Jewish Resistance: The Polish Press on Warsaw Ghetto Resistance

...The resistance of the Jews at the time of the final liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto was not, as some of the Underground press reported, collective resistance indicating a certain change in the attitude of the remaining Jews. If the great majority of the Jews of Europe remained entirely passive when they were killed, so the remnant, in their racially based materialism, have remained without any motivation to resist. Only a tiny fraction of some tens of thousands of Jews remaining in Warsaw, about 10 percent, joined the struggle under Communist influence. The Jews who resisted were not those registered in the ghetto, they were the “wild” residents of the ghetto. As against this, the registered Jews, those who report for work, took no part in the operation and surrendered to the Germans in great numbers, and were taken by them according to the old system to the new slaughter center at Majdanek.

The resistance and the supply of arms to a population of tens of thousands in the ghetto was organized and carried out by the Bund and the Communists. These were elements that showed the most hostile attitudes towards the Poles during the period of the occupation, and they prepared themselves within the framework of Communist organizations for a blood-bath directed against the Poles during the crucial transitional period.

According to the Communist plan, the ghetto was to have been used as a spur for an uprising at too early a time, which the PPR** is seeking to bring about. There were Communist printing presses for a long time in the ghetto, there were arms depots and Communist staff groups, and from there Soviet officers directed diversionary actions.

In view of this fact, we may evaluate the Jewish resistance as a positive element, for it caused the premature liquidation of one of the armed positions of the Communists....

Sources: Yad Vashem