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The Ghetto Fights: Warsaw 1943-45
Appendices--Reports of the ghetto uprising sent out of Poland by Bund organisations.
This remarkable memoir by Marek Edelman, member of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance five-person command team, tells first-hand of the struggle of Warsaw's Jews against the Nazis in the spring of 1943.
This remarkable memoir by Marek Edelman, member of the Warsaw Ghetto Resistance five-person command team, tells first-hand of the struggle of Warsaw's Jews against the Nazis in the spring of 1943.
100 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1945
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Displaying 1 - 18 of 18 reviews
January 5, 2018
I feel like my reading this book was heavily by my identity, as an ethnically Catholic Polish-American, for whom the Holocaust was always just a thing I learned about in school as having happened to Other People, but which unavoidably relates to what I think of on some level as "my people," even though my family crossed the Atlantic before the First World War.
On a more fundamental level, Edelman's narrative was a powerful account of how people react to hopeless conditions, and how both fighting back and not doing so can be dignified responses to doom. But I couldn't help repeatedly placing myself in context with the events: feeling my heart swell a little as a socialist at the description of the ZOB members singing the Internationale on May Day in the knowledge that other people were doing so across the world. And feeling a bit of personalized guilt at every mention of ways the "Aryan" Poles might have done more to help them.
In any case, I am glad that I did read this, and I think that many of my friends would find it a powerful and worthwhile read as well.
On a more fundamental level, Edelman's narrative was a powerful account of how people react to hopeless conditions, and how both fighting back and not doing so can be dignified responses to doom. But I couldn't help repeatedly placing myself in context with the events: feeling my heart swell a little as a socialist at the description of the ZOB members singing the Internationale on May Day in the knowledge that other people were doing so across the world. And feeling a bit of personalized guilt at every mention of ways the "Aryan" Poles might have done more to help them.
In any case, I am glad that I did read this, and I think that many of my friends would find it a powerful and worthwhile read as well.
November 13, 2022
The Ghetto Fights by Marek Edelman with an introduction by John Rose is a remarkable first hand account of jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto. Marek Edelman was part of the Bund's youth organization; the bund along with the communists and Jewish Zionists went on to form the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB) of which Edelman was a commander. The bulk of the book is Edelman account of his experiences resisting Nazi extermination in the Warsaw ghetto from 1941 to 1943, which is followed by two appendixes. The first appendix contains reports from the Jewish Underground while the second appendix covers some of the controversy surrounding John Rose's introduction that also points to some of the greater issues of historical memory. The brutal crimes of the Nazi's are well known and can be found in history book after history book, but there is something categorically different when reading about what happened from someone who witnessed it, resisted it, and survived it.
September 27, 2019
Such a good book. Gives you a real insight into how horrible the ghettos set up by the nazis were, and how even in those conditions, it was still hard for Jewish people to believe the extent of the nazi atrocities. And through the nazi manipulation they managed to convince Jewish people to do many things completely against their own self interest. All until they fought back. The united groups coming together to form a larger organisation that had the ability to offer a small amount of resistance was super inspiring, even if it’s incredibly sad.
January 19, 2020
Everybody should read about the Warsaw ghetto uprising, "one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people" according to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. The fact that a few Jewish resistance fighters with almost no weapons managed to resist the Nazis from the 19th April to the 16th May has something of incredible. I'm glad that Marek Edelman lived to tell their story. Please notice that this is his first report, written as Edelman was only 26 years old, a kind of report from the battlefield. He will write more about his experience later.
July 4, 2025
An incredible testament to the spirit of resistance even in the most inhumane and barbaric conditions. This exerpt really moved me, describing the mood when the ZOB resistance group decided to carry out a 'holiday' action on May Day to hunt down and push out Nazis from the Ghetto:
"the Internationale was sung. The entire world, we knew, was celebrating May Day on thay day and everywhere forceful, meaningful words were being spoken. But never yet had the Internationale been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and was still perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins and were, at that particular time, an indication that socialist youth was still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in the face of death they were not abandoning their ideals"
Also really useful for understanding the political character of Zionism and the strategies it lead to in this time.
"the Internationale was sung. The entire world, we knew, was celebrating May Day on thay day and everywhere forceful, meaningful words were being spoken. But never yet had the Internationale been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and was still perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins and were, at that particular time, an indication that socialist youth was still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in the face of death they were not abandoning their ideals"
Also really useful for understanding the political character of Zionism and the strategies it lead to in this time.
May 12, 2025
Wonderful account of collective heroism and resistance in the face of the most abject of circumstances.
April 1, 2021
an account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, written by the only surviving commander of the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB), Marek Edelman.
This is horrifying and beautiful, written in the unadorned prose of a fighter. The Israeli government and its supporters try to co-opt this heroic struggle for their own colonial project. But the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was led by *socialists*. The fighters all sang the Internationale on May Day and saw themselves as part of a worldwide working-class struggle against fascism. Edelman himself stayed in Poland after the war, even though he was persecuted under the Stalinists, and remained critical of Zionism until his death.
Things I learned about the uprising that I hadn't realized before: many of their early actions were directed against Jewish police, as collaborators made up the first line of repression in the Ghetto, and SS men were only rarely seen. In these initial actions, something like four fifths of the ZOB fighters (!) were killed. The uprising was not a success in any military sense: few or no lives were saved. Yet the uprising sent out a call for resistance that resonated around the world, and until today.
The Nazis' plans for genocide were delayed by the uprising. But more than that: potential victims of the Nazis, who often felt confused and hopeless, now saw that they could fight back. Morale is the most important resource in the struggle against oppression, and the ZOB suffered a terrible military defeat but won an unprecedented moral victory. Let's remember their example. As Bertolt Brecht put it, loosely translated: "If all is lost, then fight!"
Great little book! Read it!
This is horrifying and beautiful, written in the unadorned prose of a fighter. The Israeli government and its supporters try to co-opt this heroic struggle for their own colonial project. But the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was led by *socialists*. The fighters all sang the Internationale on May Day and saw themselves as part of a worldwide working-class struggle against fascism. Edelman himself stayed in Poland after the war, even though he was persecuted under the Stalinists, and remained critical of Zionism until his death.
Things I learned about the uprising that I hadn't realized before: many of their early actions were directed against Jewish police, as collaborators made up the first line of repression in the Ghetto, and SS men were only rarely seen. In these initial actions, something like four fifths of the ZOB fighters (!) were killed. The uprising was not a success in any military sense: few or no lives were saved. Yet the uprising sent out a call for resistance that resonated around the world, and until today.
The Nazis' plans for genocide were delayed by the uprising. But more than that: potential victims of the Nazis, who often felt confused and hopeless, now saw that they could fight back. Morale is the most important resource in the struggle against oppression, and the ZOB suffered a terrible military defeat but won an unprecedented moral victory. Let's remember their example. As Bertolt Brecht put it, loosely translated: "If all is lost, then fight!"
Great little book! Read it!
April 15, 2018
Grim, at times hard to get through but important. A true hero. My great-grandfather lived and worked on Nowolipie Street, so this book has a personal albeit tragic connection for me.
January 22, 2025
Le SS infierirono ferocemente soprattutto sui ribelli del ghetto di Varsavia. Sceglievano donne e bambini e, invece di portarli alle camere a gas, li conducevano alle graticole. Lì costringevano le madri impazzite per l'orrore a mostrare ai figli le griglie incandescenti dove, fra le fiamme e il fumo, i corpi si accartocciavano a migliaia, dove i morti parevano riprendere vita e contorcersi, dimenarsi; dove ai cadaveri delle donne incinte scoppiava il ventre e quei bambini morti ancor prima di nascere bruciavano fra le viscere aperte delle madri. Certe scene avrebbero sconvolto le menti dei più temprati fra gli uomini, ma l'effetto era cento volte maggiore su quelle madri che con le mani tentavano di coprire gli occhi ai figli, e i tedeschi lo sapevano. «Che cosa ci faranno, mamma? Bruceranno anche noi?» urlavano i bambini impazziti, correndo a stringersi a loro. Nel suo inferno Dante non le vide, scene come queste.
E dopo essersi goduti lo spettacolo, i tedeschi li gettavano davvero tra le fiamme, i bambini.
(V.Grossman, L'inferno di Treblinka)
E dopo essersi goduti lo spettacolo, i tedeschi li gettavano davvero tra le fiamme, i bambini.
(V.Grossman, L'inferno di Treblinka)
November 20, 2024
The story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is both depressing and immensely inspiring at the same time. It's extremely impressive to read about the courageous acts of the Bund and the ZOB. Very sad to read about the Jewish population (understandably) constantly in denial about the worst of the Nazis plans and intentions, and the difficulty socialists in the Ghetto had trying to cut through that.
Not a big fan of the SWP, who published this, but if publishing these kinds of things was the only thing they did, I would hold them in higher esteem.
Not a big fan of the SWP, who published this, but if publishing these kinds of things was the only thing they did, I would hold them in higher esteem.
September 20, 2013
Teilweise sehr betroffen machend, aber kein literarisches Meisterwerk, eher ein interessanter Augenzeugenbericht.
April 29, 2023
This narrative on the Holocaust is completely absent from contemporary discourse, but this is one of or maybe the most important part!
November 4, 2025
“Now it is the turn of France. The victory of fascism in this country would signify a vast strengthening of reaction, and a monstrous growth of violent anti-Semitism in all the world, above all in the United States. The number of countries that expel the Jews grows without cease. The number of countries able to accept them decreases. At the same time the exacerbation of the struggle intensifies. It is possible to imagine without difficulty what awaits the Jews at the mere outbreak of the future world war. But even without war the next development of world reaction signifies with certainty the physical extermination of the Jews.”—Leon Trotsky “Appeal to American Jews menaced by fascism and anti-Semitism,” December 1938 in The Fight Against Jew-Hatred and Pogroms in the Imperialist Epoch.
“The high percentage of Jews in the proletarian movement is only a reflection of the tragic situation of the Jewish people in our time. The intellectual faculties of the Jews, fruit of the historic past of Judaism, are thus an important support for the proletarian movement.
“In this latter fact lies a final—and not the least important—reason for modern anti-Semitism. The ruling classes persecute with special sadism the Jewish intellectuals and workers, who have supplied a host of fighters to the revolutionary movement. To isolate the Jews completely from the sources of culture and science has become a vital necessity for the decaying system that persecutes them. The ridiculous legend of “Jewish Marxism” is nothing but a caricature of the bonds that actually exist between socialism and the Jewish masses.”
--Abram Leon inThe Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, completed shortly before his death in Auschwitz in 1944. This book is a Marxist classic, which explains why the Jews have survived and why anti-Semitism still exists.
This gem I'm reviewing is a short book by Marek Edelman, a militant of the General Jewish Labor Bund; one of the few surviving central leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He also took part in the citywide 1944 Warsaw Uprising with the other surviving members of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization). (After the war he stayed in Poland, went to medical school, becoming a cardiologist. He was a member of Solidarity).
The Nazis had already deported most of the Jews from the ghetto to the death camps before it was possible to start resistance. For one thing they had no weapons, but more importantly most Jews refused to believe that the German soldiers were sending them to their deaths. The majority followed the Judenrat (Jewish Administration) which carried out the orders of the German occupiers through the Jewish Police, who helped the Nazis loading the cattle cars to Auschwitz and elsewhere. Israel Gutman, the author of ‘Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising’ writes that “The behavior of the Judenrat in Warsaw during the Holocaust has always been a matter of considerable controversy.” To me, it’s not an academic question, but a class question. When resistance started, the Jewish Police were the first targets, and rightly so!
By 1942, the Jewish Bund had been able to prove to people what was actually happening, and to obtain from their comrades in the left-wing of the Polish Socialist Party and other sources their first weapons, mostly pistols. Later they got larger pistols, a few rifles, one machine gun, and they manufactured grenades and Molotov cocktails. In the fight they captured some German weapons. Armed Polish resistance hadn’t started yet. Together with other groups, mostly left-Zionists, they formed the ZOB—at a time when there were only 60,000 Jews (down from 300,000). Those Jews left in the Warsaw Ghetto were mostly working class. Full-scale rebellion didn’t start until April 1943. Despite their limited weaponry and lack of experience, the Jewish socialist partisans fought fiercely. The German troops in desperation tried to burn the entire ghetto, but resistance continued. Edelman writes,
“On May Day the Command decided to carry out a ‘holiday’ action. Several battle groups were sent out to ‘hunt down’ the greatest number of Germans possible. In the evening, a May Day roll-call was held. The partisans were briefly addressed by a few people and the ‘Internationale’ was sung. The entire world, we knew, was celebrating May Day on that day and everywhere forceful, meaningful words were being spoken. But never yet had the ‘Internationale’ been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and still was perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins and were, at that particular time, an indication that Socialist youth was still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in the face of death they were not abandoning their ideals.”
Essential to understanding what fascism is and how it could have been prevented by the Communist Party if it had had a leadership like in the days of Lenin is Trotsky’s The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. But I recommend for starters a book by Daniel Guerin, in part based on Trotsky’s writings, but a research work rather than a book of polemics, Fascism and Big Business.
For the fight in the US to open the doors to Jewish refugees, see Founding of the Socialist Workers Party.
I wasn’t in favor of a Jewish state in Palestine, but there’s a fine line between saying that Israel, with 6 million Jews has “no right to exist” and saying that the Jews have “no right to exist.” There is a Palestinian national struggle, but also a class struggle in Israel, as there is everywhere in the world. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which holds all Israelis (if not all Jews!) responsible for the oppression of the Palestinians, is as anti-working-class as it is anti-Semitic. But those who try to ban their activities are equally reactionary; we must debate those we disagree with, not ban them. I don’t give political support to the US imperialist government, army, and cops, but I don’t say the US has “no right to exist”; I call for a workers and farmers government to replace the big business government.
Fidel Castro in a 2010 interview with ‘Atlantic’ magazine reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, said the Jews “are blamed and slandered for everything,”
“Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms,” Castro said. “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.”
Cuba’s revolutionary government has strongly opposed Tel Aviv’s assaults and discrimination against Palestinians. But Castro responded, “Yes, without a doubt,” when Goldberg asked if he thought Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.
A Cuban athlete was asked by a BDS supporter why he played against Israel. His response was “we play against the United States, why would we refuse to play Israel?”
In this coronavirus crisis, which is really primarily a crisis of capitalism, along with the realization of the ever-widening class gap, and the anger at the bosses who made people work with totally inadequate protective gear--if any, the role of Cuba’s medical internationalism in the world is also getting more press, despite the government lies that they’re “slave labor.” For more on this see 'Red Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa.
And now, the coronavirus has taken the backseat to fighting the “virus” of racism.
To learn about the fight against racism in Cuba, let me recommend the interview with Harry Villegas in ‘Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, and ‘From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution by Víctor Dreke. Also, Our History is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution. For the story of the most important Jewish Cuban revolutionary, see Enrique Oltuski’s ‘Vida Clandestina: My Life in the Cuban Revolution.
“The high percentage of Jews in the proletarian movement is only a reflection of the tragic situation of the Jewish people in our time. The intellectual faculties of the Jews, fruit of the historic past of Judaism, are thus an important support for the proletarian movement.
“In this latter fact lies a final—and not the least important—reason for modern anti-Semitism. The ruling classes persecute with special sadism the Jewish intellectuals and workers, who have supplied a host of fighters to the revolutionary movement. To isolate the Jews completely from the sources of culture and science has become a vital necessity for the decaying system that persecutes them. The ridiculous legend of “Jewish Marxism” is nothing but a caricature of the bonds that actually exist between socialism and the Jewish masses.”
--Abram Leon inThe Jewish Question: A Marxist Interpretation, completed shortly before his death in Auschwitz in 1944. This book is a Marxist classic, which explains why the Jews have survived and why anti-Semitism still exists.
This gem I'm reviewing is a short book by Marek Edelman, a militant of the General Jewish Labor Bund; one of the few surviving central leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He also took part in the citywide 1944 Warsaw Uprising with the other surviving members of the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization). (After the war he stayed in Poland, went to medical school, becoming a cardiologist. He was a member of Solidarity).
The Nazis had already deported most of the Jews from the ghetto to the death camps before it was possible to start resistance. For one thing they had no weapons, but more importantly most Jews refused to believe that the German soldiers were sending them to their deaths. The majority followed the Judenrat (Jewish Administration) which carried out the orders of the German occupiers through the Jewish Police, who helped the Nazis loading the cattle cars to Auschwitz and elsewhere. Israel Gutman, the author of ‘Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising’ writes that “The behavior of the Judenrat in Warsaw during the Holocaust has always been a matter of considerable controversy.” To me, it’s not an academic question, but a class question. When resistance started, the Jewish Police were the first targets, and rightly so!
By 1942, the Jewish Bund had been able to prove to people what was actually happening, and to obtain from their comrades in the left-wing of the Polish Socialist Party and other sources their first weapons, mostly pistols. Later they got larger pistols, a few rifles, one machine gun, and they manufactured grenades and Molotov cocktails. In the fight they captured some German weapons. Armed Polish resistance hadn’t started yet. Together with other groups, mostly left-Zionists, they formed the ZOB—at a time when there were only 60,000 Jews (down from 300,000). Those Jews left in the Warsaw Ghetto were mostly working class. Full-scale rebellion didn’t start until April 1943. Despite their limited weaponry and lack of experience, the Jewish socialist partisans fought fiercely. The German troops in desperation tried to burn the entire ghetto, but resistance continued. Edelman writes,
“On May Day the Command decided to carry out a ‘holiday’ action. Several battle groups were sent out to ‘hunt down’ the greatest number of Germans possible. In the evening, a May Day roll-call was held. The partisans were briefly addressed by a few people and the ‘Internationale’ was sung. The entire world, we knew, was celebrating May Day on that day and everywhere forceful, meaningful words were being spoken. But never yet had the ‘Internationale’ been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and still was perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins and were, at that particular time, an indication that Socialist youth was still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in the face of death they were not abandoning their ideals.”
Essential to understanding what fascism is and how it could have been prevented by the Communist Party if it had had a leadership like in the days of Lenin is Trotsky’s The Struggle Against Fascism in Germany. But I recommend for starters a book by Daniel Guerin, in part based on Trotsky’s writings, but a research work rather than a book of polemics, Fascism and Big Business.
For the fight in the US to open the doors to Jewish refugees, see Founding of the Socialist Workers Party.
I wasn’t in favor of a Jewish state in Palestine, but there’s a fine line between saying that Israel, with 6 million Jews has “no right to exist” and saying that the Jews have “no right to exist.” There is a Palestinian national struggle, but also a class struggle in Israel, as there is everywhere in the world. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which holds all Israelis (if not all Jews!) responsible for the oppression of the Palestinians, is as anti-working-class as it is anti-Semitic. But those who try to ban their activities are equally reactionary; we must debate those we disagree with, not ban them. I don’t give political support to the US imperialist government, army, and cops, but I don’t say the US has “no right to exist”; I call for a workers and farmers government to replace the big business government.
Fidel Castro in a 2010 interview with ‘Atlantic’ magazine reporter Jeffrey Goldberg, said the Jews “are blamed and slandered for everything,”
“Over 2,000 years they were subjected to terrible persecution and then to the pogroms,” Castro said. “There is nothing that compares to the Holocaust.”
Cuba’s revolutionary government has strongly opposed Tel Aviv’s assaults and discrimination against Palestinians. But Castro responded, “Yes, without a doubt,” when Goldberg asked if he thought Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state.
A Cuban athlete was asked by a BDS supporter why he played against Israel. His response was “we play against the United States, why would we refuse to play Israel?”
In this coronavirus crisis, which is really primarily a crisis of capitalism, along with the realization of the ever-widening class gap, and the anger at the bosses who made people work with totally inadequate protective gear--if any, the role of Cuba’s medical internationalism in the world is also getting more press, despite the government lies that they’re “slave labor.” For more on this see 'Red Zone: Cuba and the Battle Against Ebola in West Africa.
And now, the coronavirus has taken the backseat to fighting the “virus” of racism.
To learn about the fight against racism in Cuba, let me recommend the interview with Harry Villegas in ‘Making History: Interviews with Four Generals of Cuba's Revolutionary Armed Forces, and ‘From the Escambray to the Congo: In the Whirlwind of the Cuban Revolution by Víctor Dreke. Also, Our History is Still Being Written: The Story of Three Chinese-Cuban Generals in the Cuban Revolution. For the story of the most important Jewish Cuban revolutionary, see Enrique Oltuski’s ‘Vida Clandestina: My Life in the Cuban Revolution.
April 6, 2024
This is a rare type of memoir. It is a short and simply written account by the only surviving commander of fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising of April-May 1943; in which 1000s of Nazi casualties, and much material damage done to the Reich army and police units (including mostly elite German SS troops, as well as personnel from Ukraine, Poland, and Latvia) tasked with murdering or deporting to their deaths or slave labour tens of thousands of Jewish civilians.
It was first published in Warsaw in 1945, and subsequently in English translation in New York 1946. Edelmann writes matter-of-factly about a subject still fresh in his own memory. This is an incredibly powerful document of primary history. Chiefly because there are very few memoirs of successful revolts against the Nazi Reich. The writing is spare yet rich in detail.
‘Three children sit, one behind the other, in front of the Bersons and Baumans hospital. A gendarme, passing by, shoots all three with a single round.
A pregnant woman trips and falls while crossing the street. A German, present during the accident, does not allow her to rise and shoots her there and then.’
***
‘The Germans chose the intersection at Mila and Zamenhofa Streets for their bivouac area, and [Jewish] battle groups barricaded at the four corners of the street opened concentric fire on them. Strange projectiles begin exploding everywhere (the hand grenades of our own make), the lone machine pistol sent shots through the air now and then (ammunition had to be conserved carefully), rifles started firing a bit further away. Such was the beginning.’
***
Most of the very poorly armed Jewish fighters (joining a smattering of bolt-action rifles, most fighters were equipped with a pistol and about 20 rounds, up to 3-4 grenades, and 3-4 Molotov cocktails each) perished after 7 weeks of fighting when the Nazis set fire to the entire district, but it was a success because it showed that the Nazis could indeed be challenged. News of the revolt spread and inspired deeds of equal bravery and guile:
The similarly heroic Jews of Bialystok Ghetto also revolted against the Reich in August ‘43. The purpose-built mass extermination camp at Treblinka was utterly destroyed in August ‘43 by a revolt of Jewish inmates in which the Nazi guards were killed and 200 survivors fled.
Large numbers of Jews also escaped from another mass death camp at Sobibor in October ‘43.
The Łódź Ghetto had already courageously rebelled with a general strike in February ‘43, but armed rebellions also took place at Poniatow and Trawniki concentration camps. Similar but smaller-scaled revolts occurred in Tarnov, Bendin, Czentochow, and Borislaw. Many of the survivors of these brave rebellions eventually joined up with different Partisan forces in the forests and marshes of eastern Poland and continued their incredible fights to the end.
The non-Jewish Poles of Warsaw began their own famous revolt a year later in August/September ‘44. Stalin deliberately withheld advancing significant Soviet assistance so as to ‘liberate’ an entirely destroyed city in January 1945.
Some of the surviving Warsaw Ghetto fighters, along with other Partisans and Holocaust survivors, helped found the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz in northern Israel, 1949; a vibrant community to this day.
***
‘The entire [German] bombardment of Warsaw in 1939 caused the destruction of 75,000 homes, while the…Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto ended with the destruction of one hundred and several thousand homes. As for German casualties: more than 1000 were killed or wounded and tremendous material losses were suffered by German war production enterprises that were set on fire and destroyed by the Jewish Armed Resistance Organisation. The casualties suffered by the Resistance Organisation were comparitively small, but many of its best members, including its commander-in-chief…fell in the fight.’
It was first published in Warsaw in 1945, and subsequently in English translation in New York 1946. Edelmann writes matter-of-factly about a subject still fresh in his own memory. This is an incredibly powerful document of primary history. Chiefly because there are very few memoirs of successful revolts against the Nazi Reich. The writing is spare yet rich in detail.
‘Three children sit, one behind the other, in front of the Bersons and Baumans hospital. A gendarme, passing by, shoots all three with a single round.
A pregnant woman trips and falls while crossing the street. A German, present during the accident, does not allow her to rise and shoots her there and then.’
***
‘The Germans chose the intersection at Mila and Zamenhofa Streets for their bivouac area, and [Jewish] battle groups barricaded at the four corners of the street opened concentric fire on them. Strange projectiles begin exploding everywhere (the hand grenades of our own make), the lone machine pistol sent shots through the air now and then (ammunition had to be conserved carefully), rifles started firing a bit further away. Such was the beginning.’
***
Most of the very poorly armed Jewish fighters (joining a smattering of bolt-action rifles, most fighters were equipped with a pistol and about 20 rounds, up to 3-4 grenades, and 3-4 Molotov cocktails each) perished after 7 weeks of fighting when the Nazis set fire to the entire district, but it was a success because it showed that the Nazis could indeed be challenged. News of the revolt spread and inspired deeds of equal bravery and guile:
The similarly heroic Jews of Bialystok Ghetto also revolted against the Reich in August ‘43. The purpose-built mass extermination camp at Treblinka was utterly destroyed in August ‘43 by a revolt of Jewish inmates in which the Nazi guards were killed and 200 survivors fled.
Large numbers of Jews also escaped from another mass death camp at Sobibor in October ‘43.
The Łódź Ghetto had already courageously rebelled with a general strike in February ‘43, but armed rebellions also took place at Poniatow and Trawniki concentration camps. Similar but smaller-scaled revolts occurred in Tarnov, Bendin, Czentochow, and Borislaw. Many of the survivors of these brave rebellions eventually joined up with different Partisan forces in the forests and marshes of eastern Poland and continued their incredible fights to the end.
The non-Jewish Poles of Warsaw began their own famous revolt a year later in August/September ‘44. Stalin deliberately withheld advancing significant Soviet assistance so as to ‘liberate’ an entirely destroyed city in January 1945.
Some of the surviving Warsaw Ghetto fighters, along with other Partisans and Holocaust survivors, helped found the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz in northern Israel, 1949; a vibrant community to this day.
***
‘The entire [German] bombardment of Warsaw in 1939 caused the destruction of 75,000 homes, while the…Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto ended with the destruction of one hundred and several thousand homes. As for German casualties: more than 1000 were killed or wounded and tremendous material losses were suffered by German war production enterprises that were set on fire and destroyed by the Jewish Armed Resistance Organisation. The casualties suffered by the Resistance Organisation were comparitively small, but many of its best members, including its commander-in-chief…fell in the fight.’
March 6, 2025
This is an absolutely incredible first-hand accounting of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by one of the only surviving fighters of the uprising. It's inspiring to hear how the Ghetto inhabitants kept the fight going, even when 3/4s of their organization was wiped out and their comrades kept dying or being forced out in the liquidation campaigns.
One of the most moving parts of the entire story was when the fighters, even in the horrific conditions, celebrated May Day and sang the Internationale. The resistors stood true to their principles and gained strength from their beliefs even when it was almost certain that many of them would not live to the next May Day.
I also couldn't help but draw conclusions between the description of the fighting in the Ghetto and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and the West Bank in particular. Just like the Nazis, the Israeli troops have vastly superior technology and weapons, as the Palestinians have to either smuggle in weapons or manufacture them in secret. But regardless of the superior technology of the Israelis, the Palestinians are able to exact heavy blows because, just like the Ghetto fighters, they fight from house to house and are willing to die for a cause that they believe in with their whole heart.
The imagery of the pile of rubble the Ghetto becomes after the liquidation also draws parallels both to the massive destruction in Gaza and especially to what is currently happening in the West Bank specifically in the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus. The Israelis also use fire, just like the Nazis, to both punish the entire population and to flush out fighters.
This book needs to be read and understood by many more people so we are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
One of the most moving parts of the entire story was when the fighters, even in the horrific conditions, celebrated May Day and sang the Internationale. The resistors stood true to their principles and gained strength from their beliefs even when it was almost certain that many of them would not live to the next May Day.
I also couldn't help but draw conclusions between the description of the fighting in the Ghetto and the Palestinian resistance in Gaza and the West Bank in particular. Just like the Nazis, the Israeli troops have vastly superior technology and weapons, as the Palestinians have to either smuggle in weapons or manufacture them in secret. But regardless of the superior technology of the Israelis, the Palestinians are able to exact heavy blows because, just like the Ghetto fighters, they fight from house to house and are willing to die for a cause that they believe in with their whole heart.
The imagery of the pile of rubble the Ghetto becomes after the liquidation also draws parallels both to the massive destruction in Gaza and especially to what is currently happening in the West Bank specifically in the refugee camps in Jenin, Tulkarm and Nablus. The Israelis also use fire, just like the Nazis, to both punish the entire population and to flush out fighters.
This book needs to be read and understood by many more people so we are not doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past.
December 31, 2020
Exceptionnel témoignage quasiment heure par heure de la résistance héroïque et tragique du ghetto de Varsovie, où l'on découvre la lucidité rapide de l'analyse politique des combattant.e.s juif.ve.s de l'irrationnalité de l'Etat nazi d'exterminer tout un peuple "sans intérêt" alors que la faim et la peur ne peuvent faire qu'espérer une paix rapide ou du travail au sortir des convois au reste du ghetto.
L'auteur-combattant, grande figure du syndicat laïc yiddishophone Bund, retrace par sa rédaction dès 1945 tous les premiers éléments indiquant dès le début de la guerre les exécutions systématiques suivant la ghettoïsation des Juif.ve.s (il mentionne aussi la liquidation de Tziganes) mais ne se contente pas d'un récit chronologique terrible car il honore avec génorosité la mémoire d'hommes et de femmes résistantes jusque dans la mort parfois la plus terrible, qu'ils ou qu'elles soient resté.e.s célèbres ou non. Edelman est bien sûr sans pitié avec les responsables de la police juive du ghetto mais aussi l'implication énorme des Ukrainiens et des Polonais dans le massacre programmé.
La préface de Vidal-Naquet, même si un peu chargée de trop nombreuses citations ou comparaisons, reste incontournable.
L'auteur-combattant, grande figure du syndicat laïc yiddishophone Bund, retrace par sa rédaction dès 1945 tous les premiers éléments indiquant dès le début de la guerre les exécutions systématiques suivant la ghettoïsation des Juif.ve.s (il mentionne aussi la liquidation de Tziganes) mais ne se contente pas d'un récit chronologique terrible car il honore avec génorosité la mémoire d'hommes et de femmes résistantes jusque dans la mort parfois la plus terrible, qu'ils ou qu'elles soient resté.e.s célèbres ou non. Edelman est bien sûr sans pitié avec les responsables de la police juive du ghetto mais aussi l'implication énorme des Ukrainiens et des Polonais dans le massacre programmé.
La préface de Vidal-Naquet, même si un peu chargée de trop nombreuses citations ou comparaisons, reste incontournable.
April 28, 2025
the sheer bravery of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. the clarity to see that in the face of those afraid of 'collective responsibility ', that if slaughter is likely inevitable, it is better to die fighting against all odds than willingly. so relevant today to this false argument of 'human shields' to delegitimize resistance.
"Every doorstep in the Ghetto has become a stronghold and shall remain a fortress until the end! All of us will probably perish in the fight, but we shall never surrender!"
"Never yet had 'The Internationale' been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and was still perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins were, at that particular time, an indication that Socialist youth were still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in death they were not abandoning their ideals."
"What is at issue here is the restoration to its proper place in history of a very honourable Jewish tradition, one that opposed a Jewish State in Palestine, and one that never abandoned its faith in the capacity of non-Jews— especially workers-to resist anti-Semitism, even in the face of overwhelming odds."
may we always remember the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. may we always remember Marek Edelman.
"Every doorstep in the Ghetto has become a stronghold and shall remain a fortress until the end! All of us will probably perish in the fight, but we shall never surrender!"
"Never yet had 'The Internationale' been sung in conditions so different, so tragic, in a place where an entire nation had been and was still perishing. The words and the song echoed from the charred ruins were, at that particular time, an indication that Socialist youth were still fighting in the Ghetto, and that even in death they were not abandoning their ideals."
"What is at issue here is the restoration to its proper place in history of a very honourable Jewish tradition, one that opposed a Jewish State in Palestine, and one that never abandoned its faith in the capacity of non-Jews— especially workers-to resist anti-Semitism, even in the face of overwhelming odds."
may we always remember the Warsaw Ghetto fighters. may we always remember Marek Edelman.
February 20, 2024
Freedom is above everything.
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