Jewish partisans

[KACKO]

Hi, again,

Pitman, Szopen made a point, actualy. Partisans. Hmm. During 40 years after war they were heroes and now we starting to get some information how were some of them like. In Slovakia durin Uprising - August - October, were a lot of cases of partisans units abandoning their positions which made Germans able to get behind Slovak army, (new name 1.Czechoslovak army at Slovakia) backs. A lot of cases of murder, stealing and looting.

[Skyderick]

There is no reference whatsoever to these alleged "weddings" of Zorin in Herbew literature or websites. Zorin was over forty in 1943 (his tombstone states he was born in 1898), and I find it unlikely that he wasn't married. Then again, I couldn't find any mention of a wife or family. He had a brother and a sister-in-law who were both killed.

[wolfguy]

I agree with Pitman.

There is generally so much bias that historians may never know what really happened in the forests when Soviet, Polish, and Jewish partisans all encountered one another.
Everyone blames everyone else for atrocities when the least common denominator was survival. Period.

Wolfguy

[Stephanie625]

There is no reference whatsoever to these alleged "weddings" of Zorin in Herbew literature or websites. Zorin was over forty in 1943 (his tombstone states he was born in 1898), and I find it unlikely that he wasn't married. Then again, I couldn't find any mention of a wife or family. He had a brother and a sister-in-law who were both killed.

His age means nothing. He could be a widower. He could have been a frugal man who didn't want to marry till ready. He could have taken that long to find *the one*. It's all speculation.

What I do find... distasteful... Are references to a Jewish person that go on and on about *greed*. It's what we'd call in the USA a *dog whistle*. Words that don't go all out and call racial slurs, but are based on certain ugly stereotypes, used with the knowledge that the audience will *get it*. So the text took a suspicious tone to me at that moment, but of course, this is my own speculation, based on about 18 months of studying Eastern European Anti-Semitism in connection with the Holocaust.

Of course that, too is opinion rather than fact. What is fact, is that the war on the Eastern Front was bloody and brutal on all sides.

[AmYisroelChai]

In the 1970's I heard a talk given by one of the Bielski brothers at Brooklyn College. He spoke openly about the lack of coordination between Jewish and Red Russian and Polish Nationalist guerrillas. He also said that Poles especially would turn on the Jewish groups and sometimes even coordinate attacks with Nazi forces against his group through betrayal of position or an action. Every Jewish source of group resistance activity in Nazi occupied eastern Europe forests describes similar anti-Jewish actions by Polish resistance groups. A sad fact of WW2.

[wm]

First, the Polish Home Army was the only force there that generally wasn't living off the land, they were a minutemen kind of organization that rapidly deployed if needed and then dissolved among the population.

It was Polish territory, and those people, officers of the Republic of Poland, were the only legitimate force there.

The so called Soviet Partisans were basically agents of a hostile foreign power, a power that wasn't any less criminal and genocidal that the Third Reich at that time.

The so called Jewish resistance groups were doing very little resistance, but were brutally living off the land without any attempt to make any amicable and mutually beneficial agreements with the Home Army, or at least the local peasants (although there were exceptions).

So in the end the Jewish resistance groups were nothing more than criminals, indistinguishable from the, encouraged by the general lawlessness and brutality of the occupation, mass of common criminals and criminal groups that were ravaging the territory of Poland at that time.

It wasn't the Home Army that was doing the snitching but the local peasants, as ordered by the Nazis and under pain of death for them, their families, everyone living in their village, and - in self defence because those illegal "resistance" groups were robbing them blind.

You are forgetting that even in war you have no right to survive by any means available.

[wolfguy]

So let's scapegoat Jewish partisans because its such a black and white issue.
Give me a break.

Wolfguy

[wm]

It really was a black and white issue.
The food a peasant produced was for him and his family - it was needed to survive winter, and more importantly to pay his taxes - not in money, but in food, they were allocated quotas of foodstuffs to be delivered (or else). So theft/confiscation meant hunger, a concentration camp or death penalty - any of them or even all of them.
At least the Home Army was giving their receipts if needed, the Germans respected them. The Soviets and the rest didn't.

Even more, according to the Hague Conventions the local administration, the police, the German gendarmerie were lawful entities.
The Germans, as an occupation force, had the duty to protect the people living under their occupation. And those people had the right to demand protection from criminals and bandits.
So it was nothing wrong with reporting a theft/criminal activity to the Germans and demanding an investigation/protection. If fact for a peasant it was the only (feeble) defense available if he wasn't able to fulfill his quotas because of theft.
And it was nothing wrong with cooperation with the German authorities in criminal cases.

[Stephanie625]

And what in the world were the Jews supposed to do? Once they couldn't get out, couldn't legally live anywhere... What should they do? There are situations in life that are outside the law. Once the state declares innocent people hunted hostiles, they are made outlaws, and have no choice but to try to survive.

What would you do in that situation?

[wm]

There were many people in impossible circumstances, people who could have saved themselves by trampling on the bodies of others, in concentration camps, in Gestapo prisons - it wasn't just the Jews.

The easiest and honest way to survive was to be prepared and pay for the, usually cheap food. Another - a symbiotic arrangement, was to provide protection for a village. Some groups were doing exactly that, In the end they were paying with their blood for the food.

The problem wasn't just a thousand or two of Jews hiding in forests, the number was small and easily supported by the wast territory there. The problem was they were doing large confiscations for the numerous Soviet partisans - a force which military contribution was rather insignificant, and entrusted with the task to prepare and cleanse the territory for the inevitable Soviet take over.
Behavior of those Soviet partisans wasn't much different from those Soviets who would plunder and rape Germany later, in fact it was the same people or from the same background. The hell that developed there wasn't just Nazi-made, in large part it was Soviet-made too.

[PF]

The German Anti paritsan operations
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Cottbus
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-parti ... _partisans

[4thskorpion]

Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye - The Fareynikte Partizaner Organizatsye (Yiddish: פֿאַראײניקטע פּאַרטיזאַנער אָרגאַניזאַציע; "United Partisan Organization"; referred to as FPO by its Yiddish initials) was a Jewish resistance organization based in the Vilna Ghetto that organized armed resistance against the Nazis during World War II. The clandestine organisation was established by Zionist as well as Communist partisans. Their leaders were writer Abba Kovner and Yitzhak Wittenberg.

Ghetto_Vilinus.gif (57.85 KiB) Viewed 1905 times

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fareynikt ... ganizatsye

[4thskorpion]

Between 1943 and 1945, a group of Jewish men and women from Palestine who had volunteered to join the British army parachuted into German-occupied Europe. Their mission was to organize resistance to the Germans and aid in the rescue of Allied personnel. Of the 250 original volunteers, 110 underwent training. Thirty-two eventually parachuted into Europe and five infiltrated the target countries by other routes. Most of those selected for training were emigres from Europe, with intimate knowledge of the countries to which they would be sent.

Jewish Parachutists from Palestine - Slovensky Narodny Archiv

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Above: Parachutists from Palestine 1) Zvi Ben-Yaakov, 2) Haviva Reik, 3) Rafi Reiss, 4) Abba Berdichev, and 5) Hayim Hermesh on a mission to aid Jews. Tri Duby air base, near Banska Bystrica, Czechoslovakia, September 1944.
— Slovensky Narodny Archiv

Full article: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php ... d=10005440

[4thskorpion]

Most Jewish armed resistance took place after 1942, as a desperate effort, after it became clear to those who resisted that the Nazis had murdered most of their families and their coreligionists. Despite great obstacles (such as lack of armaments and training, conducting operations in a hostile zone, reluctance to leave families behind, and the ever-present Nazi terror), many Jews throughout German-occupied Europe attempted armed resistance against the Germans. As individuals and in groups, Jews engaged in opposition to the Germans and their Axis partners. Jewish resistance units operated in France, Belgium, the Ukraine, Belorussia, Lithuania, and Poland. Jews also fought in general French, Italian, Yugoslav, Greek, and Soviet resistance organizations.

Jewish partisans in the Rudniki forest - 1942-44

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Above: A group of Jewish partisans in the Rudniki forest, near Vilna, between 1942 and 1944 — US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Jewish partisans in Naliboki forest - 1942 or 1943

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Above: Jewish partisans in Naliboki forest, near Novogrudok. Poland, 1942 or 1943 — US Holocaust Memorial Museum

Full article: http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php ... d=10005441

[Knouterer]

The so called Jewish resistance groups were doing very little resistance, but were brutally living off the land without any attempt to make any amicable and mutually beneficial agreements with the Home Army, or at least the local peasants (although there were exceptions).

So in the end the Jewish resistance groups were nothing more than criminals, indistinguishable from the, encouraged by the general lawlessness and brutality of the occupation, mass of common criminals and criminal groups that were ravaging the territory of Poland at that time.

Do you have any solid evidence for any of that, or can we assume that it is just standard antisemitic garbage?