Jewish partisans were fighters inirregular military groups participating in theJewish resistance movement againstNazi Germany andits collaborators duringWorld War II.
A number of Jewishpartisan groups operated acrossNazi-occupied Europe, some made up of a few escapees from theJewish ghettos orconcentration camps, while others, such asBielski partisans, numbered in the hundreds and included women and children. They were most numerous inEastern Europe, but groups also existed in occupiedFrance andBelgium, where they worked with the localresistance.[1] Many individual Jewish fighters took part in the other partisan movements in other occupied countries. In total, the Jewish partisans numbered between 20,000 and 30,000.[2]
The partisans engaged inguerrilla warfare andsabotage against the Nazi occupation, instigatedghetto uprisings, and freed prisoners. In Lithuania alone, they killed approximately 3,000 German soldiers.[3] They sometimes had contacts within the ghettos, camps,Judenrats, and with otherresistance groups, with whom they sharedmilitary intelligence.
In Eastern Europe, many Jews joined the ranks of theSoviet partisans: throughout the war, they facedantisemitism and discrimination from the Soviets and some Jewish partisans were killed, but over time, many of the Jewish partisan groups were absorbed into the command structure of the much larger Soviet partisan movement.[4][better source needed] Soviet partisans arrived in the western Ukraine in 1943,[5] and consisted of Russians, Ukrainians, Poles, and Jews,[6] and were smaller in size than units in Belarus, which was more suitable for partisan warfare.[7] Released Soviet archive data suggest that Jews accounted for 5.2% of the partisans in Ukraine.[5]
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Camps
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Jewish partisans had to overcome great odds in acquiring weapons, food, and shelter and in evading capture. They typically lived indugouts (known inRussian aszemlyankas,землянка) in forest camps.[2] Nazireprisals were brutal, employingcollective punishment against their supporters and the ghettos from which the partisans had escaped,[8] and often using "anti-partisan operations" as pretexts for the extermination of Jews.[9] In some areas, Jewish partisans received support from villagers, but due to widespread antisemitism and fear of reprisal, the Jewish partisans were often on their own.[3] The farmers were struggling to supply all the different forces which were demanding food, at times leading to conflict.[10][11][12] AsAllan Levine noted, "That Jewish partisans and fugitives were guilty of stealing food from Polish farmers is an uncontested fact. It happened regularly.", but at the same time notes that such robberies were their only choice other than starvation.[13]
The food situation varied between units, while some faced starvation, others were well supplied and sent their food stocks to Soviet Union.[14] In order to survive, Jews had to put asidetraditional dietary restrictions. While friendly peasants provided food, in some cases food was stolen from shops,[2] farms[3] or raided from caches meant for German soldiers. As the war progressed, the Soviet government occasionallyairdropped ammunition, counterfeit money and food supplies to partisan groups known to be friendly.[2]
Those who managed to flee the ghettos and camps had nothing more than the clothes on their backs, and their possessions often were reduced to rags through constant wear. Clothes and shoes were a scarce commodity. German uniforms were highly prized trophies: they were warm and served as disguises for future missions.[2]
Those who were wounded or maimed or fell ill often did not survive due to the lack of medical help or supplies. Most partisan groups had no physician and treated the wounded themselves, turning to village doctors only as a last resort.[2]
The forests also concealed family camps where Jewish escapees from camps or ghettos, many of whom were too young or too old to fight, hoped to wait out the war. While some partisan groups required combat readiness and weapons as a condition for joining, many noncombatants found shelter with Jewish fighting groups and their allies. These individuals and families contributed to the welfare of the group by working as craftsmen, cooks, seamstresses and field medics.[2]
Jewish partisan groups of note include theBielski partisans who operated a large "family camp" inBelorussia (numbering over 1,200 by the summer of 1944),[15][16] theParczew partisans of southeast Poland, and theUnited Partisan Organization which attempted to start an uprising in theVilnius Ghetto inLithuania and later engaged in sabotage and guerrilla operations.[17]Thirty-two Jews from theMandate for Palestine were trained by the British and parachuted behind enemy lines to engage in resistance activities.[3] In theWarsaw Ghetto Uprising, two groups of partisans, the right-wingJewish Military Union (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW) and the left-wingJewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) led the uprising separately.
Approximately 100,000Jews fought in the Polish army againstNazi Germany during theGerman invasion of Poland. They made up 10% of thePolish Army, commensurate with the percentage of Jews within the general population. Approximately 30,000 Jews were killed in that campaign, captured or declared missing.[18] The PolishHome Army provided training and weapons to theWarsaw Ghetto'sJewish Combat Organization, and included in its ranks Jewish individuals and Jewish units, such as Lukawiecki Partisans commanded byEdmund Łukawiecki and working under the umbrella of the Home Army,[19][20][21] as well as the Jewish Platoon Wigry which took part in the 1944Warsaw Uprising.[22] It also collaborated with Jewish units in self-defence operations.[23] Other Jews joined units affiliated with theSoviet partisans in Poland.[24] Eventually theArmia Ludowa (AL) was founded as the main communist-affiliated partisan group in occupied Poland. This group was provided with weapons by the Soviet Union. There were around 30 Jewish partisan detachments and most of these were connected to the AL. About half of these were detachments off in forests.[25] Independent partisan groups also operated in these forests, working to liberate Jews from local ghettos without outside support or coordination. Notably, the Swirz partisans, founded by brothers Isidore and Hersch Karten, liberated over 400 Jews in Eastern Galicia.[26]
The Soviet Union was late in having partisan groups. The first ones started around 1941–1942. These groups mainly appeared in forests, as 6,000–8,000 Jews were able to escape to the forests. Many did not make it, but if they did they joined Soviet partisan detachments. One partisan group in the Soviet area was theMinsk Ghetto. The Minsk Ghetto was the fourth largest ghetto in Europe. The group was led by the Jewish communists. The group within the Minsk ghetto was supported by the Jewish council which allowed them to organize a mass escape into the surrounding woods. This escape released between 6,000 and 8,000 Jews, who tried to join existing partisan groups. They were known for their resistance movements. There were a large number of partisan groups in the Soviet Union but not much information can be found on them due to Soviet record keeping.[25]
In Lithuania, there were four ghettos that remained after the mass murder campaign by the Nazis in 1941. There were armed resistance groups in three of them –Vilna,Švenčionys, andKovno. The Vilna Ghetto was the site of the first Jewish resistance group known asFareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye or FPO. The FPO tried to persuade the occupants within the Vilna Ghetto to revolt against the Nazis but it failed. This led the group to leave after an armed altercation in September 1943. The partisan group left the ghetto because of a lack of support and went through the sewers to escape to the eastern Lithuanian woods. However the partisan group in the Kovno Ghetto had no intention of fighting in the ghetto itself. They had always planned to fight outside of the ghetto. They organized a large escape from the ghetto that took place over a long period of time. It led to many people escaping and joining outside partisan groups, which eventually led them to create their own.[25]
Jewish contribution to theYugoslav Partisan movement was significant. There were 4,572 Jews listed as partisans, 3,000 of whom were in fighting units.[28] Those who joined were those fleeing deportation, or those that had escaped or had been liberated from concentration and labour camps. One such example was that of theRab battalion, which consisted of hundreds of Jewish inmates liberated from the ItalianRab concentration camp in September 1943.[29]
1,318 Jews fighting for the partisans were killed during the war, ten Jewish members were awarded Yugoslavia's highest medal at that time, theOrder of the People's Hero.[28]
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