Most Jewish armed resistance took place after 1942, as a desperate effort, after it became clear to

those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists.
Despite great obstacles (such as lack of armaments and training, conducting operations in a
hostile zone, reluctance to leave families behind, and the ever-present Nazi terror), many Jews
throughout German-occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans. As
individuals and in groups, Jews engaged in opposition to the Germans and their Axis partners.
Jewish resistance units operated in France, Belgium, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and
Poland. Jews also fought in general French, Italian, Yugoslav, Greek, and Soviet resistance
organizations.
ARMED JEWISH RESISTANCE IN EASTERN EUROPE

In eastern Europe, Jewish units fought the Germans in city ghettos and behind the front lines in
the forests. While most Jewish armed resistance began in 1943, it should be noted that the
general resistance movements in the region, operating under more favorable circumstances and
with a more sympathetic local population, also did not start until 1943.
Despite minimal support and even antisemitic hostility from the surrounding population,
thousands of Jews battled the Germans in eastern Europe. Resistance units emerged in over 100
ghettos in Poland, Lithuania, Belorussia, and the Ukraine. Jews resisted when the Germans
attempted to establish ghettos in a number of small towns in eastern Poland in 1942. Revolts
took place in Starodubsk, Kletsk, Lachva, Mir, Tuchin, and several other towns. As the Germans
liquidated the major ghettos in 1943, they met with armed Jewish resistance in Krakow
(Cracow), Bialystok, Czestochowa, Bedzin, Sosnowiec, and Tarnow, as well as a major uprising

in Warsaw. Thousands of Jews escaped from the ghettos and joined partisan units in nearby
forests. Jews from Minsk, for example, established seven partisan fighting units. Jews from
Vilna, Riga, and Kovno also formed resistance units.
In western Belorussia, the western Ukraine, and eastern Poland, family camps were established
in which Jewish civilians repaired weapons, made clothing, cooked for the fighters, and assisted
Soviet partisan operations. As many as 10,000 Jews survived the war by taking refuge with
Jewish partisan units. The camp established by Tuvia Bielski in the Naliboki Forest in 1942, for
example, gave refuge to more than 1,200 Jews.
There were even uprisings in the killing centers of Treblinka, Sobibor, and Auschwitz during
1943-1944.
ARMED JEWISH RESISTANCE IN WESTERN EUROPE

In France, the "Arme Juive" (Jewish Army), a French Jewish partisan group, was founded in
Toulouse in January 1942. Composed of members of Zionist youth movements, the Jewish Army
operated in and around Toulouse, Nice, Lyon, and Paris. Its members smuggled money from
Switzerland into France to assist Jews in hiding, smuggled at least 500 Jews and non-Jews into
neutral Spain, and took part in the 1944 uprisings against the Germans in Paris, Lyon, and
Toulouse. "Solidarit," a Jewish Communist unit, also carried out attacks on German personnel
in Paris. Many Jews joined the general French resistance as well.
In Belgium, a combined Jewish and non-Jewish resistance unit (also named "Solidarit") derailed
a deportation train in April 1943. On July 25, 1942, Jewish resisters attacked and burned the files

of the organization that the Nazis had forced on the Jews of Belgium. Jews were also active in
the Dutch and Italian underground movements.
The impact of armed Jewish resistance should not be exaggerated. It did little to stop the Nazi
apparatus from implementing the mass murder of the Jews. Most Jewish resistance to the Nazis
focused onrescue, escape, aid to those in hiding, and spiritual resistance. Nevertheless, organized
armed resistance was the most direct form of Jewish opposition to the Nazis.

Nazi-sponsored persecution and mass murder fueled resistance to the Germans in the Third Reich
itself and throughout occupied Europe. Although Jews were the Nazis' primary victims, they too
resisted Nazi oppression in a variety of ways, both collectively and as individuals.

Organized armed resistance was the most forceful form of Jewish opposition to Nazi policies in
German-occupied Europe. Jewish civilians offered armed resistance in over 100 ghettos in
occupied Poland and the Soviet Union. In April-May 1943, Jews in theWarsaw ghetto rose in
armed revolt after rumors that the Germans would deport the remaining ghetto inhabitants to the
Treblinka killing center. As German SS and police units entered the ghetto, members of the
Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB) and other Jewish groups
attacked German tanks with Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, and a handful of small arms.
Although the Germans, shocked by the ferocity of resistance, were able to end the major fighting
within a few days, it took the vastly superior German forces nearly a month before they were
able to completely pacify the ghetto and deport virtually all of the remaining inhabitants. For
months after the end of the Warsaw ghetto uprising, individual Jewish resisters continued to hide

in the ruins of the ghetto, which SS and police units patrolled to prevent attacks on German
personnel.
During the same year, ghetto inhabitants rose against the Germans in Vilna (Vilnius), Bialystok,
and a number of other ghettos. Many ghetto fighters took up arms in the knowledge that the
majority of ghetto inhabitants had already been deported to the killing centers; and also in the
knowledge that their resistance even now could not save from destruction the remaining Jews
who could not fight. But they fought for the sake of Jewish honor and to avenge the slaughter of
so many Jews.