Jewish Combat Organization - ŻOB

Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) was an underground organization of armed resistance of Polish Jews during the Holocaust operating in several larger cities, the best known among the Jewish resistance formations during World War II. The combat units of the ŻOB were established on July 28, 1942 in the Warsaw Ghetto from young Zionists and leftists. Right-wingers from the Betar organization, who joined the officers of the Polish Army of Jewish origin, did not want to join the organization. The organization was armed by the Home Army and the People’s Guard, and was politically recognized as a militant organization of Jews. The organization dealt with building the so-called bunkers in the ghetto, carried out expropriations in order to obtain funds for weapons (including attacks on the Judenrat cash register and the ghetto bank), brought and collected weapons, conducted resistance propaganda, fought against members of Jewish collaborative formations pretending to be the resistance movement (“Trzynastka” and the organization “Żagiew“), liquidated informers and collaborators sentenced to death (e.g. Jakub Lejkin, the deputy commander of the Jewish police). Soon, the conspiracy practically took over power in the district from the Judenrat, and in January 1943 also removed the collaborative formations from the ghetto, and even forced the Germans to withdraw temporarily. However controversy is raised by the methods of obtaining funds for its activities. We were going to wealthy Jews, smugglers or Jewish policemen, we terrorized them and took their money. We robbed the Judenrat money for hundreds of thousands of zlotys, we also robbed a provisioning enterprise. We even went so far as to kidnap. [Marek] Lichtenbaum, chairman of the Judenrat after Czerniaków, refused us money. So we imprisoned his son. We held it for twelve hours. We wrote to Lichtenbaum that we are keeping the boy with his legs in a bucket of ice water, so that he will surely contract a disease. They came with the money. Another time, a Jewish policeman, a motherfucker, wouldn’t give us money. We had to show that we are tough. We came to him around four, after the ultimatum had expired. “Don’t you want to give?” We asked and shot him. After that, everyone paid. In total, we did not lack money. We were the real authority in the ghetto. We were the ones who decided how the people who remained in the ghetto should live. They called us “the party.” When the party ordered something, it was done. Marek Edelman about those who did not want to pay a special “tax” to the ŻOB Another ŻOB fighter – Szymek Ratajzer – also talked about kidnapping children as an effective means of enforcing obedience. It happened, however, that rich Jews refused to give up money, even when it was about the life of their son or daughter. At that time, ŻOB-men pretended to be Poles. The best in this was Ratajzer, who had eminently “non-Jewish” features and many bystanders took him for a goy. In a book “Hero from the shadows: the fate of Kazik Ratajzer” (by Krzysztof Burnetko and Witold Bereś), published by Świat Książki, in Warsaw 2012, we can read: When the attacked person does not want to spend the valuables on the slogan “for the needs of the Jewish Combat Organization”, the Ratajzers commander – in a flash of genius – shouts to him in Polish: “Kazik, take care of him!” It’s because assumingly Ratajzer, a boy with a Slavic appearance, is a Pole, and, as you know, they do not play with Jews… So not Szymek anymore, but Kazik Ratajzer, put the barrel of the revolver to his stomach, pushes him to the corner of the room and effervesces: “You will not be kidding with me!”. He gets the money right away. Szymek Ratajzer is on the left In the same book, we also read about another case of kidnapping of a young girl in order to obtain money from her father. The wealthy entrepreneur, however, didn’t want to pay. Although he came to meet the ZOB-men, he refused to pay, because the Jews would not shoot a Jew: Ratajzer enters the action again, and at the decisive moment, when the man still refuses, puts a revolver to his head, threatening to shoot him in a moment. And again he pretends to be a Polish Home Army soldier cooperating with the ŻOB. A rich Jew agrees to pay. Ratajzer himself mentioned in his book (“Memoirs of a Warsaw Ghetto Fighter”) that rich Jews immediately softened to the sound of the Polish name, because “it was better not to mess with the goys, especially in such times“. In the case of wealthy Jews who refused to pay “taxes”, the ŻOB members limited themselves only to threats. They were intimidating, raiding, kidnapping, but they did not shoot for the money. Marek Edelman himself stated that thanks to the firmness of the fighters, the “atmosphere in the ghetto changed. The bakers had to bake bread for us. Because the one who fights must eat. And people had to act like people: no collaboration with the Germans”. Marek Edelman from the time of ŻÓB activity Above all, this is how it was possible to obtain the means to fight against common enemy: collaborating jews and Germans. ŻOB-men, in the opinion of historians and international public opinion, are deservedly heroes of the Jewish cause.