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The Jewish
Fighting Organization (ZOB) was established in the Warsaw Ghetto
while 300,000 Jews were being removed in mass deportations. In the
lengthy discussions that preceded the founding of the ZOB, some
participants argued that the Germans would not annihilate the Jews
of Warsaw because of the city’s central location and because they
did not wish to forfeit the Jews’ labor capacity. An underground
organization, they said, might endanger the entire ghetto and prompt
the Germans to liquidate it. The great deportation rendered these
considerations largely irrelevant. The goals of the ZOB were Jewish
self-defense and armed struggle against the Germans. Its first
constituents were three Zionist youth movements: Ha-Shomer ha-Tza’ir,
Dror, and Akiva. The ZOB urged the ghetto inhabitants to resist
deportation, but, at the same time, was unable to engage in combat
operations and reprisals. In practice, only after the great
deportation did the ZOB make strong inroads among the surviving
ghetto Jews and manage to organize, amass influence, and obtain
weapons. |
