1943: Ghetto Revolts and Partisans

On April 19, 1943, the plight of refugees was discussed at the Bermuda conference as British and Americans prohibited food shipments to Jews and others, refused ships for those who managed to escape, and forbade rescue negotiations with Nazis. A number of individuals, underground organizations, clergy, and public officials were involved in rescue activities in Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Italy, and elsewhere. Despite mass murder being viewed as inconceivable to most Jews, the isolation of the ghettoes which precluded coordinated action, the fear of massive reprisals, the lack of trained military officers and sufficient arms, and encouragement from the west, armed rebellions took place in Warsaw in April 1943, Bialystok in August 1943, and in Vilna in September 1943. Over a hundred Jewish underground organizations resisted in ghettoes and other areas, and tens of thousands in central and western Poland fled to the forests. Revolts in camps were initiated by Jews who had worked there a long time and understood their fate, since new arrivals were too disoriented and exhausted. Deceptions to allay the inmates fears occurred as often as brute force, and both hindered organized resistance despite the numerical superiority of inmates over guards. Rebellions occurred at Sobibor in October 1943, Treblinka in August 1943, and Auschwitz in October 1944.

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