Reuben
19th April 2003, 19:02
Okay, i know i posted on this subject last year, though but today, on its 6oth Anniversary, I decided to make this post in celebration of the Warsaw ghetto uprising and the heroism of the resistance.
The warsaw ghetto uprising was armed uprising by Jews imprsoned in the warsaw ghetto in 1943 which defied all expectations.
Throughout the summer of 1942 the Nazis had deported jews en masse to death camps. In response a man named Mordechai Anielevitz who had escaped returned to the ghetto to organize a fighting force determined that "not one more jew would meet his death in auschwitz"
The jews managed to smuggle in a small amount of arms from the local population who sold guns at extortionate prices.
When nazi forces again invaded the ghettto to commence deportations the resistance which was made up of the communists, the Jewish workers bund (jewish marxists) plus others was badly prepared. However with a small force they attacked the germans with rifles and molotov cokctails. Luck was on their side. A german tank was burnt out by a molotov cocktail and the Nazis were forced to retreat.
However, the resistance force knew that the Nazis would come back and prepared to fight them. When thousands of SS soldiers entered the camp on april the 20th 1943 the Warsaw ghetto fighters were well prepared and had fighting posts across the ghetto. The Nazi General, Jurgen Stroop, on encountering resistance planned to iquidate the ghetto in five days and yet were confronted by an organised resistance of fighters. Lone soldiers in fighting posts fought as hard as they could against thousands of well equipped soldiers.
Somehow this small group of starved fighters held out for one month and killed up to 300 hundred german soldiers (there are vrying estimates 300 bing the highest) with a few rifles and molotov cocktails. As the ghetto eventually fell they raised a jewish flag and a red flag.
While they had eventually been defeated I find it miraculous that a population who were starving and new they had no chance of success organized to defend so succesfully against the greatest war machine on earth with molotov cocktails and smuggled arms.
The warsaw ghetto uprising was armed uprising by Jews imprsoned in the warsaw ghetto in 1943 which defied all expectations.
Throughout the summer of 1942 the Nazis had deported jews en masse to death camps. In response a man named Mordechai Anielevitz who had escaped returned to the ghetto to organize a fighting force determined that "not one more jew would meet his death in auschwitz"
The jews managed to smuggle in a small amount of arms from the local population who sold guns at extortionate prices.
When nazi forces again invaded the ghettto to commence deportations the resistance which was made up of the communists, the Jewish workers bund (jewish marxists) plus others was badly prepared. However with a small force they attacked the germans with rifles and molotov cokctails. Luck was on their side. A german tank was burnt out by a molotov cocktail and the Nazis were forced to retreat.
However, the resistance force knew that the Nazis would come back and prepared to fight them. When thousands of SS soldiers entered the camp on april the 20th 1943 the Warsaw ghetto fighters were well prepared and had fighting posts across the ghetto. The Nazi General, Jurgen Stroop, on encountering resistance planned to iquidate the ghetto in five days and yet were confronted by an organised resistance of fighters. Lone soldiers in fighting posts fought as hard as they could against thousands of well equipped soldiers.
Somehow this small group of starved fighters held out for one month and killed up to 300 hundred german soldiers (there are vrying estimates 300 bing the highest) with a few rifles and molotov cocktails. As the ghetto eventually fell they raised a jewish flag and a red flag.
While they had eventually been defeated I find it miraculous that a population who were starving and new they had no chance of success organized to defend so succesfully against the greatest war machine on earth with molotov cocktails and smuggled arms.