The Resistance Imagine waking up and seeing your home and all of your town is in ruins, being forced out of your home, separated from families, and restricted from all of your rights. This is what the Jews of Warsaw, Poland faced in September, 1939. When Adolf Hitler and the Nazis came to power in the 1930s, they accused the Jews of their losses and struggles from the Versailles Treaty written after World War I. This led them to make a plan to exterminate all of the Jews in Europe. The Nazis killed them in many ways, and ended up killing over six million Jews. They were placed in ghettos and concentration camps to be dealt with. Many of the Jews resisted in gallant ways to give meaning to their deaths, or to contribute to resistance efforts
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It consisted of about five hundred thousand Jews. In the summer of 1942, three hundred thousand Jews were shipped to Treblinka, a death camp, and were killed by the Germans. Many of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto knew then to resist dying to give a significance to their fate of being sent to Treblinka. The main types of resistance the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto did were strategizing and gathering to form their plans, sparking the biggest uprising in all of the ghettos, also writing records about the extreme conditions and times they were living …show more content…
The Jews tried to see each other after curfew to discuss their plans for resisting. Stated by Vladka Meed, an active resistor that lived in the Warsaw Ghetto, “(...) I recall being in a house after the curfew (...) two small children to be outside in case German are coming” (“Vladka Meed Discusses”). They people look out for each other so their plans and discussions wouldn’t be heard by the Germans. Vladka helped smuggle weapons in the Warsaw Ghetto by becoming a courier. Another way they resisted was by strategizing in the ghetto. When the ghetto resisters knew about the mass deportations to Treblinka, they wanted to attempt to recruit the whole ghetto population left; thus, planning to kill two Judenrat leaders that willingly exported Jews to the Germans demand. They got weapons by giving rich Jews taxes, robbing the ghetto bank, the Judenrat treasury, and by sending smugglers out to buy and trade for guns and dynamite. This was difficult because it risked the smuggler’s life and the guns were getting harder to obtain, as a result, the prices were really high. Another problem was using the money; it was a “choiceless choice”. Stated by Sheryl Ochayon,”The large amount of money required for the purchase of weapons could have been used to ease physical suffering of ghetto residents, or to support those Jews who had escaped the ghetto and were living in secret(...) Every decision created a
It consisted of about five hundred thousand Jews. In the summer of 1942, three hundred thousand Jews were shipped to Treblinka, a death camp, and were killed by the Germans. Many of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto knew then to resist dying to give a significance to their fate of being sent to Treblinka. The main types of resistance the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto did were strategizing and gathering to form their plans, sparking the biggest uprising in all of the ghettos, also writing records about the extreme conditions and times they were living …show more content…
The Jews tried to see each other after curfew to discuss their plans for resisting. Stated by Vladka Meed, an active resistor that lived in the Warsaw Ghetto, “(...) I recall being in a house after the curfew (...) two small children to be outside in case German are coming” (“Vladka Meed Discusses”). They people look out for each other so their plans and discussions wouldn’t be heard by the Germans. Vladka helped smuggle weapons in the Warsaw Ghetto by becoming a courier. Another way they resisted was by strategizing in the ghetto. When the ghetto resisters knew about the mass deportations to Treblinka, they wanted to attempt to recruit the whole ghetto population left; thus, planning to kill two Judenrat leaders that willingly exported Jews to the Germans demand. They got weapons by giving rich Jews taxes, robbing the ghetto bank, the Judenrat treasury, and by sending smugglers out to buy and trade for guns and dynamite. This was difficult because it risked the smuggler’s life and the guns were getting harder to obtain, as a result, the prices were really high. Another problem was using the money; it was a “choiceless choice”. Stated by Sheryl Ochayon,”The large amount of money required for the purchase of weapons could have been used to ease physical suffering of ghetto residents, or to support those Jews who had escaped the ghetto and were living in secret(...) Every decision created a