On the frosty morning of January 18, 1943, the Germans began another deportation operation in the Warsaw Ghetto. Activists of the Jewish Combat Organization, after recovering from their initial surprise, offered armed resistance for the first time. Leaflets began circulating throughout the district, calling on residents to fight: "Jews! The occupier is beginning the second act of your extermination! Do not go to your deaths without will! Defend yourselves!"
It was early September 1942. The "Great Action" in the Warsaw Ghetto had been underway for over a month. During its course, the Germans murdered at least 250 of its inhabitants in gas chambers. The remaining Jews in the district had no illusions about what "deportation to the East" truly meant – the first survivors of Treblinka had arrived in the city . The daily experience of death and terror drove even the most militant individuals into a mental crisis. Icchak Cukierman – one of the leaders of the Chalutz underground, including the then-nascent Jewish Combat Organization – recalled that these sentiments deeply affected the young Jews, his underground comrades, each of whom lost loved ones, friends, and neighbors daily.
"We were […] witnesses [to the extermination of an entire community], we heard screams and wails, we hid like mice in holes. […] Many of us no longer believed we would obtain real weapons. We were ashamed," he wrote in " Nadraz pamięci" (Excess of Memory ). As he recalled, the height of his companions' desperation and helplessness during this period could be felt during one of the nightly meetings. A dozen or so people participated, including Cywia Lubetkin and Arie Wilner . Most of those gathered, he recounted, proposed "committing public, group suicide": setting fire to several buildings in the ghetto and then "throwing ourselves with stones and clubs" at the Germans, who would certainly have arrived in the district in such an event. Cukierman claims that this suicidal plan would certainly have been carried out within 48 hours if not for his determined opposition. During a heated discussion, he convinced the audience that "there will always be time for such a move", and in the meantime "German blood must be shed on the streets of Warsaw" and for this purpose a real "fighting force" must be created.
Ultimately, the crisis was overcome – the forum agreed. And so, roughly at the end of the "great action" on September 21st, the conspiratorial machinery was set in motion, leading to the growth of the ŻOB. By January 18, 1943, the organization's fighters were sufficiently prepared to inflict casualties on the occupiers in spontaneous clashes. In their appeals, they intended to take the entire ghetto with them. In the four months between these two dates, Cukierman and his comrades accomplished a tremendous amount of work.
| Announcement of the commencement of the liquidation action of July 22, 1942 | Women boarding a wagon at the Umschlagplatz
The "second" ŻOB settles the score
The Jewish Combat Organization was established on July 28, 1942, at the height of the deportation campaign in the Warsaw Ghetto. Initially, it was composed solely of activists from Zionist youth organizations with a socialist profile: Dror (from which Cukierman and Lubetkin originated), Hashomer Hatzair (with whom Wilner was associated), and Akiba . The terror during the campaign effectively nipped its activity in the bud: party activists were unable to obtain weapons and focused instead on avoiding the Umschlagplatz. This, in part, led to the suicidal ideas of the young conspirators, which Cukierman overcame with difficulty.
After the "Great Action," approximately 60 Jews still lived in the ghetto. The idea of even a desperate fight against the Germans gained wider popularity. Thus, other political groups active in the ghetto were incorporated into the ŻOB's structures. Alongside Cukierman (Dror), the reactivated organization's headquarters included Berek Sznajdl of the Bund (later replaced by Marek Edelman), Jochanan Morgenstern of the Poale Zion Right , Hersz Berliński of the Poale Zion Left , Michał Rozenfeld of the Polish Workers' Party , and finally , Mordechai Anielewicz of Hashomer Hatzair . The latter—a 24-year-old high school graduate with a humble proletarian background and remarkable leadership skills—also became the organization's commander-in-chief.
As a result of the "unification action" in the ghetto, the ŻOB's numbers grew from approximately 200 to approximately 500-600 fighters (as of December 1942). Only the Revisionists, who a little later formed their own armed underground organization, the Jewish Military Union , did not join its structures.
The expansion of the arsenal completely failed to keep pace with the growing number of volunteers. By mid-January 1943, the Home Army had only supported the organization with about 20 pistols. Furthermore, the ŻOB members acquired an undetermined number of firearms on their own. They also possessed a small number of grenades. In any case, at the time of our inquiry, there were only enough to arm a few dozen fighters. The pistols' effectiveness was first tested on the most ardent Nazi collaborators from the ranks of the Jewish Order Service . One of them was Jakub Lejkin, shot on October 29, 1942, on Gęsia Street by militant Eliasz Różański.
ŻOB commanders were unable to predict how much time the Germans would give them to prepare for their "final assault." Efforts were made to achieve combat readiness as quickly as possible. From the outset, ghetto residents were urged to prepare bunkers. Hundreds of them were built. Finally, the first two combat groups were prepared. The first, under Anielewicz's command, was stationed at 63 Miła Street. The second, under Cukierman's command, was stationed at 58 Zamenhofa Street – on the main route to the Umschlagplatz – to enable the defense of Jews being led to transports.
In addition to this activity, the ŻOB also conducted propaganda. Plans were made to honor the victims of the "Great Action" in some way on January 22, 1943, six months after its inception. Izrael Gutman writes in The Jews of Warsaw that a demonstration was planned for that day. Cukierman denies this, claiming that the planning was merely the announcement of another proclamation. In any case, some time earlier, ŻOB members had issued a manifesto in which they appealed to ghetto residents to "resist and not go like sheep to the slaughter" in the event of further deportations. Their appeal surprisingly quickly became relevant.
| Marek Edelman, Michał Rozenfeld, Hersz Berliński
"Do not go to your death without will"
In mid-January 1943, Warsaw on the "Aryan" side of the wall lived in fear. The Germans carried out a series of roundups and deported Poles en masse to forced labor. Consequently, as Gutman writes, the Jews thought they were safe because there simply wouldn't be enough trains for them. Their calculations proved flawed. They were unaware that on January 11th, Heinrich Himmler had ordered Wilhelm Krüger, SS and Police Leader in the General Government, to immediately "reduce" the number of Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto by 8. And so, on January 18th, at 6:00 a.m., a unit of 200 German soldiers supported by 800 Lithuanians and Latvians entered the ghetto. They began collecting the casualty figures, quarter by quarter.
Anielewicz's unit was completely caught off guard by the occupiers – they were dragged from their beds. The ŻOB members couldn't defend themselves in the building, so they devised a contingency plan. They joined the column of unfortunates heading for the Umschlagplatz. Then, when they reached the corner of Zamenhofa and Niska Streets, at Anielewicz's signal, each fighter attacked the nearest soldier with a grenade or pistol. A firefight broke out, explosions rang out, and one of the wooden houses caught fire. Both ŻOB members and civilians, taking advantage of the chaos, scattered to the sides. Anielewicz himself, as Cukierman recounts, allegedly killed a pursuing German and took his rifle. Then some underworld figures dragged him into a bunker, where he stayed with them for three days.
Cukierman's group, in turn, waited while the Germans searched the tenement house at Zamenhofa 58. They ambushed them and surprised them with a volley of gunfire, wounding and killing several. They also threw grenades after the startled first group. Then, as they fled along the rooftops toward Muranowska Street, they encountered the occupiers again – one of whom they simply pushed off the roof.
On the same day, ŻOB issued a proclamation to the residents, calling on them to fight:
"Jews! The occupier is beginning the second act of your extermination! Do not go to your death without will! Defend yourselves! Take an axe, a crowbar, a knife, and barricade your homes! Let them conquer you like this! In battle you have the opportunity to save yourself... Fight!"
Skirmishes between German forces and the ŻOB members continued for the next three days, costing at least a dozen people dead and several dozen wounded. Himmler's designated deportation quota was not reached – by the time the operation was halted on January 21st, approximately 5 Jews had been sent to Treblinka. In addition, as many as 1200 people were shot in the streets of the ghetto.
Breakthrough in the ghetto
The January clashes, as Cukierman emphasized, marked a psychological turning point for the ŻOB. Although they didn't capture the entire ghetto, they managed to halt the German operation, seize the occupiers' weapons, and, above all, inflict casualties. They proved to themselves and the Germans that they didn't have to be "sheep meekly going to the slaughter." Jews were convinced that resistance was worthwhile. Thus, as Icchak Cukierman summarized, "without the January revolt, there would have been no April revolt."
Bibliography:
- Cukierman – "Excess of Memory. Those Seven Years. Memories 1939-1946", Warsaw 2020;
- Person – "Policemen. The Image of the Jewish Order Service in the Warsaw Ghetto", Warsaw 2018;
- Gutman - "Resistance. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising", Boston-New York 1994;
- Gutman - "The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt", Brighton 1982.
