Vilna Ghetto: Encyclopedia II - Vilna Ghetto - Resistance

Vilna Ghetto - Resistance

The United Partisan Organization was formed on January 21, 1942 in the Vilna Ghetto. It took on the motto: "We will not allow them to take us like beasts to the slaughter." This was one of the first resistance organizations that was established in the ghettos during World War II. Unlike in other ghettos, the resistance movement in the Vilna Ghetto was not run by ghetto officials. Jacob Gens, head of the ghetto, cooperated with German officials in stopping armed struggle. The UPO brought together socialist-Zionists, right-wing conservatives, communists and Bundists. It was headed by Yitzhak Wittenberg, Josef Glazman, and Abba Kovner. The goals of the UPO were to establish self-defense in the ghetto, to sabotage German industrial and military activities and to join the partisan and Red Army’s fight against the Nazis.

However, the UPO did not succeed in its mission. In early 1943, the Germans caught a resistance member in the forest and the Judenrat, in response to German threats, gave Wittenberg over to the Gestapo. The UPO was able to rescue him through an armed struggle and were then able to set up a small militia. The Judenrat did not tolerate this, though, because the Nazis constantly put pressure on them to end the resistance or face liquidation. The Judenrat knew that Jews were smuggling weapons into the ghetto and when a Jew was arrested for the purchase of a revolver, they finally gave the people an ultimatum. The Judenrat turned the people against the resistance members by making them seem like selfish enemies who were provoking the Nazis. Gens emphasized the people’s responsibility for one another. He said that resistance was sacrificing the good of the community. In the end, the people confronted the resistance and demanded their right to live. The resistance would not fire on the other Jews and they were eventually disarmed and arrested.

When the Nazis came to liquidate the ghetto in 1943, the members of the UPO again congregated. Gens took control of the liquidation so as to rid the ghetto of the Germans, but helped fill the quota of Jews with those who would fight but were not necessarily part of the resistance. The UPO fled to the forest, but were eventually killed like the rest of the ghetto’s population.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Resistance", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki