Jewish Armed Resistance in the Holocaust

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Jewish Armed Resistance: Younger population felt that they would eventually be put to death, more so than the adults. Frumka Plotnicka, a Zionist youth emissary, reported the murder of Jews. Others had similar reports. To combat this, the Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO) was formed. They gathered and smuggled a small cache of weapons. Two of the leaders of the JFO, Joseph Kaplan and Shmuel Breslav were killed in September 1942, weapons were discovered, and hopes were lost. Hope was reborn on April 19, 1943, when new JFO leader Mordechai Aneilewicz (died May 8 1943) led the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Rights a letter to Yitzchack “Antek” Zuckerman talking about how well the people of Warsaw are fighting despite the small numbers. Urges Zuckerman to start a partisan attack that would a) reconnaissance (scouting out the region to locate Germans) and b) obtaining weapons. 2,000 Nazis came into the Ghetto to stop the resistance, and miraculously the Jewish fighters held out for four weeks. Germans lit and blew up many buildings. Some managed to escape threw sewers or stay hidden in the rubble and remain hidden in buildings, but more or less everyone was killed. Why has the Warsaw Ghetto become such a potent symbol of the Holocaust? (Classic David vs. Goliath) The people in Warsaw stood up for all the Jews throughout Europe who were getting killed. Germans were out to destroy the Jewish people, and the Warsaw ghetto shows that there was still fight in the Jews. Physically the Germans may have been killing the Jews, but the Jewish spirit was shining through despite all that was going on. Symbolizes hope and defiance. Allows for us to view the people who died in the Holocaust as heroes. (Israel chose April 19th Hebrew date as the date for Yom Hashoah) First have to define resistance. Resistance can range the spectrum from armed resistance to
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