Jewish Combat Organization

The Jewish Combat Organization (, ŻOB;  Yidishe Kamf Organizatsie) was a WWII resistance movement in Nazi-occupied Poland. The ŻOB is well-known for its role in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising between April 19 and May 16, 1943.

Formation

The ŻOB was formed on July 28, 1942, six days after words began to spread about the Nazi German decision to deport all Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto to concentration camps as part of the Holocaust. 23 IV 1943, Warsaw:
Odezwa Żydowskiej Organizacji Bojowej z pozdrowieniami z walczącego getta i wezwaniem do walki o wspólną wolność Żydów i Polaków.  Polska.pl Skarby Dziedzictwa Narodowego; Nask, 2008 Hashomer Hatzair, a Labor Zionist group, declared,Call to Armed Self-Defense, from Ha-Shomer Ha-Zair newspaper in the Warsaw Underground Jutrznia ("Dawn"), March 28, 1942.

Operation


In November 1942, the ŻOB became part of the Polish Home Army's (Polish: Armia Krajowa, AK) High Command.

Second deportation

On January 18, 1943, the Nazis resumed their deportation of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. 6,000 Jews deported by the Nazi Germans included a number of ŻOB fighters, who had snuck into the deportees. Led by ŻOB's co-founder Mordechai Anielewicz, ŻOB fighters awaited the signal, then broke out to fight the Nazi Germans with small arms. News of the ŻOB, and Jewish Military Union (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW), rising up spread throughout the ghetto. The deportation lasted four days. The Nazi Germans left the Warsaw Ghetto on January 22, 1943.

Uprising


The final deportation began on the eve of Passover, April 19 1943. The ghetto's streets were empty as most of the remaining 30,000 Jews were hiding in carefully built bunkers, including their headquarters at Ulica Miła 18. The Nazi Germans were attacked by Jewish fighters when they entered the ghetto. Intense fighting followed.

Struggling to deal with the fighters, the Nazi Germans burned down all of the buildings in the ghetto. Fighters hiding in underground bunkers lacked oxygen and started suffocating. On May 8, 1943, fighters started killing themselves to avoid capture. On May 16, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto was destroyed and the uprising failed.

Aftermath

20,000 Jews, including some ŻOB fighters, managed to flee to the Aryan side of Warsaw. Kazik Ratajzer, Zivia Lubetkin, Yitzhak Zuckerman and Marek Edelman joined the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, which saw 90% of Warsaw destroyed and at least 200,000 Poles killed.

Post-war period

During the Cold War in Eastern Europe, when many countries were ruled by Soviet-backed communist regimes, both the anti-Jewish nature of the Holocaust and the history of Jewish resistance were suppressed in their official WWII history, Lappin, Shalom (2006), ‘How Class Disappeared from Western Politics’, Dissent, Vol. 51, No. 1, pp. 73-78.



 Kirsch, Adam (2024), On Settler Colonialism: Ideology, Violence, and Justice, W.W. Norton and Company, New York and London.
  partly due to Soviet state antisemitism and the native antisemitism in Eastern European communist countries. 



  The recognition of the importance of WWII Jewish resistance did not become common until the Eastern European countries restored their democracy in the 1990s.


Gallery of Jewish fighters in Warsaw

Related pages

 Antisemitism
 Final Solution
 Jewish Ghetto uprisings
 Holocaust uniqueness debate
 Ghettos in Europe during the Holocaust

References

Category:Poland
Category:World War II
Category:The Holocaust
Category:Jewish history
Category:Eastern Europe
Category:1940s in Europe
Category:History of Europe
Category:History of Poland
Category:1940s establishments in Europe
Category:1940s disestablishments in Europe