The Resistance Movement in the Bialystock Ghetto in Yad Vashem Studies, Volume XXIII

From Underground to Armed Struggle - The Resistance Movement in the Bialystok Ghetto

Described herein is the consolidation of the resistance movement in the Bialystok ghetto, from the entry of Nazi troops into the city on June 1941 until the last Aktion in August 1943. Also described were the difficulties in creating a joint resistance organization due to the ideological and practical divergences between the communists and the Zionist Hashomer Hatzair and Dror. Contacts with the underground movements in the Vilna and Warsaw ghettos also play a part. The main focus is on the personality of Mordechai Tenenbaum, the Dror leader, appointed as head of the United Combat Organization in Bialystok, and his contacts with Efraim Barasz, the chairman of the Judenrat, who secretly supported the underground. At the end of July 1943, the representatives of all the factions agreed to establish a common front, but they engaged the enemy only during the last Nazi Aktion.