The Warsaw ghetto uprising: Armed Jews vs. Nazis

The Washington Post ^ | October 10, 2015 | David Kopel

[Perseverando]

During World War II, 30,000 Jewish partisans fought in Eastern Europe, in their own combat units. In Western Europe, where anti-semitism among the conquered gentile population was less severe, Jews were able to participate as individuals in the national resistance, rather than having to fight in separate units. For example, in France, Jews amounted to less than one percent of French population, but comprised about 15 to 20 percent of the French Resistance. One of the most successful battles of the Jewish resistance was the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Nearly every Jew who participated was eventually killed — but they were going to be killed anyway. By choosing to stand and fight, the Warsaw Jews diverted a significant amount of Nazis resources from battlefields elsewhere, thus hastening the Nazi defeat.

The following is based on my forthcoming book “The Morality of Self-Defense and Military Action: The Judeo-Christian Tradition,” which will be published in 2016 by Praeger.

Before the war, about 10 percent of Poland’s population was Jewish. In the Middle Ages, Poland had been a welcoming, tolerant and free nation, and many Jews emigrated there. But when Poland regained its independence in 1919, thanks to the Versailles Treaty, the nation degenerated into military dictatorship, and much of the population was antisemitic.

The Nazis took most of Poland in September 1939, but according to the terms of the Hitler-Stalin pact, the Soviet Union was allowed to take the eastern third of the nation. After the June 1941 German invasion of the U.S.S.R., all of Poland fell under German control.

[Cronos]

I’ve read Mila 18 and while it is a nice read, it is fiction especially in the anti-semitism described pre-WWII

[Cronos]

i'm not Polish -- my wife is and I've lived here 5 years. I love history and from an observer's factual point of view, I can say that historically Poland has very low anti-semitic violence. and ALL of that was post the partitions.

When one thinks of the pogroms, one must remember that these were Tsarist sponsored and Tsarist run. The one smear against the Poles is Jedwabna - 300 Jews killed. Horrifying, but not enough to smear an entire nation

60% of world Jewry lived in Poland before Poland was torn apart by Russia, Prussia and Austria. Jews called it Polin - the blessed land. Jews were allowed to live, worship and build with no obstruction and were equal members of society

I hate, HATE, lies that call Poles anti-semites

[DuncanWaring]

How’s that?

It’s been a couple of decades since I’ve read it.

[Cronos]

it describes a Poland in inter-war years that has anti-Jewish violence. That's not true.

It also says that Poles were persecuted from the time they came to Poland -- that's again demonstrably false -- why were 60% of the World's Jews in the Polish-Lithuanian commonwealth in 1790 if they were persecuted? And one sees no pogroms before 1800 or after 1920 -- and Poland did not exist in that time period (it was wiped off the map from 1791 to 1919)