Warsaw Ghetto Informative Speech

The author Elie Wiesel said, “There are victories of the soul and spirit. Sometimes, even if you lose, you win”. People often wonder how there was barely any resistance to the Nazis without realizing that the resistance was hidden just under the Germans nose’s. One such resistance group was called the Jewish Fighting Organization. The group was otherwise known as the ZOB. The Jewish Fighting Organization aimed to gain control of the Warsaw Ghetto because they could no longer stand by and watch their family and friends be deported to concentration camps.

Some of the Jews were able to hide out in the ghettos. Others were able to escape from the concentration camps. In some cases organized resistance was formed in the ghettos amongst the Jews. For example, in the Polish capitol of Warsaw, individual Jews continued to hide themselves in the ghetto ruins for many months after they were forcefully told to leave by the Nazis. These resistance fighters often attacked German police officials on patrol. Approximately 20,000 Warsaw Jews continued to live in hiding in Warsaw long after the liquidation of the ghetto.

Have you ever been in a room so crowded you thought you might implode? Or been so sick you questioned if you were still alive? How about so hungry you felt as though you would shrivel up and simply cease to exist? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then you may almost be able to imagine what life was like in the Jewish ghettos. There were ghettos before the Holocaust, the first being in Venice in the 16th century, there are ghettos today, and there will be ghettos in the future, but the Jewish ghettos of the Holocaust are by far the most prominent.

When the Nazi's called for more people to report for deportation, the ZOB handed out leaflets describing the horror that awaited those who left. The night before the deportation of factory workers was to occur, the ZOB burned down the factory and machinery. On January 18, 1943, SS troops surrounded the Ghetto and began to march in. The ZOB replied with gunfire. In a battle that lasted three days, 50 German soldiers were killed or wounded. Even though ZOB casualties had been high, the Germans retreated. From this brief show of ability and force, the ZOB earned respect and received more outside support including 49 more revolvers, 50 grenades, and some explosives from the Polish Underground. With a group of 1,000 fighters, the resistance created teams of ten, usually 8 men and 2 women, who fought together. Half of the members of each team had their own arms. Following the insurrection, Himmler ordered the SS Brigadier General in charge of operations at the Warsaw Ghetto, Jurgen Stroop, that "the roundups in the Warsaw Ghetto must be carried out with relentless determination and in as ruthless a manner as possible. The tougher the attack, the better. Recent events show just how dangerous these Jews are."

Firstly, the Jews in Europe organized a Jewish military league to resist the Nazi brutality. In Vilna, the first organized Jewish armed resistance arose from the youth movements. After the invasion of the Soviet Union is 1941, two-thirds of the Jewish population of Vilna were deported by the Nazis (“Jewish Combat Organization.”). Those who survived warned the other Jews of the ordeal awaiting them, which paved the way for the “First Manifesto”. This document called out for Jewish resistance and was written by Abba Kovner, a future leader of the ghetto fighters in Vilna. The manifesto was directed at the Jews of Vilna and the youth movements, and explained the fate of the ghetto deportees (that they were all killed), Hitler’s plot to “destroy all the Jews of Europe”, and called for Jewish resistance. This manifesto was significant, as it was the first call for the Jews to arm themselves and resist the Nazis. Not soon after,

It was a true, real life time. When the Germans built the Ghetto, they placed 30% of Warsaw population it in 2.4% of the city (“Film”). People were very crowded in the Ghetto compared to the world they had before the Holocaust. The most they had in Ghetto the city was almost half a million (“Ghetto”) Jews. With Jews only getting little food a day they weren't playing games and having a lot of energy to make time go by. Prisoners only got about 181 calories (“Film”) a day. That is only about one cheese crisps and an apple butter a day. When people hear that they think about starvation and that is exactly what they

Due to these horrendous circumstances, resistance forces began to form in the ghettos. These forces, such as the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Fighting Organization, ZOB, fought with homemade bombs and guns smuggled into the ghettos. Others resisted the Nazis by keeping a record of the ordeal. George Kadish was one of the people who kept a record. He made himself a pocket camera so he could get pictures of all the horrific experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto. Dawid Sierakowiak was a teenage boy

The liberator, resistors and rescuers of the Holocaust are the people that got the real story of the camps out first. Some of the most famous liberations were in Auschwitz and Buchenwald. These two camps are the most well known because of the horrific things the liberators discovered, like the thousands of shoes and 14,000 pounds of human hair. The liberators of the Holocaust are forgotten in many cases. I believe that we should learn about liberation as much as we should learn about the Holocaust itself.

There were many different resistance efforts throughout the Holocaust. On 12 September 1942, the town was assaulted by about 150 partisan soldiers who killed thirty SS officers, soldiers, and police. They broke through the wall, evacuated the 30 Jews remaining and burned the ghetto to the ground before retreating into the surrounding woodland.

After an order was sent out by Hitler himself, the S.S. soldiers sent off huge numbers of prisoners to Treblinka, a death camp. Some resisted, resulting in immediate and unavoidable death. The other prisoners remaining were to be sent to labor camps to be worked to death. Not wanting to be sent to their ultimate deaths, a group of young, rebellious prisoners set up the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jews Fighting Organization). The Z.O.B. was led by Mordecai Anielewicz, a 23 year old Jew. He spread word to others to “resist going on railroad cars” when

In October 1942, the SS chief Heinrich Himmler, ordered the liquidation of the ghetto and to deport all remaining Jews. After this order was given, the SS men continued to try and deport Jews. When they started the deportations again the resistance groups fought back.("Uprising")

Jewish armed resistance started around 1943, the Jews fought against the germans while in the ghettos. The Jews Retallied back on Germans when they were stripped of their human rights and everything was taking from them. ”As a desperate effort, after it became clear to those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists”(Armed Jewish). For instance the jews resist against the germans because they were not treated right. The germans found humor in seeing the Jew suffer. Since the Jews did not have much, they often came together and formed spiritual resistance.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, between July 22 and September 12, 1942, German authorities deported or murdered 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). In response to this, a group of young survivors formed the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB), which means, “The Jewish Fighting Organization”(United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). The ZOB, led by Mordecai Anielewicz, managed to smuggle a supply of weapons from their captors (History.com, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising). When the Germans suspended deportation from Warsaw, the resistance was believed to be a success. However, on April 19, 1943, the SS (Schutzstaffel) leader Heinrich Himmler sent in heavily armed forces and weapons to liquidate the ghetto (History.com, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising).

Throughout the summer of 1942, nearly 300,000 Jews were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka death camp. During this summer, a resistance organization known as the Z.O.B. was formed. It was headed by the 23 year old Mordecai Anielewicz, and was comprised primarily of young men. The deportations halted in September, and the Z.O.B. began collecting whatever weapons they could manage to smuggle into the

Their main goals were to organize uprisings, break out of the ghettos, and join partisan units in the fight against the Germans.The Jews knew that uprisings would not stop the Germans and that only a handful of fighters would succeed in escaping to join the partisans. Still, some Jews made the decision to resist. Weapons were smuggled into ghettos. Inhabitants in the ghettos of Vilna, Mir, Lachva , Kremenets, Częstochowa, Nesvizh, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, among others, resisted with force when the Germans began to deport ghetto populations. In Bialystok, the underground staged an uprising just before the final destruction of the ghetto in September 1943. Most of the ghetto fighters, primarily young men and women, died during the fighting.The Warsaw ghetto uprising in the spring of 1943 was the largest single revolt by Jews. Hundreds of Jews fought the Germans and their auxiliaries in the streets of the ghetto. Thousands of Jews refused to obey German orders to report to an assembly point for deportation. In the end the Nazis burned the ghetto to the ground to force the Jews out. Although they knew defeat was certain, Jews in the ghetto fought desperately and