Resistance: Jews and Christians Who Defied the Nazi Terror

by Nechama Tec

  The Soviet government was quick to recognize the benefits that could accrue from these former soldiers. Stalin knew that these men could help them fight the enemy from within the German-occupied areas. As early as July 1941, the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist Party urged the formation of an anti-German partisan movement. With headquarters in Moscow, one of the first steps of this organization was the creation of a school for saboteurs. The central staff of the Partisan Movement was established in the spring of 1942. Marshal Clement Efremovich Voroshilov became Commander in Chief and Pantileimon Ponomarenko, first secretary of the Communist Party in Western Belorussia, was appointed Chief of Staff.22

  Thousands of former Soviet soldiers scattered into the forests, some belonging to the USSR and others to parts of prewar Poland. Endless and inaccessible, these woods cover much of Belorussia, now known as Belarus. Here and there men who scattered into a variety of wooded areas organized into many small splinter groups. Initially, avoiding confrontations with superior enemies, and all other forest dwellers, these early partisans limited their activities to finding food and shelter. Only rarely would they attack Germans and then only if presented with easy targets. The main inducement in such cases was the capture of weapons.

  By 1942, young Gentile men were joining these partisan groups. Some hoped to avoid forced removal to Germany as slave laborers. Haphazard military attacks mounted by these early partisans had led to exaggerated ideas about their power; rumors of partisans’ heroism multiplied. To Jews who were in desperate need of options, these rumors were a respite from German brutality. Partly as a result of these rumors, in the summer of 1942, Jewish ghetto runaways began to attach themselves to the various forest groups. With the exception of a few armed young men, most Jewish fugitives were unarmed civilians, older people, women, and children.

  Significantly, too, in prewar Poland, more than 75 percent of Jews had lived in towns and cities. Adjustment to forest life was therefore challenging. Inevitably, many of these unarmed civilians became easy targets for robbery, extortion, and murder. Occasionally, the young men among them, if able-bodied, would join one of the Soviet groups. For Jews, German terror still loomed everywhere. It was this terror that had propelled them into the woods in the first place.

  At the early stages of the German−Soviet war, a weakened and humiliated Russia was short of allies who might ease its military burdens. The Jews were also in need of allies. The precarious situation of the Jewish population, in and of itself, made them receptive to any gesture of help. Usually they refrained from making unreasonable demands from their prospective allies. To some of the local communists, the Jews looked like appropriate partners for forging anti-German opposition.

  With a large portion of the Red Army in disarray, and some of it scattered throughout Eastern Europe, the Soviet Union could hardly offer concrete aid. Furthermore, not all forests in Eastern Europe were hospitable to guerrilla warfare. Nor were all forests equally hospitable as protection to other fugitives who reached them.

  The situation in most forests was fluid and Moscow’s control over Soviet partisans was limited. Initially, the Russian partisans looked to Moscow for guidance. They were likely to see themselves as vulnerable and were conciliatory toward those from whom they sought cooperation. However, the more vulnerable the Russian partisans felt, the more likely they were to cooperate with ethnically diverse partisan groups, including the Jews. Russian tolerance extended even to women, whom they were also more likely to treat as partners. Mutual cooperation went hand in hand with mutual tolerance. However, with time, as Soviet partisans became better organized and felt stronger, they insisted on breaking up ethnically and religiously based detachments. They were also more likely to bar women from becoming leaders and fighters.

  The 1943 German defeat at Stalingrad marked a turning point in the conduct of the Soviet−German war. These changes increased Stalin’s concerted efforts to expand the efficacy of the Soviet partisan movement. More men from the USSR were parachuted into a variety of forests. Others came in planes that landed at secretly constructed airstrips, close to the woods. But winning the war, although a priority, was only one of Stalin’s objectives. Beyond the defeat of Germany, the USSR had a range of political agendas. Some of them were tied to Poland’s destiny. Once Stalin became certain of the outcome of the war, he began to pressure his allies, the United States and England, for recognition of the Polish−Russian borders as specified in the Ribbentrop-Molotov Agreement. This called for the return of Polish lands occupied by the Soviets in the fall of 1939 to the USSR.

  Stalin’s aspirations, however, went further. He also wanted a Moscow-sponsored government for all of postwar Poland. Toward this end, Stalin set out to bureaucratize and politicize the Russian partisan movement, sowing the seeds of future Communist Party rule. Eastern Europe, with its extensive forests and thousands of forest dwellers, became a crucial element of this plan. As the Soviets consolidated their control over the partisans, they established two separate power centers: one military, the other political.

  Gradually these efforts helped transform many Polish forests into centers of the Soviet partisan movement. The Soviet partisan organizers gained more control, not only over their own men but also over entire forest areas. Occasionally this control spilled into adjacent towns and villages. Toward the end of 1943, it was not unusual for local authorities to avoid some partisan enclaves. Such territorial takeovers were uneven, frequently punctuated by exceptions and changes.

  In part, the Soviets had succeeded in establishing a firmer grip over some partisans, but they never gained full control over them. For the duration of the war, in some areas the USSR had to compromise by bowing to local demands. Almost up to the end of the war, determined to dominate much of Eastern Europe, the Soviets continued to tolerate a variety of subgroups with distinct, at times even mutually hostile, aims. Most of their partisan units remained an ethnic mixture of Russians, Belorusians, Ukrainians, Jews, Poles, and Lithuanians. Most of these groups had culturally and politically implicit and explicit agendas.23

  This was particularly the case in Poland. As early as 1940, the Polish government-in-exile in London had established an underground made up of four political movements: the Socialists, the Nationalist Movement, the Polish Peasant Party, and the Christian Labor Movement. Excluded completely were the communists and the extreme right National Armed Forces (Narodowe Siły Zbrojne, or NSZ). At the head of this wartime government was the Chief Delegate, whose duty it was to coordinate the activities of the four major political parties. The military arm of the government-in-exile was the Home Army, or AK. The AK was in charge of the internal struggles in occupied Poland and was roughly divided into a propaganda section and a section that dealt with Poland’s daily struggles, sabotage, and a wide range of activities, which collectively aimed at undermining the German occupational control. The Polish government in London offered some technical continuity to the political and military aspects of life.

  From the start of the war two basic principles guided the Polish government-in-exile: first, as a collectivity, the Poles swore never to collaborate with the German occupiers. Second, the administration of the underground had to coordinate its activities with the government-in-exile in London.

  Out of the four political parties represented in the Polish underground, the Nationalist Movement was most influential, particularly when it came to anti-Semitism. Sometime around 1942, a variety of Polish partisan groups began to operate in the Eastern European forests. The particular influence of the Nationalist Movement Party was reflected in AK’s anti-Semitic policies and actions toward Jewish partisans.24

  Ephraim soon became aware of this situation and the potential threat it created for Jews in the forest. He remembered that “the AK thought that they would take care of us Jews, but when they realized that we were fighting back, they changed their tactics.” The main tactic was to set traps and ambushes. “We learned how to defend ourselves by employing the same tactics.
For us it was a matter of life and death . . . we learned how to fight, how to oppose. It was either to kill them or they would kill us.” Opposition brought more than survival. “When we retaliated against them, again and again, they became friendly and seemed to be backing down a bit.”

  Ephraim remembers one confrontation with AK, at which they decided to talk rather than to fight. “One of the AK said to us, ‘What is this? You are robbing our people? Killing them!’ And I said: ‘After all, we are partisans. Look, if I come to you and ask for food, and you meet my requests with a gun, I will try to shoot you back. I’m a partisan, and I must be helped . . . ’ Still it took the AK a while to learn that we wouldn’t tolerate their persecution or abuse.”

  Once, during the winter, one of the Jewish partisans set off on an errand in a sleigh. He was disarmed and shot, and his sleigh was confiscated. The Jewish partisans investigated the case. Their investigation identified a few AK men who had committed the robbery and the murder. When the Jews assured themselves that they had identified the guilty parties, they tracked them down and executed them. The message was clear. The AK realized that the Jews would fight back decisively. In turn, the AK became more fearful and cautious. They even warned their people to leave the Jews alone to avoid bloodshed. At one point the AK called for a conference with the Jewish partisans. The two parties reached an agreement to leave each other alone and not fight.

  “From day to day, it got better,” Ephraim concluded. “The hostility between us was reduced; they were afraid of our strength. It got so that we could stay in villages for a few weeks without being harassed. Eventually, the Germans were afraid to enter some of these villages. At that point we were so intermingled with the AK, that if they would denounce us and the Germans would come, there would be a battle, and the AK would die and we would die. Our fates were entangled. They somehow saw that they had no choice but to cooperate with us.”

  By 1943, different Polish partisan groups invaded the forests. The AK was only one of those groups that had operated in the Eastern European forests. These other partisans, unlike the AK, formed different alliances. Initially one of these groups was the Polish Workers’ Party (Polska Partia Robotnicza, or PPR), a communist group. Unlike the AK, which was tied to the Polish government in London, the PPR cooperated with the Soviet Union.

  The PPR and the AK were hostile. In Ephraim’s area of operations, Southeastern Poland, the PPR partisans were interchangeably referred to as Gwardia Ludowa, or GL. These groups were friendlier to the Jewish partisans than the AK. In part this was probably due to the fact that, early on, the PPR was small and lacked partisan skills. They were in need of allies. The Jewish partisans were also in need of allies and ready to cooperate. Ephraim describes the PPR’s transition from a weak to a powerful fighting force: “They actually learned from us . . . we had no choice, we had to fight. Otherwise we would have been killed.” In this area the PPR was closely connected to the GL, which was equally connected to the USSR. The Jewish partisans in this area cooperated with these Polish pro-communist partisans who were grateful to the Jews for getting rid of German collaborators.

  Ephraim always remained in the same kind of a group. Various Jewish partisans cooperated with each other; all were eager to move against the enemy, particularly the German murderers whom they had previously seen as all-powerful giants. With time, however, these former giants, when caught, would plead for mercy. The nature of such encounters only encouraged the Jewish partisans to resist. These changes occurred gradually, almost imperceptibly. With time the Jews understood that these Germans were more afraid of them than they were afraid of the Germans. As Ephraim had argued, they had more to lose than the Jews: “They had their homes, their families. The Jews had nothing.”

  As the Jewish partisans continued to cooperate with the PPR, both groups benefited from the association. At some point the PPR wanted the Jewish partisans to become an official part of the organization, to integrate fully. But the Jews refused this offer, explaining that they wanted to be responsible for their own people and wanted to remain a separate unit. Ephraim explained, “We wanted to show them that as Jews we could fight and accomplish much and we did not want to be pushed around.”

  The PPR organized different anti-German moves, which the Jews were asked to join. In addition, the GL was ordered—no doubt by the somewhat-better organized Soviet partisans—to cooperate with the Jewish partisans. About Jewish participation with these pro-communist groups, Ephraim says that the PPR was forced to share with them because the Jews had fought so well and were well-established. Polish peasants even turned to the partisans for help. “For instance,” remembered Ephraim, “when they were expected to hand over a certain amount of their produce to the Germans, we would help by giving them a receipt saying that the partisans had taken their products, . . . this way, the local peasants would deliver to the Germans fewer products keeping more for themselves. . . . At other times a head of a village would ask us to come, make believe that we were attacking them, and that we took from them some produce. After that they would kill a cow or other animals, and blame it on us.”

  With time GL became an Armia Ludowa (AL), a fighting unit. Toward the end of 1943 the AL was better organized, and the Jewish units had to abide by its orders. At first the Jewish partisans did not trust them. They were afraid that they might surround them and disarm them. To assure their own safety, when going on an anti-German mission, the Jewish partisans usually asked for some AL fighters to join them. With four or five AL fighters among them, the Jews could more easily assume that it was a legitimate move and not a trap.

  By the end of 1943 mutual trust had been established through several successful cooperative anti-German moves. At that point the Jews realized more fully that members of the AL were not as anti-Semitic as the AK. Moreover, through the intervention of the AL, the Jewish partisans received arms from the Soviet parachutists. Other important mutually helpful exchanges were also set in motion. In the end the Jews felt that they were treated like equals and continued to offer to the AL important information about local conditions. Eventually the AL trusted Jews more than they did local Poles, and preferred to use the Jews rather than their own special guides. The AL and the Soviet army were occupying different parts of the country. When the Soviets conquered the Lublin area in 1944, they selected Ephraim as their special guide.

  In addition, the local population had gradually come to recognize that the Jews were not bandits exploiting innocent people. Indeed, when the Jewish partisans had to punish an informer, they would go to his house, and if he was not there, they would wait. They would not kill an innocent person instead. As a rule, Jewish partisans did not punish anyone unless they were convinced that the particular person had committed a crime, especially against Jews. The local population recognized the fact that Jews were only attacking those who were guilty of particular crimes. With this realization came more friendly relations between the Jews and the Gentiles. The local population began to respect the Jewish sense of fairness.

  The more contacts the local Poles and the Jewish partisan had, the more they appreciated each other. Cooperation between Poles and Jews created special bonds between them. They became more appreciative of their differences, as well as their similarities. Understandings developed between the local population and the Jewish partisans and facilitated the Jewish fight for life.

  In the end it helped them to learn to oppose. Ephraim told me again and again: “I never dreamt that I would be able to fight those murderers, that I would be able to oppose them. I never imagined that the Germans might run away from me, be afraid of me. I never thought of that.” To a large extent it was cooperation with others, with people who were very different from them, that made this possible.

  For Ephraim, the war ended on July 23, 1944—the day he began to search for his family, a search that went on for years. Here and there his efforts uncovered clues and fleeting hopes that someone might have survived. But these always ended in disappointment. No
t one of Ephraim’s close relatives had survived.

  Recently, I was impressed while reading Ephraim’s Rather Die Fighting: A Memoir of World War II, in which he offers an invaluable addition to the Holocaust literature: testament to the ways Jews first learned how to be resilient and self-reliant—and then, through cooperation with others, how to resist.

  CHAPTER TWO

  The Ghettos

  In August 1939, the twenty-first World Zionist Congress convened in Geneva, Switzerland. Emanuel Ringelblum (figure 2.1), a member of the Polish political party Poalei Zion Left, attended as an observer. When the official segments of this international gathering began to wind down, the proceedings were overcome by anxious ruminations about the impending war; the German occupation of Poland, of course, was imminent at the time of the Congress. While most of the departing participants were focused on reaching safe havens, Ringelblum, in this regard a minority, planned to return to Warsaw.

  In Warsaw, Ringelblum became immersed in relief activities with refugees who started pouring into the capital on the eve of the German invasion on September 1, 1939. Swept up by the growing demands around him, he continued to refuse to follow the example of some friends who were preparing their departures. He felt morally bound to stay, promoting the welfare of the Jewish refugees who arrived from every direction.1 Each day brought new developments. Nonetheless, in the fall of 1939, neither Ringelblum nor anyone else had the foresight to predict the Holocaust. No one imagined the scale or speed of the German destruction of European Jewry, which started with identification, expropriation, and removal from gainful employment, and ended with isolation and annihilation. These stages were complex and overlapping, but part of an inexorable process of degradation that would lead eventually to death in the concentration camps.