{"id":85364,"date":"2021-04-20T17:05:37","date_gmt":"2021-04-20T15:05:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=85364"},"modified":"2021-04-20T06:38:10","modified_gmt":"2021-04-20T04:38:10","slug":"27-05-64","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/?p=85364","title":{"rendered":"The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt was initially dubbed \u2018fake news\u2019 by some US Jews"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt was initially dubbed \u2018fake news\u2019 by some US Jews<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

MATT LEBOVIC<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\n
New book \u2018The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw\u2019 traces the immediate aftermath of Holocaust\u2019s most famous revolt, including the \u2018gendering\u2019 of resistance and politicization of its narrative<\/strong><\/span><\/h5>\n

Jews marched out of the ghetto during Warsaw Ghetto Revolt in April and May, 1943 (public domain)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When American political cartoonist Arthur Szyk decided to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt, he crafted a montage dedicated to \u201cthe heroic battle of our brothers in the war against the Nazi barbarians,\u201d as the caption read.<\/span><\/p>\n

The image showed a cross-section of Warsaw Jews fighting against a Nazi war machine intent on burning the ghetto to the ground. Most of the ghetto\u2019s 400,000 Jews had already been deported to the death camp Treblinka in 1942, and about 800 people \u2014 most of them young adults \u2014 participated in armed resistance the following year.<\/span><\/p>\n

Although Szyk knew that women were involved in the revolt, no woman appeared in his widely circulated image. There were boys with side-curls and men in workers\u2019 caps, as well as resisters with symbols nodding to socialism, Zionism, and Polish nationalism \u2014 just no women.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe memory of the revolt and memory of resistance does end up being very gendered,\u201d said historian Avinoam Patt, whose book \u2014 \u201cThe Jewish Heroes of Warsaw: The Afterlife of the Revolt\u201d \u2014 will be published on May 4.<\/span><\/p>\n

Among ways in which the revolt was \u201cedited\u201d for American audiences, said Patt, was a \u201cspecific type of heroic image that privileged masculine fighters as leaders of the resistance while presenting women as symbols of martyrdom and sacrifice,\u201d he told The Times of Israel in an interview.<\/span><\/p>\n

In his book, Patt explores the revolt\u2019s immediate afterlife, when Jewish communities began to \u201cprocess\u201d what took place and shape narratives that still endure. For example, Patt demonstrates how the revolt was memorialized in Israel to enforce Zionist ideology, while American Jews generally framed the revolt as part of Allied war efforts.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe book looks at the interplay of history and memory,\u201d said Patt, director of the Center for Judaic Studies at the University of Connecticut.<\/span><\/p>\n

Arthur Szyk\u2019s commemorative montage of the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt (public domain)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt broke out on April 19, 1943, Jews around the world were sitting down for the Passover seder. By this point in the war, it was widely known that millions of Jews were being murdered across Europe. However, in the United States, American Jewish leaders had been unable to catalyze large-scale rescue actions.<\/span><\/p>\n

News of the revolt hit just as people were shifting from \u201cactive rescue efforts\u201d to \u201cmemorial mode,\u201d said Patt, and not everyone in the US believed a revolt had taken place.
\n<\/span><\/p>\n

Historian Avinoam Patt (courtesy)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

For example, New York\u2019s influential \u201cDer Tog<\/em>\u201d would not confirm an uprising took place until May 12. In an editorial, the Yiddish newspaper said the revolt was likely a German \u201cpretext\u201d to conduct a massacre, and that unarmed Jews were not able to hold off an army that devoured Poland in four weeks.<\/span><\/p>\n

Apart from the stance of \u201cDer Tog,\u201d however, the American Jewish press generally picked up the story. For example, \u201cThe Forward\u201d printed a front-page story about the revolt on April 23, just four days after the outbreak of fighting.<\/span><\/p>\n

In both the US and Israel, media outlets erroneously reported that \u201cPolish commandos\u201d had infiltrated the ghetto to help lead fighting. In fact, no such commandos participated, and the ghetto\u2019s Jewish Fighting Organization managed to obtain only a few weapons from Polish resistance leaders.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u2018A revolution in Jewish history\u2019<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As Jews slowly learned the identities of Warsaw Ghetto Revolt fighters, fictionalized accounts began to appear. In the Yiddish play, \u201cThe Battle of the Warsaw Ghetto,\u201d the heroes were fictionalized to meet the needs of a dramatic NBC radio production, for example.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIn the American context, the identities of the heroes seemed less important,\u201d said Patt. \u201cFor Zionist leaders in the Yishuv, the names matter greatly, as they did for Bundists in New York and elsewhere,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

For American Jews, the revolt was most important as a symbol of Jews\u2019 contribution to the Allied war effort, said Patt. The fictionalization of the revolt endured for decades, including the seminal 1961 book, \u201cMila 18,\u201d by Leon Uris.<\/span><\/p>\n

Warsaw Ghetto footbridge connecting cut-off parts of the ghetto from Aryan Warsaw under Nazi occupation (public domain)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe revolt was interpreted differently by different groups of Jews,\u201d said Patt. \u201cCurrent social and political agendas shape how history is recorded,\u201d he said.<\/span><\/p>\n

During the months following the revolt, a public relations battle was waged behind the scenes. Specifically, Zionist leaders were alarmed that Bundist leaders were claiming credit for what took place in Warsaw.<\/span><\/p>\n

In May 1944, several Zionist leaders hiding in Aryan Warsaw compiled accounts of the revolt from all fighting sectors of the ghetto. The document trove was sent to London, and the name Mordechai Anielewicz \u2014 the revolt\u2019s 24-year old leader \u2014 entered into Zionist and Jewish history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Zivia Lubetkin<\/strong> (public domain)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

When Zionist leaders compiled their 120-pages of testimony, they made sure to elevate the movement\u2019s role in unifying resistance movements across the ghettos. The narrative that only Jews can protect themselves contrasted \u2014 for example<\/span> \u2014 with the Bundists\u2019 emphasis on Jewish-Polish cooperation.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In Israel, the revolt came to be seen as \u201ca revolution in Jewish history.\u201d The uprising\u2019s first day became an \u201canchor\u201d for Yom HaShoah and the creation of Yad Vashem, as well as the resistance-oriented nature of Israeli Holocaust memory in general.<\/span><\/p>\n

One of the \u201cJewish heroes of Warsaw\u201d featured in Patt\u2019s book is Zivia Lubetkin, whose eight-hour speech about the revolt sent shockwaves through pre-state Israel in June 1946. Along with other former resisters, Lubetkin founded the Ghetto Fighters\u2019 Kibbutz in 1949 to commemorate that chapter of Jewish history.<\/span><\/p>\n

Still, Patt notes, while certain names of Jewish heroes would be recorded by history, others would fade from collective memory, along with the experiences of the Jewish masses who constituted the bulk of the population in the ghetto.<\/span><\/p>\n

Baking matzah in the Warsaw Ghetto, Nazi-occupied Poland (Courtesy: Yad Vashem Photo Archives 24DO6)<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe symbolic spirit that animated the fighters would be more important than the identities of the actual fighters themselves, just as political interpretations that reinforced the existing worldviews of Jews in Israel and America would matter more than the complexities of wartime behavior that led to the revolt,\u201d said Patt.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHistorians would seek to record the names of heroes in the ghetto; memory only demanded that the Jewish people remember that those heroes had fought for Jewish honor and dignity,\u201d added the historian.<\/span><\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n
\n

Zawarto\u015b\u0107 publikowanych artyku\u0142\u00f3w i materia\u0142\u00f3w nie reprezentuje pogl\u0105d\u00f3w ani opinii Reunion’68,<\/em>
\nani te\u017c webmastera Blogu Reunion’68, chyba ze jest to wyra\u017anie zaznaczone.
\nTwoje uwagi, linki, w\u0142asne artyku\u0142y lub wiadomo\u015bci prze\u015blij na adres:
\n<\/em>webmaster@reunion68.com<\/span><\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt was initially dubbed \u2018fake news\u2019 by some US Jews MATT LEBOVIC New book \u2018The Jewish Heroes of Warsaw\u2019 traces the immediate aftermath of Holocaust\u2019s most famous revolt, including the \u2018gendering\u2019 of resistance and politicization of its narrative Jews marched out of the ghetto during Warsaw Ghetto Revolt in April and May, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[26,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85364"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85364"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85364\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85375,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85364\/revisions\/85375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85364"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85364"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.reunion68.se\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85364"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}