A Hero’s Recollection of the Bialystok Ghetto Uprising

Aug. 16 2018

Today is the 75th anniversary of the Bialystok Ghetto uprising. Organized by members of the city’s various socialist and Zionist youth movements, and coordinated with a Jewish underground that stretched to other ghettos as well as to partisan groups hiding in the forests, the uprising was intended to create chaos so that at least some of the ghetto’s residents could escape slaughter. Thus the plan was to wait until the next Aktion, during which the ghetto’s Jews would be called to assemble for transportation to Majdanek or Treblinka, and then to attack the SS men who came to supervise upon their entrance into the ghetto. Haika Grossman, who helped plan the uprising, and later in life served in Israel’s Knesset, wrote a memoir of her wartime experience. An excerpt:

The ghetto had been tranquil lately. Life had been normal. Not only that, but new orders had recently arrived for the factories from Königsberg and far-off Berlin. How happy the ghetto had been lately over the many Soviet victories, and Mussolini’s downfall. And now, suddenly—an Aktion.

Our plan to meet the Germans before they managed to spread throughout the ghetto, to attack them immediately on their entrance into the ghetto, was no longer possible. They came into the ghetto suddenly, at night. In a few minutes the [underground’s] staff, the cells [of fighters], and their commanders were all alerted. In a hurried meeting in the street we decided, first, to send the cells to their regular positions according to the original plan.

[But the] general plan had to be changed. The main points of attack, which had been set near the gates in order not to allow the Germans to enter the ghetto, had now lost much of their value. All the plans based on attacks from the houses near the gates, by grenade and a rain of fire, had to be altered. The initiative had been taken from us suddenly. Still, we decided to hold onto and entrench the existing positions, . . . and from there to attack the Germans as soon as they came close. Sentries were set and lines of contact established with the sector commanders. We sent people out to knock on doors and shutters to arouse the Jews:

“Germans in the ghetto! If they call on you to appear, don’t go.”

Read more at Tablet

More about: History & Ideas, Holocaust, Resistance

The Mass Expulsion of Palestinians Is No Solution. Neither Are Any of the Usual Plans for Gaza

Examining the Trump administration’s proposals for the people of Gaza, Danielle Pletka writes:

I do not believe that the forced cleansing of Gaza—a repetition of what every Arab country did to the hundreds of thousands of Arab Jews in 1948— is a “solution.” I don’t think Donald Trump views that as a permanent solution either (read his statement), though I could be wrong. My take is that he believes Gaza must be rebuilt under new management, with only those who wish to live there resettling the land.

The time has long since come for us to recognize that the establishment doesn’t have the faintest clue what to do about Gaza. Egypt doesn’t want it. Jordan doesn’t want it. Iran wants it, but only as cannon fodder. The UN wants it, but only to further its anti-Semitic agenda and continue milking cash from the West. Jordanians, Lebanese, and Syrians blame Palestinians for destroying their countries.

Negotiations with Hamas have not worked. Efforts to subsume Gaza under the Palestinian Authority have not worked. Rebuilding has not worked. Destruction will not work. A “two-state solution” has not arrived, and will not work.

So what’s to be done? If you live in Washington, New York, London, Paris, or Berlin, your view is that the same answers should definitely be tried again, but this time we mean it. This time will be different. . . . What could possibly make you believe this other than ideological laziness?

Read more at What the Hell Is Going On?

More about: Donald Trump, Gaza Strip, Palestinians