-15,000 unofficial
Plans for armed resistance meeting after czernikows death attended by rabbis and youth movement leaders
One week later ZOB Jewish fighting organisation founded by Joseph Kaplan , tannenbaum also at meeting
Sep 1942 Kaplan attested anielewicz becomes head
Jan 1943 Germans take 8000 people from the ghetto to camps in Lublin
Anielewicz and 10 others go to umschlagplatz and begin to shoot
Change post Jan
Underground thought it had control and bring s pamphlets to public
Another group of fighters ZZW formed by betar Zionist youth movement- Pawel Frankel
April 19 armed resistance begins 850 armed people rest in hiding ZOB scattered positions ZZW fought around muranowska square Actual fighting lasted 2-3 days
Juergen stroop takes over
Engaged 2 more days fighting
Then sets ghetto on fire
Liquidation took until middle of May 1943
“There is no longer a Jewish quarter in Warsaw”
Huge failure for the Germans
