Jewish and European Resistance in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume VII

Jewish Resistance and the European Resistance Movement

Partisan warfare requires different conditions to government-organized resistance. Partisans need space — mountains and forests for their refuge, relatively few combatants, but organized assistance from the local population as regards shelter, food, clothing, and care of the sick and wounded. In the ghettoes support was forthcoming but could not be expressed in actions within the ghetto itself. The Jewish resistance movement, from the outset lacked the basic essential conditions for effective partisan warfare. It is, therefore, unjust to compare the large number of victims with the relatively few combatants.