Information about Jewish Combat Organization

The Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ŻOB, Polish for the Jewish Combat Organization; called in Yiddish יידישע קאמף ארגאניזאציע) - a World War II resistance movement, which was instrumental in engineering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (although the ŻZW Jewish resistance organization claimed otherwise). The organization also took part in other resistance activities.

Offshoot of Jewish youth groups

The seeds of the ŻOB were planted on 22 July 1942, when German Nazis issued a decree regarding the fate of the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto. "All Jewish persons living in Warsaw, regardless of age and sex, [would] be resettled in the East."[1] Thus began massive deportations of the Jews, which lasted until 12 September 1942. Overall some 300,000 Jews were expelled, many of whom were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp. The deportations depleted the once thriving Warsaw Jewish community to 55,000-60,000 inhabitants.

The youth groups that were instrumental in forming the ŻOB had anticipated German intentions to annihilate Warsaw Jewry and began to shift from an educational and cultural focus to self-defense and eventual armed struggle.

Unlike the older generation, the youth groups took these reports seriously and had no illusions about the true intentions of the Germans. A document published three months before the start of the deportations by Hashomer Hatzair declared: "We know that Hitler's system of murder, slaughter and robbery leads steadily to a dead end and the destruction of the Jews." [2]

Because of their ability to view the situation objectively, a number of the leftist Zionist youth groups like Hashomer Hatzair proposed the creation of a self-defense organization at a meeting of Warsaw Jewish leaders in March of 1942. The proposal was rejected by the Bund who believed that a fighting organization would fail without the help of Polish resistance groups who were refusing to provide any support to such an organization. Others rejected the notion of armed resistance saying that there was no evidence of a threat of deportation. Moreover, they argued any armed resistance would provoke the Germans to retaliate against the whole Jewish community.

Formation of the ŻOB

The underground political factions met secretly on 23 July 1942, but failed to reach a consensus. On 28 July 1942, representatives from Hashomer Hatzair, Dror and Akiva convened separately from the political parties and established the ŻOB. Icchak Cukierman, one of the leaders of the ŻOB described the conditions surrounding the creation of the ŻOB: At that meeting we [the youth groups] decided to establish the Jewish Fighting Organization. Just us, all by ourselves without the [political] parties.

The ŻOB sent ambassadors to the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, in an effort to procure arms and establish connections with Polish resistance groups like the Polish Armia Krajowa (AK), who might help in the Jewish armed struggle. With few exceptions, the ŻOB was unable to secure any firearms and Polish groups were reluctant to waste what little resources they had by giving them to untrained Jews. General Rowecki, commander of the AK, reported that: "Jews from all kinds of groups... are turning to us and asking for arms as if our depots were full." The question of AK help to the ŻOB was further compounded - and not in the ŻOB's favor - by the fact that the ŻOB was a leftist group, with some sympathy for the Soviet Union. The AK believed the Soviet Union and Communist groups to be the next obstacles and enemies of Polish independence after the Germans, so the leftist orientation of the ŻOB's constituent groups hurt its cause in the eyes of many AK people.

The ŻOB began to issue propaganda calling for Jews to take up arms. A letter from the ŻOB dated four months after the end of the deportations demanded, "not even one Jew must go to the [deportation] train. The letter closed with the stern resolution: Now our slogan must be: let everyone be ready to die like a man!"

Despite a serious lack of weapons, the ŻOB managed to shoot and severely wound the head of the Jewish police force. The Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto regarded the Jewish police force, which was operated by Jews but supervised by the Germans, with contempt and disgust. The ŻOB considered them collaborators and issued edicts proclaiming they would execute anyone found to be working with the Nazis. The ŻOB also fought against the collaborationist Żagiew organization.

During the deportations, the Nazis had succeeded in capturing a number of important ŻOB officials, leaving the organization in a chaotic state. Stabilization came when other Zionist youth groups such as Gordonia and Noar Zioni joined the ŻOB. The most critical event in strengthening the ŻOB came when the Bundists, the Communists and a number of adult Zionist political parties banded together under the ŻOB banner with Mordechaj Anielewicz, the former head of the Hashomer Hatzair, as the new leader.

The ŻOB immediately set out to rid what was left of the ghetto of any individuals who had collaborated with the Nazis during the deportations. Among those individuals was Dr. Alfred Nossig, a Zionist and revered man in the community who had become a Nazi informant. Although the executions were motivated by revenge, they had the secondary effect of silencing any individuals who had considered conspiring with the Germans.

ŻOB resistance to the second deportation

On 18 January 1943, the Nazis began a second wave of deportations. The first Jews the Germans rounded up included a number of ŻOB fighters who had intentionally crept into the column of deportees. Led by Mordechai Anielewicz they waited for the appropriate signal, then stepped out of formation, and fought the Nazis with small arms. The column scattered and news of the ŻOB action quickly spread throughout the ghetto. During this small deportation, the Nazis only managed to round up about 5,000 to 6,000 Jews.

The deportations lasted four days during which the Germans met other acts of resistance from the ŻOB. When they left the ghetto on 22 January 1943, the remaining Jews regarded it as a victory, however Israel Gutman, a member of the ŻOB who subsequently became one of the leading authors on Jewish Warsaw wrote, It [was] not known [to the Jews] that the Germans had not intended to liquidate the entire ghetto by means of the January deportations. However, Gutman concludes that the [January] deportations... had a decisive influence on the ghetto's last months.

Final deportation and uprising

The final deportation began on the eve of Passover, 19 April 1943. The streets of the ghetto were vacant; most of the remaining 30,000 Jews were hiding in carefully prepared bunkers including their headquarters located in Ulica Mila 18, many of which had electricity and running water, however they offered no route of escape.

When the Germans marched into the ghetto, they met fierce armed resistance from fighters attacking from open windows in vacated apartments. The defenders of the ghetto utilized guerrilla warfare tactics and had the strategic advantage of not only surprise but also of being able to look down on their opponents. This advantage was lost when the Germans began systematically burning all of the buildings of the ghetto forcing the fighters to leave their positions and seek cover in the underground bunkers. The fires above consumed much of the available oxygen below ground, turning the bunkers into suffocating death traps.

By 16 May 1943, the German Police General Jürgen Stroop, who had been in charge of the final deportation, officially declared what he called the Grossaktion, finished. To celebrate he razed Warsaw's Great Synagogue. The ghetto was destroyed and what remained of the uprising was suppressed.

Epilogue

Even after the destruction of the ghetto, small numbers of Jews could still be found in the underground bunkers, on both sides of the ghetto wall. In fact, during the last months of the ghetto some 20,000 Jews fled to the Aryan side. Some Jews who escaped the final destruction of the ghetto, including youth group members and leaders Kazik Ratajzer, Zivia Lubetkin, Icchak Cukierman and Marek Edelman, would participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis.

While many members and leaders of the youth groups perished in the Warsaw Ghetto, the youth movements themselves are still alive and thriving all over the world. One can still find the leftist youth groups Hashomer Hatzair and Habonim Dror in countries like Argentina, Australia, Canada, Chile, Israel, Italy, Mexico, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The rightist youth group Betar enjoys a large following as well but mostly in Western Europe and the United States, and Bnei Akiva is the largest Religious Zionist youth movement in the world, with branches in many countries.

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