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Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto

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I learned about this book only recently when I was researching my blog post about the Polish Members of the European Parliament boycotting anti-Israeli anti-Semitic hatefest organized by UN. This book tells the story of a less known resistance organization in the Warsaw Ghetto called Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy, or ZZW, which is Polish for Jewish Military Union. I first learned about ZZW when I read "The Bravest Battle" by Dan Kurzman. It was an organization formed by the Jewish officers of the Polish Army. They obviously had personal connections with the other Polish officers. Politically members of the ZZW were followers of my fellow odessit Vladimir Jabotinsky, founder of Revisionist Zionism, an ideology similar to the modern Likud party in Israel. Because of the personal links the ZZW members had with the Polish resistance and because they were not Communist, the ZZW received significantly more help from the Polish Home Army than the leftist-leaning ZOB. Political views of the ZZW members are pretty close to my own political views. So, I was very interested to read a book that tells their story.

So, what have I learned that I did not know before? Well, first of all it turns out that ZZW was founded much earlier than ZOB: November of 1939 vs. July of 1942. ZZW was not smaller than ZOB: about 500 core members, the same as ZOB. Thus, since ZZW was much better armed than ZOB and had better military training, they had to be much more effective. So, why did ZZW receive more help from the Polish Home Army than ZOB? I mentioned personal contacts and pro-capitalist ideology. But, as it turns out, it was more than that. ZZW was in fact a part of the Polish Home Army, so much so, that ZZW members were getting rank promotions from the Home Army. For example, the commander of ZZW, Dawid Apfelbaum, was a Porucznik (Lieutenant) in 1939. But during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising he held the rank of Captain, and after the uprising he was posthumously promoted to Major. By the way, to answer the obvious question, yes, the book author is related to the leader of ZZW.

Polish aid to ZZW was quite significant. The Poles formed a special unit dedicated to helping the Jews. It was ZOB whom they did not help much. And it is very hard to blame the Home Army for that. Besides ZOB pro-Soviet leaning, they were also viewed as political demagogues who would not be very effective soldiers. Given relatively limited resources of the Home Army (remember, they were operating in a country occupied by a ruthless enemy), it is hard to blame them for allocating their resources to ZZW, whom they had often seen perform in combat back in 1939.

The charge that ZOB were to a large extent political demagogues does have merit. ZOB was plagued by political in-fighting. The talks between ZOB and ZZW about uniting their efforts failed because ZZW suggested that combat leadership should have some combat experience. This suggestion seems very reasonable. But since combat veterans were members of ZZW for the most part, ZOB viewed this idea as a power grab. ZOB even went as far as calling their ZZW counterparts "fascists". Now it seems eerily similar to the present-day Left. The ZOB leaders were political leaders for the most part. On the other hand "ZZW recruited on the sole basis of previous military training, physical fitness and courage, deliberately seeking an apoliticalism that the left always found extremely suspect if not downright diabolical" (page 259). So, members of an armed resistance organization should have military training and courage and be physically fit?! What a revolutionary concept! ZZW in fact did not care much about political views of its members. For example, one of the ZZW units during the uprising was commanded by someone named Moishe the Bolshevik.

After the war the Communists took over in Poland. Thus, anybody associated with the non-Communist Home Army was a suspect. Most of the ZZW leadership died during the uprising. The fact that the leftist ZOB did not get enough attention from the Home Army suited the new rulers of Poland very well: now it was very convenient to accuse the Home Army of anti-Semitism. True Polish heroes, like Henryk Iwanski, whos 2 sons and a brother died while fighting shoulder to shoulder with the Jews during the uprising, were even initially jailed by the Communists. Many leftist Jewish historians in the West were happy to oblige the Communists. The Poles were accused of mass anti-Semitism. (As a sidenote, I read in a Russian-Jewish magazine that the post-war pogroms in Poland were in fact staged by the NKVD - the predecessor of KGB.) But while anti-Semitism was rampant in Poland, please tell me where it was not present at that time. Whenever someone like Henryk Iwanski would claim that they helped the Jews, these historians would dismiss such claim, saying that they are not confirmed by Jewish sources. In fact, Iwansky for a while was not recognized in Israel as a Righteous Gentile (it has been fixed since). And when people like Tadeusz Bednarczyk try to argue with such historians, they are accused of anti-Semitism. But even if Bednarczyk said something anti-Semitic in nature, still, he risked his life to help the Jews in Warsaw. As my favorite talk show host Dennis Prager often says, you know the man by his actions, not his words.

So, how is it all relevant today? Well, both then and now the Left demonizes its political opponents, even in the face of a ruthless enemy that would kill us all. Both then and now the Left is willing to lie in order to achieve some dubious political objective. This finally has to stop. Marian Apfelbaum says at the end of his book:

"Out of respect to the Warsaw ghetto uprising , the time has come to complete its history. As imperfect and provisional as this book may be, it is an attempt to break the silence".

To this I would like to add 2 more things. First, it is time to restore Poland's honor. Second, it is time to finally realize that all the Left-Right political differences don't mater when a ruthless totalitarian enemy is ready to kill us all.

Finally, read the book. I learned a lot from it and highly recommend it.

Let's complement Eric-Odessit's excellent review. Besides describing the long-neglected role of the ZZW, this study, made by an author related to Captain Apfelbaum (p. 227), also highlights the long-forgotten Polish role.

In his FEAR, Jan T. Gross selectively cites Polish priests and individuals who avoided helping Jews, or even betrayed them, because they believed that the Holocaust was God's will. Ironic to this, Apfelbaum (p. 116, 118) notes that Jewish armed resistance was delayed because of religious Jews' objections to it.

Most, if not all, Holocaust films show the Jews' weapons appearing magically out of nowhere, or some stingy Pole selling one measly rusty gun for an exorbitant price. In actuality, Poles gave 92 guns to the ZOB (p. 330) and 678 guns to the ZZW (p. 184); this in addition to thousands of grenades and explosives, military training, etc. The meager stocks of arms that the Poles possessed is proved not only by the Poles' own Warsaw Uprising over a year later, but also (not mentioned) the limited capability of Poles to create defended villages (samoobrony) against the fascist-separatist OUN-UPA genocidal onslaught against Poles in the mixed Ukrainian-Polish regions of German-occupied Poland. Indeed, a samoobrona possessing even 50 firearms would've considered itself well-armed!

Apfelbaum (p. 204) recognizes the Polish guerrillas' direct combat in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in the form of the "Polish bandits" in The Stroop Report: The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw Is No More!. (See also Apfelbaum, p. 217, 222-223, 334-335, etc.). Despite the inevitable contradictions between survivors' accounts, there are important convergences. For instance: "Thus Stroop, the three Polish officers, and the Jewish officer all agree on one thing: On April 27, Muranowski Square was the object of a particular intense battle, and the ZZW forces were resupplied during the tunnel, receiving grenades, ammunition, and weapons from a group of 18 (or 20) Polish soldiers." (p. 224). Later, the ZOB used the tunnels made during the ZZW-Polish liaison. (p. 131). The raising of the Jewish and Polish flags is supported by several independent accounts. (p. 212)--whence the title of this book.

ZOB members Edelman and Cukierman (Zuckerman) have gone to creatively absurd extremes to avoid due recognition of the ZZW. (pp. 245-on). The dismissal of the testimonies of Polish fighters Iwanski, Bednarczyk, Zarski, Ketling, and Mendelson, ("Polish conspiracy") based on the argument that their accounts aren't corroborated by Jews (pp. 250-253; although in fact they ARE supported by various Jewish sources: pp. 261-263), is even more bizarre. The positive testimony about the AK and ZZW, by Bernard Mark, an early-postwar Jewish Communist obviously disinclined to flatter either the AK or ZZW, is instructive. [Apfelbaum could've made his arguments even stronger by pointing out that the exultation of Jewish victimhood above that of others, and the drumbeat of accusations about Poles hating Jews, didn't become appreciable until 20 years after the war. Consequently, Poles up to that time would've had no significant motive for fabricating or exaggerating Polish aid to Jews. Also, talk of "Polish conspiracy" smells of the same reasoning behind the "Jewish conspiracy" of the Holocaust deniers. Finally, no one insinuates collusive mendacity without proof, and certainly no one suggests that multiple Jewish accounts be disbelieved unless confirmed by Poles!]

This account of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, a tragic and real event, is written by someone who was actually there Marian Apfelbaum.

It covers a completely neglected story of a the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

There were two main fighting organisations in the Ghetto; the ZZW formed with the encouragement and help of the Polish AK in 1939 and the Communist leaning ZOB formed much later. ZZW were predominately ex-Polish army officers and NCO's who had good contacts with the Polish resistance outside of the Ghetto. The actions appear to be attributed to the ZOB when in fact it was the ZZW that inflicted the bulk of the casualties on the nazis.

"The ZOB came into existance at the end of 1942...It had practically no experianced officers and few weapons - 90 pistols, 500 defensive grenades, 100 attack grenades, 15 kilos of plastic explosive, detonators, a light machine gun, a sub machine gun, all arms supplied by the AK" M.A.

The Poles supplied enough armaments to the ZZW for them to be armed 100%. In perspective only 1 in 15 Polish partisans who took part in the Warsaw Uprising the following year had a fire-arm. The Poles were not as generous with the ZOB, because they did not know the members, were not interested in aiding Communist leaning organisations and did not believe the ZOB would fight.

The importance the Poles placed on the organisation of the ZZW can be shown by this passage in "Two Flags".."A meeting that took place at the urging of the OW-KB (AK) on January 10 1940, was to have decisive and far reaching political consequences. Participating on behalf of the AK was Zofia Sikorska-Lesniowska, General Sikorski's daughter...and high ranking officers and political leaders. The main guest was Adam Czerniakow, chairman of the Warsaw Judenrat". General Sikorski was the wartime leader of the Poles until his death in Gibralter in 1943.

Marian Apfelbaum goes into detail how Poles entered the Ghetto bringing supplies and leading out escapees. Notably Captain Henryk Iwanski a founder member of the ZZW.

His book is also important in that he reveals the political differences between the two organisations which were so deep they managed to extend past the war and I believe still would exist today. I seem to recall that a few years ago an Israeli member of govenment was in Poland for the anniversary of the Ghetto Uprising a paid tribute to the members of the ZOB, and was reminded by the Poles that there was also the ZZW.

As I believe most of israeli politicians currently are on the political left this would explain one of the reasons why the ZZW has virtually been written out of history. ZZW was politically right leaning and this antagonism between political ideologies is repeated the world over. In this case it has nearly cost a brave group of people mainly Jewish, but many Poles too, the credit they deserve, which Marian Apfelbaum with his book "Two Flags" has sought to highlight.