Did+people+other+then+Jews+help+to+fight+the+rebellion?


 * People who Helped the Warsaw Ghetto in the Rebellion **



Before and during the Warsaw ghetto uprising, help came from many people including Poles, disguised Jews, Christians, and other religious and political groups. Without their help, the uprising would not have been possible.Some people outside of the ghetto would sometimes hide Jews from the ghetto in houses, shops, public buildings, and even places as strange as a zoo, which one Polish man was said to do and who saved about 20 Jews from being deported to a death or labor camp. As many as 20,000 Jews were hiding in the city of Warsaw with the help of Polish civilians. Many Poles assisted Jews in Warsaw, but most were frightened of being caught, which would conclude with a terrible punishment, usually death.

In occupied Poland and the Soviet Union, young couriers, or people who carried messages and acted as secret soldiers, were usually members of underground political organizations. They created a communication network that helped connect the ghettos across Europe. Traveling under false names and false papers, couriers carried illegal documents, underground newspapers, news of the war, and money. Couriers also bought and smuggled arms into ghettos, ran illegal presses, and arranged escapes. They could be Jewish or any other religion, ethnicity, or nationality, which was very common. These people brought the first news to the Warsaw ghetto about the terrible death camps that Warsaw Jews were going to. But being a courier was a risky business, like smuggling. Everywhere outside the ghettos, police, blackmailers, collaborators, informers, and spies were looking for victims and prize rewards. Many couriers were caught and executed or sent to camps.

Irena Adamowicz, a Polish Catholic, courageously served as a courier for the Jewish underground in Warsaw. She was just one of the many people who served as couriers to bring supplies and information to the isolated Jews inside the ghetto. It was people like her who helped the Jews greatly and saved many people from terrible fates.

During the uprising itself, there were some Polish organizations formed to help the Jews fight the Germans or to survive the harsh conditions in the ghetto. Zegota, a Polish underground organization, provided for the social welfare needs of Jews. It began operations in September of 1942. The Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa-AK) helped to fight the Germans in the ghetto. So did the communist Polish People's Army (Armia Ludowa-AL). The Polish underground provided a few weapons and a small amount of ammunition to Jewish fighters during the uprising.

All in all, the uprising would not have been as successful as it was (they did not win, but they held out for a surprisingly long time) because of the help the Jews received from people outside of the ghetto’s walls. From acting as couriers to hiding Jews in Polish homes, the civilians of Warsaw and other people of different nationalities all supplied help in some way for the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, making life livable in the ghetto and the uprising more successful than expected.

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