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On January
18, 1943, the Germans again began to deport Jews from the Warsaw
Ghetto. Believing that the final liquidation of the ghetto was at
hand, the ZOB, the Jewish Fighting Organization, sent two companies
into action. One unit, armed with handguns, planted itself in a
convoy of Jews who had been captured and were being led to the
umschlagplatz (the collection point for deportation). When the
signal was given, they engaged the group’s German escorts in
hand-to-hand combat. Several German soldiers fell in the battle, and
almost all the Jewish fighters perished. The second unit, elsewhere
in the ghetto, greeted German soldiers with a hail of gunfire.
January 18
was a critical day for the ZOB, marking the organization’s baptism
by fire and prompting a crucial change in the behavior of the ghetto
inhabitants. The Jews in the ghetto stopped obeying the Germans’
orders to leave their homes and report to collection points. We know
todathat the Aktion in January was not part of a German scheme to
liquidate the ghetto; the Nazis intended to remove only a few
thousand Jews. However, the ZOB response had a strong effect on
morale: Jews interpreted the Germans’ decision to halt the Aktion
as a sign of weakness and a retreat that they had brought about by
use of force. |
