Jewish subterranean operations in major east European ghettos

ABSTRACT

This study has explored the use of the subterranean dimension during the Jewish Holocaust in Poland, Lithuania, Belarus and Ukraine. The study has found that facing extermination by the Germans, in many ghettos Jewish fighting groups and ghetto inhabitants built and made extensive use of underground hideouts, bunkers, tunnels and sewer systems. This subterranean dimension enabled Jewish resisters to build up a modest military force, run operations against the Germans and rescue members from the ghettos. The volume and effective use of the subterranean dimension by Jewish fighting groups were shaped by the geographical conditions in the ghettos, the commanders’ military skills and strategy of resistance, and by the relationship with the ghettos’ administration and inhabitants, and with local non-Jewish resistance groups. With the partial exception of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, Jewish fighting groups in many ghettos made fatal operational and tactical errors that undermined the use of the subterranean dimension.

KEYWORDS:

• Poland
• Ukraine
• Lithuania
• tunnel
• bunker

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Dr Eran Zohar is a Research Fellow at the International Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT) at the Interdisciplinary Center (IDC) Herzlia. Dr Zohar is an expert on armed groups, terror and intelligence and published articles on these subjects in academic journals. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of Otago in New Zealand. He served many years as senior strategic analyst at the Analysis Department of the Israeli Military Intelligence. His upcoming book is about the arming of non-state-actors across time and place. Currently, he studies the use of the subterranean dimension by rebel groups in the past and today.

Notes

1 The current study uses the term ‘subterranean dimension’ to avoid confusion with ‘underground’ because the study focuses on resisters. Archeological works use the term subterranean for structures located deep within the ground. The depth may vary. See Golany, Earth-sheltered Dwellings in Tunisia, 19.

2 See, for example, Wiggins, Siege Mines and Underground Warfare; Kempe, Living Underground; Tacitus, The Germany and the Agricola of Tacitus, by Tacitus, Books XVI, XVI; Bible, Judges, 6:2; Bible, Samuel I, 13:6.

3 See, for instance, Eshel and Zissu, The Bar Kokhba Revolt, 42–55; Josephus, Jewish Antiquities, VIII, XV, 346–7; Mangold and Penycate, The Tunnels of Cu Chi; Wood, Insurgent Collective Action and Civil War, 20–30, 111–9.

4 Arad, History of the Holocaust, 859–72.

5 Gutman, Fighting among the Ruins, 53–7, 91–113.

6 Kovner, A Missive to Hashomer Hatzair Partisan, 7.

7 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 92, 545; Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 101.

8 Lemberg, In Memory of Him, 53–6.

9 For example, Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground; Levin and Lan, The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; Ronen, Condemned to Life.

10 See, for example, Sarid, beMivhan Hanut veHapdut. Ruin and Deliverance; Gefen et al., The Jewish Partisans.

11 United States Holocaust Museum, Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 49.

12 Leon Blatt Oral Interview; Max Fisher Memoirs; Abraham Silverstein Interview.

13 Ada Blacharz Interview; Wdowinski, And We Are not Saved, 30–9.

14 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943, 389; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 286–392.

15 Rappaport-Gluckstein, “The Ghettos of Lublin,” 692, 702.

16 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 195.

17 See, for example, Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 49; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 486.

18 Endlin, In the Ways of Guerrilla Fight, 163; Zhits, History of the Minsk Ghetto, 52.

19 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 84–5, 238; Zuckerman, A Surplus of Memory, 292–307.

20 Sutzkever, The Vilnius Ghetto, 162–8; Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 85.

21 Sutzkever, The Vilnius Ghetto, 118, 162–8; Litai, Muranowska 7, 251; Engelking and Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto, 796–9.

22 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 339–57; Oral History Interview with Rachel Kalisher, Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 402; Zhits, The History of the Mink Ghetto, 69–70.

23 Putermilch, In Fire and in Snow, 87; Stroop, The Stroop Report.

24 Brener, “Carrying Weapon,” p. 336–7; Zilberstein, “Moitek’s Last Day,” 113; Virnik, “Fighting the Nazi Beast,” 206–8; Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 66, 402–6, 412–3.

25 Stroop, The Stroop Report; Friedman, Report by SS-General Fritz Katzmann.

26 Engelking and Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto, 796–812; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 494–9.

27 Rotem, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, 31.

28 Ibid.

29 Tennenbaum-Backer, The Hero of the Ghettos, 347.

30 Virnik, “Fighting the Nazi Beast,” 203–8; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 439–41.

31 Ryszard, Testimonies and Articles; Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 393; Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 165.

32 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 110–1.

33 Brandes, End of Jews, 70–77; Leon Blat Testimony.

34 Yones, Smoke in the Sand, 218–28; Goldberg, Fire-Scorched Days, 61–80.

35 Yones, Smoke in the Sand, 131–2.

36 Konecka-Betley and Truszkowska, Soil Map of Poland.

37 Cholawski, In the Eye of the Hurricane, 335.

38 Bender, “The Jews of Bialystok”, 33–4; Grossman, The Underground Army, 287; From That Blaze, 238–9.

39 Cholawski, In the Eye of the Hurricane, 173.

40 Arad, History of the Holocaust, 859–72.

41 Cholawski, In the Eye of the Hurricane, 149; Yones, Smoke in the Sand, 333.

42 Cholawski, “The Jewish Underground in the Ghettos,” 282–305.

43 Arad, History of the Holocaust, 877–82.

44 Ibid., 853–82, 888–9.

45 Kless, “The Judenrat of the Baronovishi Ghetto,” 110; Arad, History of the Holocaust, 853–82.

46 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 60.

47 Poznanski, Thirteen Notebooks, 16–8; Unger, Lodz: The Last Ghetto in Poland, 96–100, 119–26.

48 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 66; Tenenbaum-Tamaroff, Pages From Fire, 39; Poznanski, Thirteen Notebooks, 16–8; Tennenbaum-Backer, The Hero of the Ghettoes 308–28, 347; Klibanski-Winicki, Ariadne, 68–9, 105.

49 Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 91.

50 Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto, 58.

51 Zhits, “The History of the Minsk Ghetto,” 56; Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto, 168; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 107–13.

52 Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 369.

53 Kochavi, Zionist Youth Movements in the Holocaust, 183–238.

54 Kovner, A Missive to Hashomer Hatzair Partisans, 7, 9.

55 Grossman, The Underground Army, 190, 291, 324.

56 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 136; Cholawski, Jewish Underground in the Ghettos, 122.

57 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 134–6; Tenenbaum-Tamaroff, “Pages from the Conflagration,” 270.

58 Grossman, The Underground Army, 190.

59 Walewski, Testimonies and Articles.

60 Ibid.

61 Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 303.

62 Korchak, Flames in Ash, 147; Litai, Destruction and Resistance, 72.

63 Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 70, 133; Korchak, Flames in Ash, 46.

64 Kovner, On the Narrow Bridge, 13.

65 Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 70.

66 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 134–6.

67 The Ringelblum Archive. Annihilation – Day by Day, 219.

68 Grossman, The Underground Army, 97; “Collective Interview Conducted by Dr D. Levin.”

69 Cholawski, Jewish Underground in the Ghettos, 336; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 527; Grossman, The Underground Army, 101, 189; Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto, 170.

70 Tory, Surviving the Holocaust, 494.

71 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 93.

72 Oral History Interview with Meir Tzoref; Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 232, 234, 254–6.

73 Olieski et al., Haim Yellin, 70, 76.

74 Glicksman, “The Story of Jewish Resistance,” 69–76; Endlin, In the Ways of Guerrilla Fight, 70.

75 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 193.

76 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 144–7; Cholawski, Jewish Underground in the Ghettos, 108–280.

77 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 485–99, 551–7.

78 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 144–7; Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 555.

79 Kovner, A Missive to Hashomer Hatzair Partisans, 6, 20.

80 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 146.

81 Testimony of Avraham Dokidrcyk.

82 Grossman, The Underground Army, 199.

83 Peled, Jewish Kracow 1939–1943, 197, 199; Dawidson Draenger, Justina’s Diary, 136.

84 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 136.

85 Brandes and Reshef, Zvi Brandes, 139.

86 Oral History Interview with Nissan Reznik; Oral History Interview with Arie Distel; Liver, Town of Dead People, p. 123; Brandes and Reshef, Zvi Brandes, 135–7.

87 Landau, Caged – A Story of Jewish Resistance, 149; “Z.Z.W. Warsaw Ghetto, Catling-Smalei Cezary.”

88 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 117–8, 211.

89 The Truth about the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, 17; Zuckerman, A Surplus of Memory, 307.

90 Zuckerman, A Surplus of Memory, 353, 358.

91 Ronen, Condemned to Life, 267.

92 Kokilka – Herszkowicz, Banedudim Uvamakhteret, 85.

93 Korchak, Flames in Ash, 150.

94 Korchak, Flames in Ash, 47, 65, 130; Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 54.

95 Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 91,106, 109, 117–8, 165.

96 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 427–38.

97 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 96.

98 Zilber, Kaunas Ghetto, 1945.

99 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 54.

100 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 427, 431; Oral History Interview with Meir Tzoref.

101 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 428.

102 Tzur, “Hashomer Hatzair in the Lodz Ghetto,” 181–8; Oral History Interview with Kalman Wexler.

103 Unger, Lodz: The Last Ghetto in Poland, 397, 556.

104 Gill, Paper Bridge, 236–7 Pode (Podemsky), Memoirs from Ghetto Lodz, 111, 136, 150, 203–4, 209.

105 Brandes and Reshef, Zvi Brandes, 139.

106 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 427–38; Dov ben Yaakov Testimony.

107 Maayan, Moytek. 82, 90–1; Brenner, “Carrying Weapon,” 336.

108 Avraham Zilberstein Testimony.

109 Zilberstein, “Moitek’s Last Day,” 113; Virnik, “Fighting the Nazi Beast,” 206–8; Brenner, Uprising and Liquidation of Czestochowa Ghetto, 59; Brener, “Carrying Weapon,” 336–7.

110 Grossman, The Underground Army, 171–2, 234; From That Blaze, 119–20.

111 Ronen, Condemned to Life, 316–34; Lonchner, “Bendzin Story,” 129–32.

112 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 193–8.

113 Krakowski, “The Opposition to the Judenrate,” 191–200.

114 Yones, Smoke in the Sand, 106, 173; Smolar, Soviet Jews behind the Ghetto’s Fences, 94–7.

115 Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto, 72.

116 Lazar, Destruction and Resistance, 59; Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 106, 114.

117 Zhits, The History of the Minsk Ghetto, 48.

118 Zhits, The History of the Minsk Ghetto, 59; Smolar, The Minsk Ghetto, 65.

119 Cholawski, “The Jewish Underground in the Ghettos of Western Byelorussia,” 282–305; Smolar, Soviet Jews behind the Ghetto’s Fences, 102–3, 139.

120 Cholawski, “The Jewish Underground in the Ghettos of Western Byelorussia,” 282–305; Trunk, “The Typology of the Judenrate in Eastern Europe,” 17–44.

121 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 577, 598, 613.

122 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 532–3, 550, 556.

123 Kless, “The Judenrat of the Baronovishi Ghetto 1942–1943,” 120–22; Cholawski, “The Jewish Underground in the Ghettos of Western Byelorussia,” 251.

124 Tenenbaum-Tamaroff, Pages From Fire, 39, 77–84; Tennenbaum-Backer, The Hero of the Ghettoes, 308–28, 347.

125 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 551–7.

126 Grossman, The Underground Army, 78, 162, 174.

127 “Klibanski-Winicki about Mordechai Tenenbaum-Tamaroff and his Archive; Grossman,” The Underground Army, 206, 267, 281, 289.

128 Grossman, The Underground Army, 211.

129 Olieski and others, Haim Yellin, 27, 70, 76.

130 Oral History Interview with Solly Ganor.

131 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 78.

132 Faitelson, The Truth and Nothing but the Truth, 210–5, 228–33.

133 Levin and Brown, The Story of an Underground, 402–15.

134 Faitelson, The Truth and Nothing but the Truth, 227, 232–3; Oral History Interview with Ted Pais; Endlin, In the Ways of Guerrilla Fight, 167.

135 Grossman, The Underground Army, 190, 282.

136 Carmi and Frimmer, Testimonies of Members of ZZB, 147–51.

137 Engelking and Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto, 768–70.

138 Engelking and Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto, 796–800. Engelking and Leociak established the addresses of eighty bunkers in the Warsaw ghetto many of which served the ZOB and the ZZW. This study found a few more such as in 36 Leszno Street, 34 Muranowska Street and 38 Szcesiliwa Street.

139 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 351.

140 “Himler Order the Destruction of the Warsaw Ghetto,” 134; Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 160–4.

141 Engelking and Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto, 769, 782, 797; Berland, Three Hundred Hours in the Dying Ghetto, 27–9.

142 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 352. Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 308, 310.

143 Walewski, Testimonies and Articles.

144 Litai, Muranowska 7, 218.

145 Jaworski, Plac Muranowski 7.

146 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 352; Jaworski, Plac Muranowski 7.

147 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 390; Edelman, The Ghetto Fights, 171; Pagis, Days of Darkness, 87.

148 Masha Putermilch Testimony; Jaworski, Plac Muranowski 7.

149 Putermilch, In Fire and in Snow, 79, 96.

150 Engelking and Leociak, The Warsaw Ghetto, 768–70, 777; Zivia Lubetkin’s Speech; Carmi and Frimmer, Testimonies of Members of ZZB, 218.

151 From That Blaze, 218–24.

152 Lubetkin, “The Last Days of the Ghetto,” 189.

153 Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 365–7.

154 Lubetkin, “The Last Days of the Ghetto,” 190.

155 Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 350, 367; Lubetkin, “The Last Days of the Ghetto,” 188.

156 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 184–5, 238; Zuckerman , A Surplus of Memory, 292–307; Walewski, Testimonies and Articles.

157 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 195, 198, 211–7.

158 Lubetkin, “The Last Days of the Ghetto,” 195.

159 Stroop, The Stroop Report, 6–7.

160 Berland, Three Hundred Hours in the Dying Ghetto, 42–59.

161 Gutman, The Jews of Warsaw, 386.

162 Stroop Operational Report for May 5, 1943 and May 14, 1943, pp. 55, 70.

163 Stroop Operational Report for May 7, 1943, 58.

164 Edelman, The Ghetto Fights, 18, 213–4; Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 396.

165 Klinger, I am Writing these Words to You, 39, 43; Fredka Mazia, Comrades in the Storm, 188.

166 Chaim Lazar, Destruction and Resistance (Tel Aviv: Museum of Combetants and Partisans, 1988), 133, 142; Oral Interview with Gliksman, June 2, 1994; Porat, Beyond the Reaches of Our Souls, 165–66.

167 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 242; Grayek, Three Days of Battle, 115.

168 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 250; Grabski and Wójcicki, “Żydowski Związek Wojskowy,” 185.

169 Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 211, 223, 279–82; Hellman, “The Fate of the Last of the Fighters,” 307–19; Interview with Jozef Grynblatt.

170 Rotem, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, 35.

171 Zivia Lubetkin’s Speech; Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 389, 397.

172 Gutman, Revolt of the Besieged, 393.

173 Zuckerman, A Surplus of Memory, 362–63.

174 Libionka, “The Attitudes of the ‘Union of Armed Combat’ of the ‘Home Army,’” 111–3.

175 A Letter from the ZOB Command Staff to the Polish Armed Forces.

176 Rotem, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, 43–4; Arens, Flags over the Warsaw Ghetto, 266, 278.

177 Rotem, Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, 47–58; “In the Central Ghetto - Excerpt from Tuvia Borzykowski's Diary,” 23–4.

178 Interview with Simcha Rotem, YouTube, February 12, 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vErX9LFU08.

179 Bialoszewski, A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising, 45; Karski, The Great Powers and Poland, 526–7.

180 Zuckerman, A Surplus of Memory, 363; Rotem, Memoirs of Warsaw Ghetto Fighter, 125.

181 Levi Sarid, Ruin and Deliverance, 641.

182 Friedman, Report by SS-General Fritz Katzmann, 35; Zaderecki, When the Swastika Ruled, 239–40.

183 Friedman, Report by SS-General Fritz Katzmann, 12–4.

184 Friedman, Report by SS-General Fritz Katzmann, 18.

185 Moczarski, Conversations with an Executioner, 113.

186 Friedman, Report by SS-General Fritz Katzmann, 14.

187 Friedman, Report by SS-General Fritz Katzmann, 14.

188 Moczarski, Conversations with an Executioner, 113.

189 Mocrazski, Conversations with an Executioner, 138.

190 Arad, History of the Holocaust, 875.

191 Silberklang, Gate of Tears, 15, 446–7.

192 Tennenbaum-Backer, The Hero of the Ghettoes, 242, 258; Brandes and Reshef, Zvi Brandes, 86.

193 Gutman, Fighting among the Ruins, 123–58.