Not United in a Common Struggle

Abstract

In April 1943, outnumbered and outmatched Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto rose up against German troops, who were assisted by Ukrainian military companies. This battle is considered the first uprising against German troops in occupied territory in WWII. The Jewish fighters received no assistance from the Allied Forces, throughout the battle, which lasted a few days.

Two Jewish organizations took part in this struggle: the ETZI [Hebrew acronym for Jewish Military Organization] (in Polish, ZÆydowski ZÆwiazek Wojskowy), a group mostly associated with the Revisionists and Betar, followers of Jabotinsky; and the ZÆOB (ZÆydowsky Organizacja Bojowa), the Jewish Fighters’ Organization, which included members of all the other Zionist organizations, as well as the anti-Zionist Bund, and communists. Although these organizations fought to achieve the same goal, they did not cooperate. Even in the Ghetto, the same antagonism, which had caused a rift between these political camps apart prior to the eruption of WWII, subsided. In Vilna, however, the organizers of the Jewish underground movement, the FPO [Yiddish acronym for Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje] managed to overcome these obstacles. They formed one organization comprising quasi all the groups found in the Vilna Ghetto.

The article deals with the question as to why this did not happen in the Warsaw Ghetto, and why these organizations, all of them fighting to achieve the same goal, did not unite.