The following was originally published by Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership at jpfo.com and is reprinted here with permission.
Most people probably know about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in January 1943, and how a relatively small number of armed Jewish resistance fighters held off Nazi attacks. Over time, as ammunition ran out and Nazi tactics became more extreme, the efforts petered out over about a month. The lesson to be learned, however, was that only by having the means to fight – ergo being armed – was there at least a chance to be able to survive . . .
Genocide throughout history has only been successful following disarmament, thus removing the ability to fight on remotely equal terms and so have any means of self-defense. It is events such as this which highlight the reason for vigorously defending our innate rights protected by the Second Amendment. What follows is an excerpt from a New York Times obituary about Boruch Spiegel, one of the very last survivors of the uprising. There is an index page on JPFO related to various items about or referencing the Ghetto Uprising, which are well worth checking out.
Boruch Spiegel, one of the last surviving fighters of the Warsaw ghetto uprising of 1943, in which a vastly outgunned band of 750 young Jews held off German soldiers for more than a month with crude arms and Molotov cocktails, died on May 9 in Montreal aged 93.
His death was confirmed by his son, Julius, a retired parks commissioner of Brooklyn. Mr. Spiegel lived in Montreal.
The Warsaw ghetto uprising has been regarded as the signal episode of resistance to the Nazi plan to exterminate the Jews. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum calls it the first armed urban rebellion in German-occupied Europe.
As a young man, Mr. Spiegel was active in the leftist Jewish Labor Bund, and when it became clear that the Germans were not just deporting Jews but systematically killing them in death camps like Treblinka, Bundists joined with other left-wing groups to form the Jewish Combat Organization, known by its Polish acronym ZOB.
In January 1943, when German soldiers entered the ghetto for another deportation — 300,000 Jews had already been sent to Treblinka or otherwise murdered in the summer of 1942 — ZOB fighters fought back for three days and killed or wounded several dozen Germans, seized weapons and forced the stunned Germans to retreat.
“We didn’t have enough weapons, we didn’t have enough bullets,” Mr. Spiegel once told an interviewer. “It was like fighting a well-equipped army with firecrackers.”
In the early morning of April 19, the eve of Passover, a German force, equipped with tanks and artillery, tried again, surrounding the ghetto walls. Mr. Spiegel was on guard duty and, according to his son-in-law, Eugene Orenstein, a retired professor of Jewish history at McGill University, gave the signal to launch the uprising. The scattered ZOB fighters, joined by a right-wing Zionist counterpart, peppered the Germans from attics and underground bunkers, sending the Germans into retreat once more. Changing tactics, the Germans began using flamethrowers to burn down the ghetto house by house and smoke out those in hiding. On May 8, ZOB’s headquarters, at 18 Mila Street, was destroyed. The group’s commander, Mordechai Anielewicz, is believed to have taken his own life, but scattered resistance continued for several more weeks in what was now rubble.
Gee, I wonder why politicians get threats. How about the treat we feel from the government?
As someone of Russian Jewish, Welsh and Lakota descent, I say never again.
There, or here.
Damn, Russ, your peeps were a lot more mobile than mine. We define our national heritage by Boro. And by the way, Queens people and Bronx people do not mix.
So I suppose forgetting history and letting the bad men we are supposed to stop carve our laws and create the very thing this article refers to is what we should do? You disarm a population to control them. That is what happens. What more guide could history be?
I found a better picture of Mr. Dawidoff .
It is this. *
Reminds me of my cat when it is walking away.
As a former Marine, I would like to thank all of those brave men and women who served before me. Freedom isn’t free and thanks to all of you I have more freedom than most people will ever have.
Great stuff. There was an excellent section in Unintended Consequences about the Warsaw uprising.
I lost friends in Nam — that was my war. I think of them from time to time, but I don’t think of them as dead. I’d rather remember them as boys, as they were when I knew them.
There was one guy who was special. An affable, happy-go-lucky, tow-headed country boy. I always think of him on the anniversary of his death. It was Halloween, 1967, and I still hate that “holiday.”
The guy has been killing people on screen for 30 yrs, and now he’s stupid enough to say he’s anti gun, Let him give back all the money he made misrepresenting his new ideals. This dirt bag is an opportunist and always has been. He is at every boxing match in Vegas watching blood get spilled.
I traded a mid ban ar15 for an 18.5″ this week (got a little cash also). Tried it out this morning for the first time. Could not put it down! I’m amazed at how accurate it is (1″ groups at 100 yards with Tulla garbage!). Am going to try some xm855 this afternoon, just to see how good this is. No FTF, no hang ups, nothing. WOW! Fun rifle.
Memorial Day: What make me sick to my stomach is today we honor those who DIED to preserve the rights the Democrats in the NJ Legislature SPIT ON! Here is a new article that gives the full story of our little adventures in Trenton… http://www.examiner.com/article/police-state-citizens-ejected-from-gun-law-hearings-by-state-troopers
And since we’re sharing poems:
Speak Up for America
We’ll take back American, into our own hands.
And make her again, the freest of lands.
We’ll not sleep again or shirk our sworn duty,
What’s at stake is our country, in all of her beauty.
To vote is to speak, and silence a sin.
Tell all who you know, we MUST VOTE to win!
Speak up for America. Strike up the bands.
And make her again, the freest of lands.
We are responsible for our own ills,
We’ve not paid attention, or exerted our wills.
While we were sleeping, our freedoms declined.
The thieves in the night stole all they could find.
Speak up for America. Strike up the bands.
And make her again, the freest of lands.
The Lord is our Sheppard, to Him we do pray,
That we’ll stand united and never be swayed.
Freedom needs warriors, to protect and defend.
Each citizen’s sword; their vote and their pen.
Speak up for America. Strike up the bands.
And make her again, the freest of lands.
By: Nora Craig
1/12/11
we could have the A/C issue approved fragmenting ammo to all CCW holders….
Lets Face it, No one totally trusts civilians with weapons.
just a fact
“Happy” Memorial Day? No, not really. A day for thankfulness, but not joy.
I really have to wonder if D.C. had lead-lined water mains.
So my Browning Buckmark Rifle is an “Assault Weapon”…. The only thing it has assaulted were some targets and a raccoon that was poking about during daylight hours. The NYS elected crew of Governor, Assembly & Senate is a bunch of buffoons for the most part.
A day of reflection and memories. I’ve had marriages, kids and grandkids since my youth in the military. But some of my buddies ended their stories at 18 and 19. Brings a tear to my eye to think of what I have that they’ll never know.
I think you guys may need to lighten up a little bit, It’s an obvious farce and it’s a decently funny one at that. I think the perceived lack of a sense of humor kind of alienates people who aren’t with us and it’s something we should be willing to laugh about when they aren’t just flat-out being a douchebag saying “Nice Mossmaster AR33 machinepistol faget now that’s what I call a compensator hahaha I’m so better than you scum kill yourself.” If everybody starts insulting people who make jokes, then the entire pro-gun side will come off as cold, crotchety old men that nobody has much of a reason to like other than they have cool stuff at their house. That’s not exactly how you win hearts and minds in a massive sociopolitical debate.
And since they disarmed themselves, they are SOL. The powers that be want to stay that way. I’m sure *important* people can find exemptions, but the commoner is definitely buggered. I imagine its hard to feel free when you must prove to the government that you are worth protecting. Unfortunately, many of the blue states in the US are headed the same way.
Unfortunately, the views of the readers of the Telegraph are representative of probably no more than a third of the British populace. So what’s 72% of 33%? A permanent minority.
This is great. It’s also great to see the 2nd Amendment bringing more and more Americans together from unlikely backgrounds. A preacherman from Alabama, a lobstah man from Maine and a software junkie from Seattle may not agree on much, but if they can come together and accept each other in the name of the 2nd Amendment? We will be unstoppable.
As Willie Nelson put it so well:
“Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in Texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street for all the people to see”
I support Bloomberg’s efforts to unseat red state democrats. If he is successful then maybe the Republicans can finally take the Senate.
I have a dream….that one day people are judged not by the color of their skin but by the logic or lack thereof of their position. It my hope that a mentally deranged shooter takes an AR something and imposes his will on an anti 2A blow hole.
hey cmon guys, we have the best government money can buy!
everybody is making billions!
“its a big club and you aint in it” -George Carlin-
“We didn’t have enough weapons, we didn’t have enough bullets,” Mr. Spiegel once told an interviewer. “It was like fighting a well-equipped army with firecrackers.”
The progressive Democrats’ dream for America.