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The Jewish Military Organization (
ZW) in the Warsaw Ghetto
Former Minister of Defense and of Foreign Affairs, State of Israel
The leadership of the Jewish Military Organization (
ZW) emerged from the ranks of the Polish Betar membership after prewar leaders such as Menahem Begin fled to the east in advance of the German occupying forces. Many of the founders of the ZW had received military training in the Polish Army or in IZL cells (Irgun Zvai Leumi; National Military Organization) in the interwar period. Their personal contacts with Polish military officers would prove essential as they armed for battle with the Germans. This study considers the effect of the ZW leadership’s military background on the duration and effectiveness of Jewish resistance during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, comparing the composition and strategy of the ZW to those of Mordechai Anielewicz’s Jewish Fighting Organization (OB).
1. Stefan Korbonski, The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground 1939–1945 (Boulder, CO: East European Quarterly, 1978), p. 14.
2. W
adysaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewin, eds., Righteous Among the Nations (London: Earlscourt Publications, 1969), p. 148. For a short biography of Andrzej Petrykowski, a brigadier general in the Polish Underground Army, see Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, Sownik biograficzny konspiracji warszawskiej 1939–1944, vol. 2 (Warsaw: PAX, 1987).
3. Haim Lazar’s Matsada shel Varsha (Tel Aviv: Machon Jabotinsky, 1963) includes a copy of a notarized statement by Kalman Mendelson, made out in Warsaw on November 27, 1959 (p. 350).
4. Henryk Rolirad, testimony in Yad Vashem archives O3/3068. Rolirad, a Pole who emigrated to Israel, testifies that he was a member of Henryk Iwa
ski’s unit in the KB, which was commanded by Petrykowski, and that he provided assistance to the ZW. He was in contact with Apfelbaum and Rodal, two of the commanders of ZZW. According to his testimony, many of the ZW fighters had been officers in the Polish Army.
5. Kalman Mendelson, "Historia powstania ZW," Kronika 18 (London) (May 2, 1970). A similar description of the relationship between the Polish underground organization WZWZ and the ZW is provided in a statement signed in Warsaw on June 11, 1948 by thirteen former members of WZWZ, including Iwaski. See archive no. 3809 of the ydowski Instytut Historyczny (Jewish Historical Institute, IH).
6. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 82 (based on conversations with Adam Halperin, a member of Betar in the Warsaw Ghetto). Frenkel required those joining the ZW to be quartered in ZW barracks, leaving their families behind.
7. Kalman Mendelson, "Rozwój i dziaalno
ZW," Kronika 19 (May 19, 1970).
8. Yisrael Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 121.
9. Levi Dror and Yisrael Rosenzwig, eds., Sefer Hashomer Hatsair, vol. 1, 1913–1945 (Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1956), p. 455.
10. Yisrael Eldad (Sheib), Ma’aser Rishon (Tel Aviv: Hamatmid, 1950), p. 40. Another member of the netzivut, Peretz Lasker, had been serving as an officer in the Polish Army, and returned to Warsaw after the fighting ended.
11. David Gotesfurcht, Aharon Richman, and Hayim Harari, eds., Sefer Dror, Histadrut Olamit "Dror-Hehalutz Hatsair" (Ein Harod: Hakibutz Hameuhad, 1947), p. 446.
12. Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman, A Surplus of Memory (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1993), pp. 36–40.
13. Dror and Rosenzweig, eds., Sefer Hashomer Hatsair, vol. 1, pp. 432, 445.
14. Ch. Ben-Yerucham, Sefer Betar: Korot Umkorot (Jerusalem; Tel Aviv: Havaad Lehotsaat Sefer Betar, 1975), vol. 2, part 2, p. 985.
15. David Niv, Ma’arachot hairgun hatsvai haleumi, Part 2: Mehaganah lehatkafah, 1937–1939 (Tel Aviv: Mosad Klausner, 1965), pp. 17–29.
17. Natan Yellin-Mor, Shenot Beterem (Tel Aviv: Kineret, 1990), p. 16.
19. Niv, Ma’arachot hairgun hatsvai haleumi, p. 174.
22. Ben-Yerucham, Sefer Betar, pp. 841–44.
23. Ibid., pp. 847–72. "It is our impression," Begin said, "that we stand before the third period of Zionism. The Jewish national movements started with ‘practical Zionism’; afterwards came ‘political Zionism,’ and now we are on the threshold of ‘military Zionism.’"
24. Ibid., p. 873; Eldad, Ma’aser Rishon, pp. 14–22.
25. Ben-Yerucham, Sefer Betar, p. 983.
27. Ibid., p. 986; Niv, Ma’arachot hairgun hatsvai haleumi, pp.184–86. Stern, who was in Warsaw at the time, disagreed with the terms of the agreement and tried to circumvent it by maintaining the independent and secret nature of the IZL cells. Although Begin was known for his "activist" political views, as netziv he tried to impose the authority of Betar on the IZL cells—to the consternation of Stern and Stern’s confidante, Friedman-Yellin.
28. Yellin-Mor, Shenot Beterem, p. 70.
29. Eldad, Ma’aser Rishon, p. 40.
30. Yitshak (Isaac) Raviv, Keshet Beanan (Jerusalem:Hamercaz Lemoreshet Yerushalayim, 2001), p. 32.
31. Ibid., p. 122; Yaakov Banai, Hayalim Almonim (Tel Aviv: Yair, 1989), p. 35; Raviv, Keshet Beanan, p. 30; Eldad, Ma’aser Rishon, p. 40.
32. Yellin-Mor, Shenot Beterem, p. 133.
33. Letter written in Hebrew by Begin on January 8, 1940, to Shimshon Yunichman, preserved in the archives of Mercaz Moreshet Begin, Jerusalem. From the letter it is clear that Begin was in contact with Peretz Lasker. Most of the letter is devoted to the situation in Palestine and contains Begin’s opinions and advice on what his comrades there should and should not do.
34. Begin and his wife Aliza had left Warsaw by train on September 7, 1939, in the company of Friedman-Yellin and his wife Frieda.
35. Uri Zvi Grinberg, the Hebrew poet, worked on the Warsaw Yiddish daily Moment until 1939. He left for Palestine as soon as the war broke out.
36. Ben-Artzi (Moshe Stein) was an IZL emissary to Poland who subsequently returned to Palestine.
37. Letter written in Hebrew by Begin on February 4, 1940, to Shimshon Yunichman, in the archives of Mercaz Moreshet Begin, Jerusalem.
38. According to Eldad (Ma’aser Rishon, p. 97), after he received a letter telling him that the captain should be the last to leave the sinking ship (possibly the letter from Yunichman, or a letter in a similar vein from Mordechai Katz, the secretary of the shilton in London), Begin called a meeting of the netzivut and announced that he was returning to Warsaw. Evidently this was not his final position on the matter.
39. According to Yellin-Mor (Shenot Beterem, p. 110), Begin was taken into custody in Lvov because a woman who recognized him in the street demanded the return of money she had paid for illegal immigration to Palestine. He was released after paying her the money.
40. Yosef Glazman was the netziv of the Lithuanian Betar at the time and later one of the leaders of the united armed resistance organization in the Vilna ghetto, the FPO. He fell while leading a Jewish partisan unit in an encounter with German troops.
41. Archive of Aharon Propes, Machon Jabotinsky. Propes had moved to the US to head the American Betar and been replaced by Begin as netziv of the Polish Betar.
42. Peretz Lasker remained in Poland throughout the war, arriving in Palestine after the war ended. During the first years of the German occupation he played a leading role in organizing members of Betar and headed the Betar mifkadah in Warsaw. He left Warsaw for Cz
stochowa prior to the great liquidation in the summer of 1942.
43. This is in contrast to the position of some of the socialist Zionist movements, whose ideological stance led them to interpret events—at least in their public statements—in terms of class struggle. Israel Gutman observes: "The standard and dogmatic positions promoted by the parties made it difficult [for them] to arrive at realistic appraisals of the essence of the war.... Thus, for example, Left Po’alei Zion and many members of the radical youth movements—such as Ha-shomer ha-Za’ir and to a lesser degree Dror He-Halutz—refused to perceive Fascism and National Socialism as other than the phenomenon defined as a ‘capitalist regime.’ ... The war itself was in the nature of an ‘imperialist war,’ a conflict between two kinds of imperialism—the ‘sated’ and established vs. the ‘hungry’ and ambitious" (The Jews of Warsaw, pp. 125–26).
44. Peretz Lasker, "Hairgun hatsvai haleumi herim rishon et ness hamered bevarsha," Herut, April 24, 1962.
45. Lasker is referring here to the German occupation authorities’ policy of imposing draconian collective punishments on the Polish population in response to any signs of resistance.
46. Lasker, "Hairgun hatsvai haleumi"; Fella Finkelstein-Shapchik, testimony given at Beit Lohamei Hagetaot on September 4, 1997, BLH Archives no. 9648. Finkelstein-Shapchik remembers that, led by Peretz Lasker, a group of some 300 Betar members moved out of the ghetto to the Hrubieszów farming estates in the fall of 1941. Lasker recounts that arrangements were made for 600 members of Betar to work in the farms in the Hrubieszów area in the summer of 1941.
47. Lasker, "Hairgun hatsvai haleumi."
48. Finkelstein-Shapchik, BLH Archives 9648, and Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 103.
49. Lasker, "Hairgun hatsvai haleumi."
51. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 105.
52. Finkelstein-Shapchik, BLH Archives 9648. Finkelstein-Shapchik describes meeting Rodal in the ghetto and being inducted by Frenkel into the ZW.
53. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 86.
54. Leon Rodal had worked on the IZL Yiddish daily Di Tat in Warsaw in the months before the war and must have been part of or close to the IZL framework there.
55. Mendelson, "Rozwój i dziaalno ZW."
56. Henryk Iwaski, "Czy mo
na byo rotowa ludzi . . .? Mowi major ‘Bystry,’" Kultura, no. 16 (254), April 21, 1968.
57. Wadysaw Zajdler, "Walki na placu Muranowskim w dniu 27.4.43," IH Archives no. 5790.
58. David Wdowiski, "Mered getto Varsha," Hamashkif, April 26, 1946, p. 79.
59. David J. Landau, Caged—The Landau Manuscript, published by the Landau family in Australia, 1999, pp. 181–83.
60. Jack Eisner, The Survivor (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980), p. 177.
61. Finkelstein-Shapchik, BLH Archives no. 9648.
62. Arye Najberg, Haaharonim (Merhavia:Sifriat Poalim, 1958), p. 89; Jonas Turkow, In kamf farn leben (Buenos Aires: Tsentral-farband fun Poylishe Yidn in Argentine, 1949), p. 22.
63. Letter from Emanuel Ringelblum of December 28, 1943, located in the Berman archives at Beit Lohamei Hagetaot. Regarding the ZW, Ringelblum wrote: "I have only two names: Rodalsky and Frenkelowski. The latter (brunet ... black hair) was the head of the firm." Ringelblum must have purposely altered the names of Rodal and Frenkel for conspiratorial reasons.
64. Marian Apfelbaum, Retour sur le Ghetto de Varsovie (Paris: Editions Odile Jacob, 2002), p. 25. Also a private communication from Marian Apfelbaum, a relative of David Apfelbaum.
65. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 355.
66. Yellin-Mor, Shenot Beterem p. 39.
67. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 355. According to the reminiscences of Ozer Libers, who met Leon Rodal in the Soviet-occupied zone, Rodal decided not to join the others in moving to Vilna, but insisted on returning to Warsaw (see Ozer Libers, "Haveri umefakdi," in Haish shekiyem et haneder, ed. Yosef Chrust (Tel Aviv: Yedidim [published by friends], 1974, p. 20. (This is a book in memory of Avraham Amper, who had been in charge of the IZL cells in Poland before the war, and afterwards of the IZL cells in Vilna. He succeeded in reaching Palestine, where he joined the LHY underground. He was shot and killed by the British police); see also the postcards from Rodal, using the pseudonym L. Wladimirski, addressed to Josef Klarman in Kaunas, Lithuania. Machon Jabotinsky, Tel Aviv, the Klarman archive.
68. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, pp. 60–66.
70. Wdowiski, Mered getto Varsha.
71. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 106.
72. Sefer Betar, vol. 1, pp. 233–34; vol. 2, part 2, p. 976.
73. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 106.
74. Private communication in July 2004 from Yisrael Ribak, a resident of Ber-Sheva, who had been a member of the Betar group of youngsters in the Warsaw Ken Zafon led by Pawel Frenkel before the war.
75. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 48.
77. Communication from Yisrael Ribak.
78. Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 82.
79. Ringelblum Archives, Ring 1, no. 744. The publication was in Yiddish. The one surviving copy was in poor shape when it was recovered. It was deciphered and translated into Hebrew by Haya Lazar. The text appears in Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha, p. 333.
80. An allusion to the Betar anthem written by Jabotinsky. In it appear the lines: "you were born the son of kings, crowned with the crown of David," and "to die or to conquer the mountain, Yodefet, Masada, Betar."
81. This is an allusion to Jabotinsky’s novel Samson.
82. David Wdowiski, And We Are Not Saved (New York: Philosophical Library, 1963), p. 79.
83. Landau, Caged, pp. 181–83.
84. Walewski’s testimony before a commission of the Warsaw court investigating German war crimes in Poland, chaired by Janina Skoczyska, on November 25, 1948.
85. A description of Jabotinsky’s contacts with the prewar Polish government can be found in Laurence Weinbaum, A Marriage of Convenience (Boulder, CO: East European Monographs, 1993).
86. Janusz Cesary Ketling-Szemley, "Wspomnienia z walk i dziaalnoci ZW," IH Archives no. 4469.
87. Ibid. Also see Finkelstein-Shapchik, BLH Archives 9648. Reference to these connections appears also in Pawe Besztimt’s testimony in the Berman archive as published by Yehuda Helman, Hamachon leheker tkufat hashoah (Dapim leheker tkufat hashoah, vol. 5) (Haifa University and Beit Lohamei Hagetaot, 1997) p. 312.
88. Yitzhak Zuckerman, Bageto uvamered (Tel Aviv: Beit Lohamei Hagetaot/ Hakibbutz Hameuhad, 1985), p. 149.
90. The archives of Machon Jabotinsky (2 0 7 1) contain Ketling’s testimony before an AK military court. In it he declares that "there are in the ghetto 150 relatively well armed men," and that "he has close contact with the group, supplies them with weapons and food against payment." He testifies further that there are advanced preparations for self-defense, that there is an underground passage to the "Aryan" side, and that the Jewish group is seeking through him to contact "Teodor" (Franciszek Niepokolczycki) in order to coordinate large-scale sabotage actions.
91. The tunnel from the ZW headquarters at Muranowska 7 is mentioned in many sources. Landau describes how he guided the Polish underground courier Jan Karski through the tunnel on his visit to the ghetto before the latter for the West in late August 1942 (Caged, p. 132). Simha Rotem relates how he left the ghetto on April 29, 1943 through the tunnel (Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter [New Haven: Yale University Press, 1994], p. 163).
The tunnel from the ZW headquarters in the Toebbens-Schultz shop area, which connected to the Warsaw sewer system, is mentioned in a number of sources as well. Fella Finkelstein-Shapchik and Simha Korngold relate in their testimonies how they and other ZW fighters from the Toebbens- Schultz shop area left the ghetto through that tunnel on April 28, 1943. Stephen (Shalom-Stifan) Grayek (Sheloshah yeme kerav [Tel Aviv: Maarakhot, 1972], p. 163.)
92. Joseph Kermish, ed., To Live with Honor and Die with Honor: Selected documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives "O. S." (Oneg Shabbath) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986), p. 596.
93. For a description of the battles in which OB units took part see the following accounts by surviving participants: Tuvia Borzykowski, Tsvishn falndike vent (Warsaw: Merkaz Hehaluts in Poyln, 1949); Zivia Lubetkin, In the Days of Destruction and Revolt, transl. from the Hebrew by Ishai Tubbin (Beit Lohamei Hagetaot: Hakibbutz Hameuhad Publishing House, 1981); Marek Edelman, The Ghetto Fights (New York: American Representation of the General Jewish Workers’ Union of Poland, 1946); Aharon Carmi and Haim Frimmer, Min hadlikah hahi (Tel Aviv: Hakibutz Hameuhad, 1961).
For a description of battles in which ZW units took part see the following accounts by surviving participants: Jack Eisner, The Survivor (New York: William Morrow & Co., 1980); Ryszard Walewski, Jurek (Tel Aviv: Moreshet and Sifriat Poalim, 1976); Simha Korngold’s diaries in Yiddish in the Yad Vashem archives O33/1566, also quoted in Hayim Lazar, Matsada shel Varsha.
The operational reports by Jürgen Stroop, the German general charged with suppressing the uprising, provide a day-by-day account of the fighting in the ghetto. In his summary report of May 16, 1943, after he had "declared victory," he described the battle of the flags at Muranowski Square and refers to the ZW forces there as "the main Jewish combat group." During his stay at Warsaw’s Mokotów prison, where he was awaiting trial, he described the fighting at Muranowski Square as the fiercest fighting of the uprising; see Joseph Kermish, ed., Mered geto Varsha beeinei haoyev: Ha dochot shel Jürgen Stroop (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1966). For a detailed account of the fighting during the Warsaw ghetto uprising see Moshe Arens, "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: A Reappraisal," Yad Vashem Studies 33 (2005).
94. Zajdler, Walki na placu Muranowskim.
95. Kalman Mendelson, "Ci, ktorzy byli z nami," Argumenty 15 (775), April 15, 1973.
96. Yitshak Zuckerman, testimony in the archives of Beit Lohamei Hagetaot, reel 17, pp. 13–17. Zuckerman, who was on the "Aryan" side at the time, recounts: "Some time after the uprising a connection was established between me and a Revisionist group that was in hiding together with their commander [Pawel Frenkel] on Grzybowska Street. This group received financial support and assistance from me.... One day they were discovered by the Germans. They defended themselves but they all fell in the encounter."
There are conflicting reports regarding the date on which Frenkel and his comrades fell in battle with the Germans. The battle took place in May or June 1943, at 11 or 13 Grzybowska Street, outside the ghetto.