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ARMED JEWISH RESISTANCE: PARTISANS

Most Jewish armed resistance took place after 1942, as a desperate effort, after it became clear to
those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists.
Despite great obstacles (such as lack of armaments and training, conducting operations in a hostile
zone, reluctance to leave families behind, and the ever-present Nazi terror), many Jews throughout
German-occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans. As individuals and in
groups, Jews engaged in opposition to the Germans and their Axis partners. Jewish resistance units
operated in France, Belgium, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Poland. Jews also fought in
general French, Italian, Yugoslav, Greek, and Soviet resistance organizations.

ARMED JEWISH RESISTANCE IN EASTERN EUROPE

In eastern Europe, Jewish units fought the Germans in city ghettos and behind the front lines in the
forests. While most Jewish armed resistance began in 1943, it should be noted that the general
resistance movements in the region, operating under more favorable circumstances and with a more
sympathetic local population, also did not start until 1943.
Despite minimal support and even antisemitic hostility from the surrounding population, thousands
of Jews battled the Germans in eastern Europe. Resistance units emerged in over 100 ghettos in
Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Jews resisted when the Germans attempted to
establish ghettos in a number of small towns in eastern Poland in 1942. Revolts took place in
Starodubsk, Kletsk, Lachva, Mir, Tuchin, and several other towns. As the Germans liquidated the
major ghettos in 1943, they met with armed Jewish resistance in Krakow (Cracow), Bialystok,
Czestochowa, Bedzin, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, as well as a major uprising in Warsaw. Thousands of
Jews escaped from the ghettos and joined partisan units in nearby forests. Jews from Minsk, for
example, established seven partisan fighting units. Jews from Vilna, Riga, and Kovno also formed
resistance units.
In western Belorussia, the western Ukraine, and eastern Poland, family camps were established in
which Jewish civilians repaired weapons, made clothing, cooked for the fighters, and assisted Soviet
partisan operations. As many as 10,000 Jews survived the war by taking refuge with Jewish partisan
units. The camp established by Tuvia Bielski in the Naliboki Forest in 1942, for example, gave refuge
to more than 1,200 Jews.

There were even uprisings in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz during 19431944.
ARMED JEWISH RESISTANCE IN WESTERN EUROPE
In France, the "Arme Juive" (Jewish Army), a French Jewish partisan group, was founded in
Toulouse in January 1942. Composed of members of Zionist youth movements, the Jewish Army
operated in and around Toulouse, Nice, Lyon, and Paris. Its members smuggled money from
Switzerland into France to assist Jews in hiding, smuggled at least 500 Jews and non-Jews into
neutral Spain, and took part in the 1944 uprisings against the Germans in Paris, Lyon, and Toulouse.
"Solidarit," a Jewish Communist unit, also carried out attacks on German personnel in Paris. Many
Jews joined the general French resistance as well.
In Belgium, a combined Jewish and non-Jewish resistance unit (also named "Solidarit") derailed a
deportation train in April 1943. On July 25, 1942, Jewish resisters attacked and burned the files of the
organization that the Nazis had forced on the Jews of Belgium. Jews were also active in the Dutch
and Italian underground movements.

The impact of armed Jewish resistance should not be exaggerated. It did little to stop the Nazi
apparatus from implementing the mass murder of the Jews. Most Jewish resistance to the Nazis
focused onrescue, escape, aid to those in hiding, and spiritual resistance. Nevertheless, organized
armed resistance was the most direct form of Jewish opposition to the Nazis.

JEWISH UPRISINGS IN GHETTOS AND CAMPS, 19411944

RESISTANCE IN GHETTOS
Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements developed in approximately 100 ghettos
in Nazi-occupied eastern Europe (about one-fourth of all ghettos), especially in Poland, Lithuania,
Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos,
and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans.
The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would
succeed in escaping to join the partisans. Still, some Jews made the decision to resist. Weapons were
smuggled into ghettos. Inhabitants in the ghettos of Vilna, Mir, Lachva (Lachwa), Kremenets,
Czestochowa, Nesvizh, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, among others, resisted with force when the
Germans began to deport ghetto populations. In Bialystok, the underground staged an uprising just

before the final destruction of the ghetto in September 1943. Most of the ghetto fighters, primarily
young men and women, died during the fighting.
The Warsaw ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews. Hundreds of
Jews fought the Germans and their auxiliaries in the streets of the ghetto. Thousands of Jews refused
to obey German orders to report to an assembly point for deportation. In the end the Nazis burned
the ghetto to the ground to force the Jews out. Although they knew defeat was certain, Jews in the
ghetto fought desperately and valiantly.
RESISTANCE IN CAMPS
Under the most adverse conditions, Jewish prisoners succeeded in initiating resistance and uprisings
in some Nazi camps. The surviving Jewish workers launched uprisings even in the extermination
camps of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz-Birkenau. About 1,000 Jewish prisoners participated in
the revolt in Treblinka. On August 2, 1943, Jews seized what weapons they could findpicks, axes,
and some firearms stolen from the camp armoryand set fire to the camp. About 200 managed to
escape. The Germans recaptured and killed about half of them.
On October 14, 1943, prisoners in Sobibor killed 11 SS guards and police auxiliaries and set the camp
on fire. About 300 prisoners escaped, breaking through the barbed wire and risking their lives in the
minefield surrounding the camp. Over 100 were recaptured and later shot.
On October 7, 1944, prisoners assigned to Crematorium IV atAuschwitz-Birkenau rebelled after
learning that they were going to be killed. The Germans crushed the revolt and murdered almost all
of the several hundred prisoners involved in the rebellion.
Other camp uprisings took place in the Kruszyna (1942), Minsk-Mazowiecki (1943), and Janowska
(1943) camps. In several dozen camps prisoners organized escapes to join partisan units. Successful
escapes were made, for example, from the Lipowa Street labor camp in Lublin.

Despite being vastly outgunned and outnumbered, some Jews in ghettos and camps did resist the
Germans with force. The spirit of these efforts transcends their failure to halt the genocidal policies
of the Nazis.