Resistance Ramblings

Jewish Military heroes, and whatever else I find interesting or worth discussing. This is me talking about people, events, and ideals that have personally motivated me. They are not all resistance related, but each post will certainly be worth reading. Feel free to comment or email me; I will try my best to respond in a timely manner. 

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Zalman Friedrich, a bund member of the Jewish Resistance Organization (ZOB). Zalman served as a ZOB courier in the Warsaw Ghetto due to his Polish appearance and good Polish accent. Zalman was the first to figure out where the trains full of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto were heading; Treblinka. The realization that everyone who had been deported had been sent to a death camp severely shook him. He fought bravely in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and successfully escaped into the Aryan Section of Warsaw. Sadly, Zalman was betrayed and his hideout discoverd by the Gestapo. He was survived by his wife Zille and his daughter Elsa. 

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Hashomer members in 1909. Hashomer, The Watchmen, was formed in 1909 to protect Jewish settlements in Palestine and was active until 1920. In 1920, a broader based group, the Haganah (Defense) was organized to better organize the protection of a growing Jewish community. The Haganah later became one of the main resistance organizations that fought a guerrilla war against the British occupiers. They were later merged into the Israeli Defense force during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence. 

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Zivia Lubetkin, one of the leaders of the of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). Born in Byten, Zivia became a leading figure in Dror HeHalutz, a Zionist youth movement. After the formation of the Warsaw Ghetto, Zivia helped to form the left wing Anti-Fascist Bloc, which became the forerunner to the ZOB. She later became one of the founding members of the ZOB itself. Near the end of the uprising, Zivia led a group of fighters through the Warsaw sewers to the Aryan side of Warsaw. She later played a part in the Warsaw Uprising, in which the ZOB fought alongside the Polish Home Army. After the war, Zivia married Yitzhak Zuckerman, another founding member of the ZOB and a noted Zionist. They moved to the Mandate of Palestine (later Israel) and helped found Kibbutz Lohamei HaGeta'ot, as well as the Ghetto Fighters House which is dedicated to honoring and researching Jewish resistance movements during the second world war. 

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Chaim Lazar, Jewish partisan in Vilnius Lithuania, 1944. 

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Michal Klepfisz, a chemical engineer and member of the Bund and the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization). Michal was put on a train to Treblinka in 1942 but was able to escape and rejoin growing resistance movement in the Warsaw Ghetto. As a chemical engineer, he received instructions on how to make Molotov cocktails from the Polish Home Army and set up a factory in the ghetto. Michael was killed on the second day of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising while covering a retreat of the rest of his comrades from a building in the brush-makers district. He was later awarded the Virtuti Militari after the war. His wife, sister, and daughter all survived the Holocaust and his daughter Irene became a noted poet and essayist. 

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Resistance fighters from the Fareinigte Partizaner Organizacje (United Partisan Organization) in Vilnius, Lithuania after its liberation in July 1944. The partisans used a mix of captured German weapons and Soviet weapons provided by other partisans. In this photo are: Elchanan Magid (standing, on the left), Jacob Prener (standing, second from the left), Bluma Markowicz (standing, third from the left), Abba Kovner, leader of the FPO (standing, fourth from the left), Ruzka Korczak (standing, third from the right), Leib Szapirstein (standing, second from the right), Vitka Kempner (standing, on the right), Pesach Mizerecz (kneeling, center), Motl Szames (kneeling, on the right). 

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Winston Churchill fires a Thompson sub-machine gun. Your argument is invalid.