page_title: Jewish Military Union
section_title: Formation
hierarchical_section_title: Jewish Military Union / History / Formation
caption_attribution_description: Polski: Ankieta personalna Dawida Wdowińskiego
context_page_description: Żydowski Związek Wojskowy was an underground resistance organization operating during World War II in the area of the Warsaw Ghetto, which fought during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and 1944 Warsaw Uprising. It was formed, primarily of former officers of the Polish Army, in late 1939, soon after the start of the German occupation of Poland.
  Due to the ŻZW's close ties with the Armia Krajowa, which was closely linked to the Polish Government in Exile, after the war the Soviet-dependent People's Republic of Poland suppressed publication of books and articles on ŻZW. Its role in the uprising in the ghetto was downplayed, in favour of the more socialist Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa.
context_section_description: The ŻZW was formed some time in November 1939, immediately after the German and Soviet conquest of Poland. Among its founding members may have been Dawid Mordechaj Apfelbaum (there is some debate as to whether Apfelbaum is a real or fictional person), a pre-war Lieutenant of the Polish Army, who proposed to his former superior, Captain Henryk Iwański, the formation of a Jewish en cadre resistance as an integral part of the general Polish resistance being formed at that time. At the end of December such an organization was indeed formed and received the name of Żydowski Związek Walki. On January 30, 1940, its existence was approved by General Władysław Sikorski, the Polish commander in chief and the prime minister of the Polish Government in Exile.
  Initially consisting of only 39 men, each armed only with a Polish Vis 9 mm semi-automatic pistol, with time it had grown to become one of the most numerous and most notable Jewish resistance organizations in Poland. Between 1940 and 1942 additional cells were formed in most major towns of Poland, including the most notable groups in Lublin, Lwów and Stanisławów. Although initially formed entirely by professional soldiers, with time it also included members of pre-war right wing Jewish-Polish parties such as Betar (among them Perec Lasker, Lowa Swerin, Paweł Frenkel, Merediks, Langleben and Rosenfeld), Hatzohar (Joel Białobrow , Dawid Wdowiński) (Political Chair), and the Revisionist faction of the Polish Zionist Party (Leib "Leon" Rodal and Meir Klingbeil).
  The ŻZW was formed in close ties with Iwański's organization and initially focused primarily on acquisition of arms and preparation of a large-scale operation in which all of its members could escape to Hungary, from where they wanted to flee to join the Polish Armed Forces in the West. With time however it was decided that the members stay in occupied Poland to help organize the struggle against the occupiers. In the later period the ŻZW focused on acquisition of arms for the future struggle as well as on helping the Jews to escape the ghettos, created in almost every town in German-held Poland. Thanks to the close ties with the Związek Walki Zbrojnej and then the AK (mainly through Iwański's Security Corps, the Polish underground police force), the ŻZW received a large number of guns and armaments, as well as training of their members by professional officers. Those resistance organizations also provided help with weapons and ammunition acquisition, as well as with organizing the escapes.
  Although the ŻZW was active in a number of towns in Poland, its major headquarters remained in Warsaw. When most of the Jewish inhabitants were forced into the Warsaw Ghetto, the ŻZW remained in contact with the outside world through Iwański and a number of other officers on the Aryan side. By the summer of 1942, the League had 320 well-armed members in Warsaw alone.  During the first large deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto, the ŻZW received the news of the German plans and managed to hide most of its members in bunkers, which resulted in fewer than 20 of them being arrested by the Germans. Although Dawid Mordechaj Apfelbaum could not convince Adam Czerniaków to start an armed uprising against the Germans during the deportation, the organization managed to preserve most of its members - and assets. It also started to train more members and by January 1943 it already had roughly 500 men at arms in Warsaw alone. In addition, the technological department of the ŻZW, together with Captain Cezary Ketling's group of the PLAN resistance organization managed to dig two secret tunnels under the walls of the ghetto, providing contact with the outside and allowing smuggling of arms into the ghetto.
caption: Dawid Wdowiński
exif: {"Image Make": "Canon", "Image Model": "CanoScan LiDE 210", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "ViewNX 2.1 W", "Image DateTime": "2017:07:17 22:46:42", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Centered", "Image ExifOffset": "210", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "734", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3664", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2017:07:17 15:47:43", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1090", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1568", "EXIF FileSource": "Reflection Print Scanner", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto"}