The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Describes Jewish life in the ghetto and analyzes the uprising in 1943. Emphasizes that the fact that thousands of ordinary people, and not only military organizations, took part in this revolt makes it a unique event, not only in the history of Jewish resistance, but in that of anti-Nazi resistance in all of Europe. States that the main difficulty to define the nature of the revolt lies in the very vague and limited knowledge of the real events in the ghetto during April-May 1943.

In 1943, against utterly hopeless odds, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up to defy the Nazi horror machine that had set out to exterminate them. One of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization, which led the uprisings, was Yitzhak Zuckerman, known by his underground pseudonym, Antek. Decades later, living in Israel, Antek dictated his memoirs. The Hebrew publication of Those Seven Years: 1939-1946 was a major event in the historiography of the Holocaust, and now Antek's memoirs are available in English. Unlike Holocaust books that focus on the annihilation of European Jews, Antek's account is of the daily struggle to maintain human dignity under the most dreadful conditions. His passionate, involved testimony, which combines detail, authenticity, and gripping immediacy, has unique historical importance. The memoirs situate the ghetto and the resistance in the social and political context that preceded them, when prewar Zionist and Socialist youth movements were gradually forged into what became the first significant armed resistance against the Nazis in all of occupied Europe. Antek also describes the activities of the resistance after the destruction of the ghetto, when 20,000 Jews hid in "Aryan" Warsaw and then participated in illegal immigration to Palestine after the war. The only extensive document by any Jewish resistance leader in Europe, Antek's book is central to understanding ghetto life and underground activities, Jewish resistance under the Nazis, and Polish-Jewish relations during and after the war. This extraordinary work is a fitting monument to the heroism of a people.

The German invasion of Poland in 1939 gave the Nazis the opportunity to implement their master plan to eliminate Europe's Jews. Part of the plan encompassed confining the Jews in a restricted area of Warsaw to make their survival difficult, followed by mass transportation of survivors to concentration camps, where they were killed. The Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto did not go quietly to their deaths but engaged in armed resistance. This riveting volume describes the ghetto's daily life--the people's extraordinary efforts to survive under horrendous circumstances--and the events that led to the uprising and the ghetto's 1943 destruction.

A Holocaust expert who survived three Nazi concentration camps recounts the events of the Jewish uprising in Warsaw.

"Examines the Warsaw ghetto uprising, including the roots of the resistance in the Warsaw ghetto, stories from the participants in the uprising, how the battle ended, and how the small group of fighters became heroes during the Holocaust"--Provided by publisher.

Zimmerman examines the attitude and behavior of the Polish Underground towards the Jews during the Holocaust.

Describes life in the section of Warsaw where Polish Jews were confined by the Nazis and discusses the activities of the Jewish resistance prior to the destruction of the ghetto in 1943.