Jewish partisans

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4thskorpion
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Re: Jewish partisans

#61

Post by 4thskorpion » 27 Aug 2015, 08:50

ARMED JEWISH RESISTANCE: PARTISANS
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ZOFIA YAMAIKA
Born: 1925, Warsaw, Poland

Zofia was raised in a well-to-do, prominent Hasidic Jewish family in Warsaw. Uneasy with the constant tension between the Polish people and the Jewish minority, Zofia joined the communist student club Spartacus when she was a teenager. Spartacus actively campaigned against the growing fascist movement in Europe.

1933-39: When Warsaw surrendered to the Germans on September 28, 1939, Zofia was 14 years old. She stopped going to school. Though the Nazis banned Spartacus, she secretly helped to revive the club, which printed antifascist posters and leaflets and distributed them throughout Warsaw. The work was dangerous--German troops were all over the city.

1940-43: A year later, Zofia and her parents were among nearly half a million Jews "resettled" in a small section of Warsaw. The ghetto was sealed in November 1940. Through Spartacus, Zofia trained with a pistol smuggled in by communist partisans. Zofia wanted to join them, but escaping meant endangering her parents' lives. When they were deported in July 1942, Zofia escaped and joined the Lion partisans near Radom. Some 300 Nazis attacked her group of 50 on February 9, 1943. Zofia and two Poles offered to cover their unit's retreat.

Zofia, 18, armed with a machine gun, let the Germans come within eight feet before she fired. Her position was overtaken, and she was killed. Her unit managed to retreat.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#62

Post by wm » 28 Aug 2015, 09:06

Uneasy with the constant tension between the Polish people and the Jewish minority, Zofia joined the communist student club Spartacus when she was a teenager.
So she joined a Polish organization, not very logical.
The conspiratorial ZNMS "Spartakus" was an appendix to a larger Marxist organisation, both (and the communists) were delegalized at the end of thirties. Its sole task was to spread Marxist ideology among children and teenagers.

A girl raised in a Hasidic Jewish family could have complained of the medieval like life she was forced to live, or class and gender oppression, but not the race oppression, non-existent in the Northern District where she lived.
armed with a machine gun, let the Germans come within eight feet before she fired. Her position was overtaken, and she was killed. Her unit managed to retreat.
Unfortunately it was a grave tactical mistake to allow a large group of Nazis to approach unopposed so close (2 meters) a machine gun position.


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Re: Jewish partisans

#63

Post by 4thskorpion » 28 Aug 2015, 09:47

Maybe the young Zofia Yamaika was concerned about the anti-Jewish measures and demonstrations in Warsaw (and elsewhere in Poland) by the Endeks and believed ZNMS "Spartakus" provided a means of anti-fascist opposition to the anti-Jewish and fascist ideologies of the Endeks.
....Its sole task was to spread Marxist ideology among children and teenagers.
The mirror of that was the ethno-nationalist ONR whose sole task was to spread its ethno-nationalist, anti-Jewish ideology among Polish youth.

You will know in the 1930's the fascistic OWP and the Liga Zielonej Wstążki youth movement advocated violence against Jewish students and it was their attacks on Jews which led the Polish government to ban the organisation - so it was not just the Polish communist party that was illegal at one time in Poland.

You will also know that in 1943 ZNMS members formed the clandestine Socialist Fighting Organization (Socjalistyczną Organizację Bojową - SOB) and Fighting Group "Flames (Płomienie) " of the Polish Socialists (Polskich Socjalistów - PS) under the Polish Socialist Party (Polską Partią Socjalistyczną - PPS). The SOB operated in the districts of Warsaw, Częstochowa, Skarżysko-Kamienna and Lwów. SOB soldiers subordinated to the AK also took part in the Warsaw Rising (1944), fighting in Żoliborz.
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Re: Jewish partisans

#64

Post by 4thskorpion » 28 Aug 2015, 09:51

wm wrote:armed with a machine gun, let the Germans come within eight feet before she fired. Her position was overtaken, and she was killed. Her unit managed to retreat.
Unfortunately it was a grave tactical mistake to allow a large group of Nazis to approach unopposed so close (2 meters) a machine gun position.
It was certainly grave for the 18 year old Zofia Yamaika but her courage (grave tactical mistake) enabled her comrades to escape with their lives at the expense of her own.

But hey, don't let anyone stop you from using any opportunity to try and denigrate or put-down those "Marxist" Jewish partisans :roll:

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Re: Jewish partisans

#65

Post by 4thskorpion » 28 Aug 2015, 14:50

Armed Jewish Resistance
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Samuel Zoltan
Born: 1912, Transylvania, Romania

Samuel's parents emigrated to Palestine when he was very young. They lived in Rishon le Zion, the first settlement in Palestine founded by Jews from outside of Palestine. After graduating from high school, Samuel became active in a movement challenging the British mandate in Palestine.

1933-39: Samuel was expelled from Palestine in 1936 because of his outspoken criticism of the British mandate. He went to France and then to Spain just after the civil war began. Samuel fought for three years with the Spanish Republicans against the fascists. The Republicans were defeated, and Samuel returned to France, where he was interned by the French at the Gurs detention camp for foreigners. He escaped and headed for Paris.

1940-44: In 1940 Samuel joined the armed resistance group, Franc-Tireurs et Partisans. He smuggled explosives into Paris to use in sabotage against the German army. In July 1942 he arrived at the East Paris train station with two suitcases full of explosives. Two policemen grabbed him. He ran, but was shot in the legs and arrested. After two months his wounds healed. Then, on crutches, he was led daily to the prison basement to be questioned and tortured.

Samuel refused to divulge information. He died under torture at the age of 34.
Jewish Partisan Educational Foundation French Jewish partisans were active in all the various French Resistance groups, and many held leadership roles. Jews made up ninety percent of the First Detachment of the Communist FTP-MOI, and nearly 100 percent of the Second Detachment. Despite severe shortages of weapons, FTP-MOI attacks increased with time. In 1943, ever more daring and frequent attacks were made against the Germans, at the rate of 15 per month. These French Jewish partisan units executed hundreds of bombings and attacks on German strongholds and Nazi officials.

France had many all-Jewish partisan units as well. The Armee Juive (the Jewish Army),attacked German military trucks and trains, and carried out missions of sabotage.

Many of these fighters were dedicated Zionists, but the Armee Juive opened its ranks to all fighting French. However, the Jews fighting in these units were inspired to resist by their Jewish heritage. As Armee Juive military chief Jacque Lazarus remembers, “Hunted as Jews, we wanted to show the enemy that it was as Jews that we fought.”

In 1944, a consolidated Jewish partisan force known as the Organization Juive de Combat (Jewish Fighting Organization) or OJC, cooperated in an campaign against the retreating German army, and participated in the liberation of Paris, Lyon, Toulouse, Grenoble and Nice. The OJC’s greatest success was the capture of a German train loaded with soldiers, food, weapons and ammunition. The Jewish partisans, all wearing Star of David armbands, triumphantly informed the terrified German prisoners, “Ich bin Jude (I am a Jew).”
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Re: Jewish partisans

#66

Post by 4thskorpion » 28 Aug 2015, 15:00

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Marcel Langer, a Polish-born Jewish communist from Palestine who fought in the Spanish Civil War and then headed an anti-Nazi partisan group in the Toulouse area of France, was guillotined by the Vichy government on this date in 1943.

Langer’s group had participated in the destruction of railways, sabotage of electrical supplies, individual assassinations of German soldiers, and the destruction of barns and crops used to feed the Nazi enemy.

He was caught with a suitcase of explosives passed to him by a young partisan woman, and stood up to torture without betraying his comrades. “You are Jewish, a foreigner, and a communist — three reasons for me to request your head,” declared the prosecutor, who would be assassinated three months later by members of Langer’s partisan group.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#67

Post by wm » 28 Aug 2015, 16:39

4thskorpion wrote:But hey, don't let anyone stop you from using any opportunity to try and denigrate or put-down those "Marxist" Jewish partisans :roll:
As a known Jewish partisans hater what can I say :)

All the members of the covering group were killed so what exactly happened there is probably unknown.

And the "Lions" was a communist partisan unit known for their insubordination, led by a pre-war robber Izrael Ajzenman. They were responsible for a string robberies and murders, including murders of AK and NSZ members.
The communists were so fed up with Ajzenman they sentenced him to death in 1943.

Specifically a group of Lions robbed a Polish knives manufacture in Drzewnica, murdering the owner and ten other people there. The group was led by a woman, most likely Zofia Jamajka.

How bad those people were nothing illustrate better that the fact they left a woman to defend them and all fled.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#68

Post by 4thskorpion » 28 Aug 2015, 17:24

wm wrote: All the members of the covering group were killed so what exactly happened there is probably unknown.
So why not take the opportunity and make something up....
wm wrote:Specifically a group of Lions robbed a Polish knives manufacture in Drzewnica, murdering the owner and ten other people there. The group was led by a woman, most likely Zofia Jamajka.
wm wrote:How bad those people were nothing illustrate better that the fact they left a woman to defend them and all fled.
--- oh, you did already. :roll:


Your link to a blog which accuses the group GL "Lions" of killing members of the National Armed Forces in Drzewica on 22 January 1943 simply repeats claims by pro-nationalist author Leszek Zebrowski which ignores the fact that 15 days earlier, the National Armed Forces soldiers killed 6 members of the GL including activists of the PPR. Zebrowski's "journalistic" repprts have featured on Radio Maryja and has links to Ligi Republikańskiej i Ruchu Obrony Polski and other groups that promote the NSZ and pro-nationalist agenda.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#69

Post by michael mills » 01 Sep 2015, 08:57

I see that wm and 4thSkorpion are pursuing their "lively discussion" in this section of the Forum also.

I think the issue can be expressed in fairly simple terms.

Both ethnic Polish nationalist and largely Jewish Communist resistance groups fought against the German occupiers, but they also fought against each other and killed each other's members, due to their conflicting aims for the future of Poland after the expulsion of the occupiers.

The main cause of the conflict was the Communists' aim of turning Poland into a Communist state under Soviet hegemony. The reason why ethnic Polish nationalist resistance groups sometimes attacked Communist resistance groups was to prevent the latter from achieving that goal, and the reason why the Communist resistance groups sometimes attacked ethnic Polish nationalist resistance groups was that they knew that the latter were the main obstacle to achieving the goal of a Communist Poland.

Thus, it is false to claim that ethnic Polish nationalist resistance groups attacked the largely Jewish Communist resistance groups solely because of an anti-Jewish animus. The reason for such attacks was essentially political, in both cases. It was not a case of "good" versus "evil", but of conflicting political aims.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#70

Post by michael mills » 01 Sep 2015, 09:33

Jewish partisans in France In 1942–1943, one of the most active resistance groups in France was the second detachment of the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans—Main-d’Oeuvre Immigrée (FTP-MOI), a French Communist unit composed primarily of Yiddish-speaking, foreign-born Jews. In Paris, these urban partisans carried out many armed attacks on German troops. Operating in small groups, they bombed restaurants, cafés, hotels, and cinemas frequented by the German military and police, and threw grenades at detachments of German soldiers
The French Resistance consisted disproportionately of Jewish immigrants and Spanish Republican refugees. Ethnic French were in fact under-represented.

It is more accurate to talk of a "Resistance in France" rather than a "French Resistance", due to its disproportionately non-French composition.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#71

Post by wm » 01 Sep 2015, 23:54

The designation Jewish Communist resistance (it means the People's Army I suppose) is unfortunate, the Jews didn't create this resistance, and it didn't purse any Jewish goals.

As far as I know, the only true Jewish Communist resistance, or maybe Jewish Marxist resistance existed in the Warsaw Ghetto. Even there their ideology didn't manifest itself in any destructive way, it only gave the creeps to the Poles.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#72

Post by michael mills » 10 Sep 2015, 01:55

The Jewish partisans operating in Poland who have been described in this thread appear to have been mainly Communists or affiliated with Communist groups. There has to be a reason for that.

It is a historical fact that Marxist political groups in Poland were disproportionately Jewish in terms of their personnel. That was particularly true of SDKPiL, Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, the precursor of the Polish Communist party, which was overwhelmingly Jewish.

Although only a small minority of Polish Jews were Communist activists, and far greater numbers of Polish Jews supported the various Zionist parties, the fact is that many of those Zionist parties professed a Marxist ideology and were pro-Communist in orientation. In particular, the Zionist groups that took the lead in the Jewish resistance, eg Hashomer Hatsair, were avowedly Marxist and openly proclaimed their support for a post-war Communist government in Poland allied to the Soviet Union.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#73

Post by michael mills » 10 Sep 2015, 02:28

In regard to the political orientation of the Zionist youth group "Hashomer Hatsair", I addressed that issue in a thread started by me back in 2004. here is a link to that thread:

http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic. ... &sk=t&sd=a

See in particular my post of Friday 16 April 2004, on page 2 of the thread, in which I quoted from an essay by Teresa Prekerowa, which dealt with the pro-Soviet orientation of groups such as Hashomer Hatsair, and their support for a future Communist Poland.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#74

Post by wm » 10 Sep 2015, 08:43

At that time even the socialists, local or European, were radically Marxian.
Another fertile source of communists was the Belorussian, Ukrainian and sometimes Polish peasants. Still, it's hard to blame the little people when at the same time many prominent members of European or American elites enthusiastically supported communism too.

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Re: Jewish partisans

#75

Post by 4thskorpion » 10 Sep 2015, 11:15

Żydokomuna
According to some bodies of research, voting patterns in Poland's parliamentary elections in the 1920s revealed that Jewish support for the communists was proportionally less than their representation in the total population.

In this view, most support for Poland's communist and pro-Soviet parties came not from Jews, but rather from Ukrainian and Orthodox Belarusian voters, though some of these may have been of Jewish ancestry.

"Even if Jews were prominent in the Communist Party leadership, this prominence did not translate into support at the mass level" wrote Jeffrey Kopstein and Jason Wittenberg, who analyzed the communist vote in interwar Poland. Only 7% of Jewish voters supported communists at the polls in 1928, while 93% of them supported non-communists (with 49% voting for Piłsudski).

The pro-Soviet communist party received most of its support from Belarusians whose separatism was backed by the Soviet Union. In Łwów, the CPP received 4% of the vote (of which 35% was Jewish), in Warsaw 14% (33% Jewish), and in Wilno 0.02% (36% Jewish). However, in terms of overall numbers, CPP was "the Jews' least favorite political grouping" during the 1928 elections. It was the disproportionately large representation of Jews in the communist leadership that led to Żydokomuna sentiment being widely expressed in contemporary Polish politics.
Jews and communism
Communism was committed to equal rights for Jews, while at the same time opposing Jewish nationhood. Communists rejected Judaism, along with all other religions, as an “opiate of the masses,” and opposed Zionism, Bundism, and other forms of what Communists regarded as Jewish nationalism. Nevertheless, many people associated Jews with communism.

Below from Page 119 - The Myth of Jewish Communism: A Historical Interpretation by Prof. dr. A.W.M. (André) Gerrits
Firstly, not only Jews, but ethnic minorities in general were over-represented in communist parties of the region* especially during the interwar decades.
* Eastern European countries

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