The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 1943

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising took place from April 19 to May 16, 1943.

Life in the ghetto was appalling. The Nazis allowed the Jews only 184 calories of food each per day. The Nazis entered the ghetto in January of 1943 for a deportation and shot 600 Jews, some of the women were dragged into the trucks and raped before being taken to trains that would ship them to their deaths.

In the next planned deportation, 750 Jewish fighters fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans with weapons they had stolen. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to camps

The Auschwitz Sonderkommando Revolt 1944

The “Sonderkommando” were Jewish prisoners. They were given the task of removing the corpses from the gas chambers following execution. Although they were rewarded with more food and they stayed alive for longer than they would have if they didn’t take the job, they hated seeing the numbers that were being killed and wanted to fight back.

On the morning of October 7, the Sonderkommandos suddenly attacked every single SS guard in and around the gas chambers and crematoria at Auschwitz. The Sonderkommandos totaled 451, vastly outnumbering the SS—but the SS were much better armed with guns.

However, these well-fed Jewish rebels proved very tough opponents and quickly killed several dozen guards with axes and knives, shoved two of them alive into the ovens, then stripped them of their weapons and opened fire on all SS personnel responding to the commotion. Over 70 Nazis were killed. Then the Jews flung the gunpowder satchel into an oven and blew up a Crematorium. About one dozen men escaped the camp but were recaptured. All remaining Sonderkommandos, whether they had a part to play in the revolt or not, were executed.

The Syrets Concentration Camp Revolt 1943

The Nazis installed a camp in Syrets (Ukraine). There were about 3,000 Jewish prisoners in the camp at any time, and they were forced to bury or burn the naked bodies of their own family members in large pits which caused them to want to revolt. 25,000 people died in the camp. The prisoners were forced to live in shallow dugouts without beds. Anyone who refused to bury and burn bodies from the massacres the Nazis were committing was immediately murdered by gunshot or mobile gas truck.

On September 29th 1943, 326 prisoners managed to pick the locks of their chains with keys they had scavenged from the dead. The prisoners were so ill-treated that they were suffering from scabies and aggressive necrosis all over their bodies, but still found the strength to wrestle their SS guards to the ground and stab them to death, gouge their eyes out, and strangle them with their bare-hands. Fifteen Jews escaped into the woods and survived to testify against the Nazis. The rest were executed.

The Bielski Partisans 1942-45

The Bielski Partisans were led by four Jewish brothers: Alexander, Tuvia, Asael, and Aron Bielski. They organized a resistance group of 17 total after the liquidation of their Ghetto in modern-day Belarus where they had seen the rest of their family murdered causing them to fight back. The brothers escaped into thick forests nearby. The Bielskis, set up camp in the forests, moving continuously and welcomed all Jewish refugees. They even began making night-time raids into towns and farms for food and ambushing German patrols for weapons.

Their membership swelled to 1,236 by the war’s end 70% were women, children and the elderly who the Nazis would have killed. Their mission of upsetting the Nazi war effort as much as they could succeeded well enough that by 1943, the SS offered 100,000 Reichsmark for anyone who captured or killed Tuvia Bielski’s head. They claimed to have killed 381 Nazis or Wehrmacht soldiers by 1944. The brothers survived.

Defiance is a movie about this resistance movement – very good film to watch if you get chance

The Sobibor Uprising 1943

Key term: POW = Prisoner of War.

Sobibor was one of the first death camps set up with the determined and large-scale purpose of murdering almost every Jew who was sent to it. The Nazis made the mistake of transporting hundreds of Soviet (Russian) POWs to the camp for labour. These POWs were experienced, battle-hardened soldiers— who couldn’t accept the slaughter of Jews which they had witnessed and wanted to fight back.

2 months later, the Sobibor POW’s sprang their plan. 2 men lured guards and SS officers around the rear of one of the barracks and stabbed, strangled, or bludgeoned them to death. Each dead guard had their uniform and weapons taken so that a prisoner could wear them to disguise themselves. They intended to kill every single guard and officer in the camp and then simply walk out through the main gate, but a guard spotted them and sounded the alarm. Half the prisoners made it out of the camp and into the woods, where many died by stepping on landmines. Some 50 managed to avoid recapture by hiding in barns, haystacks, drain pipes, and farmhouses. The local non-Jewish Poles risked their own lives by hiding them away in crawlspaces.