'On January 18, 1943, Nazis raid the ghetto again but this time the Jews resist. The Jewish Combat Organization stops the Nazi raids into the ghetto. Germans return on 19 April 1943, and the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins. In the intervening time, many of the ghetto residents construct hidden shelters or bunkers in the basements and cellars of the buildings, often with tunnels leading to other buildings. The handful of fighters who have weapons take to these shelters, giving the uprising the advantage of defensive positions.'
.. many of the ghetto residents construct hidden shelters or bunkers in the basements
From my perspective it looks like a copy of Vietnam resistance, except for the fact that the latter happened decades earlier. Secondly, Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran have adopted the same underground strategy. I attribute this brilliant idea to Bund .. obviously : ). Now we know.
Re: Uprising, a film about the Gaza ghetto revolt.
It's more awkward that the bulk of the fighting was done by ZZW, the Home Army and the People's Guard, while ZOB didn't do much at all. It doesn't fit the zionist myth of antisemitism though.The last working-class hero in England.
Clio the cat, ? July 1997 - 1 May 2016 Kira the cat, ? ? 2010 - 3 August 2018 Jasper the Ruffian cat ? ? ? - 4 November 2021
Re: Uprising, a film about the Gaza ghetto revolt.
Interesting that the Nazis rejected the use of air power, unlike the IDF, and used flamethrowers to clear the ghetto block by block instead. Also they spared the hospital (though the synagogue was destroyed). The report from SS commander Jurgen Stroop could have been written by an IDF war criminal about Gaza with a few names altered:
'180 Jews, bandits and sub-humans, were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 20:15 hours by blowing up the Warsaw Synagogue. ... Total number of Jews dealt with 56,065, including both Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved. ... Apart from 8 buildings (police barracks, hospital, and accommodations for housing working-parties) the former Ghetto is completely destroyed. Only the dividing walls are left standing where no explosions were carried out.[28]'
From the point of view of the resistance the choice to fight despite the knowledge that they could not win, and it more being a moral stand, insisting on the dignity of deciding the manner of their own deaths sounds a lot like the motive for the Palestinian resistance: 'We knew perfectly well that we had no chance of winning. We fought simply not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths. We knew we were going to die. Just like all the others who were sent to Treblinka.... Their death was far more heroic. We didn't know when we would take a bullet. They had to deal with certain death, stripped naked in a gas chamber or standing at the edge of a mass grave waiting for a bullet in the back of the head.... It was easier to die fighting than in a gas chamber."[9]' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marek_Edelman
I note that some of the Warsaw ghetto fighters were zionists ended up in Israel on stolen Palestinian land, eg: 'Lohamei HaGeta'ot (Hebrew: לוֹחֲמֵי הַגֵּיטָאוֹת, lit. The Ghetto Fighters) is a kibbutz in northern Israel. Located in the western Galilee, it falls under the jurisdiction of Mateh Asher Regional Council. In 2022 it had a population of 866.[1]
The kibbutz was founded by Holocaust survivors in 1949 on the coastal highway between Acre and Nahariya, on the site of an abandoned British Army base[2] and the depopulated Palestinian village of al-Sumayriyya.[3] Its founding members include surviving fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (notably Yitzhak Zuckerman, ŻOB deputy commander), as well as former Jewish partisans and other Holocaust survivors. Its name commemorates the Jews who fought the Nazis.' - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lohamei_HaGeta%27ot
On the other hand there was Marek Edelman who opposed zionism and chose to stay in Poland and continue fighting for socialism & the rights of Jews there. I think I remember hearing about a letter he wrote to the Palestinian resistance, speaking to them as equals in a way that caused zionists to lose it because it legitimised the Palestinian struggle and made them out to be like the nazis. If the shoe fits... ' To all the leaders of Palestinian military, paramilitary and guerilla organizations To all the soldiers of Palestinian militant groups:
My name is Marek Edelman, I am a former Deputy Commander of the Jewish Military Organization in Poland, one of the leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Insurrection. In the memorable year of the insurrection—1943—we were fighting for the survival of the Jewish community in Warsaw. We were fighting for mere life, not for territory, nor for a national identity. We were fighting with a hopeless determination, but our weapons were never directed against the defenseless civilian populations, we never killed women and children, In a world devoid of principles and values, despite a constant danger of death, we did remain faithful to these values and moral principles.
We were isolated in our fight, and yet the powerful opposing army was not able to destroy these barely armed boys and girls.
Our fight in Warsaw lasted several weeks, later we fought in the Underground and in the Warsaw insurrection of 1944.
Yet nowhere in the world can a guerilla force bring conclusive victory, [and] nowhere can it be defeated by [powerful] armies, Neither can your war attain any resolution. Blood will be spilled in vain and lives will be lost on both sides.
We have never been careless with life. We have never sent our soldiers to certain death. Life is one for eternity. Nobody has the right to mindlessly take it away. It is high time for everybody to understand just that.
Just look around you, Look at Ireland. After 50 years of bloody war, peace has arrived. Formerly deadly enemies have set down at a common table. Look at Poland... Without a shot being fired, the criminal communist system has been defeated. Both You and the State of Israel have to radically change your attitude. You have to want peace in order to save the lives of hundreds and perhaps thousands of people, and to create a better future for your loved ones, for your children. I know from my own experience that the current unfolding of events depends on you, the Military Leaders... You are wise and intelligent enough to understand that without peace there is no future for Palestine, and that peace can be attained only at the cost of both sides agreeing to some concessions.' - https://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/10/16/793916/-Anti-Zionist-legacy-of-Warsaw-Ghetto-resistance-fighter-Marek-Edelman
on November 4, 2024, 9:44 pm
