Jewish Combat Organisation

The ŻOB was founded by members of Zionist youth movements – Hashomer Hatzair, Dror and Akiva – during the Great Action, the mass deportation to Treblinka. In autumn 1942 the Bund joined it, and politically it answered to the Jewish National Committee. It obtained weapons, always in short supply, from the Home Army and the People's Guard, and bought the rest on the 'Aryan' side. The Jewish Military Union was a separate organisation.

On 18 January 1943 ŻOB fighters opened fire on the Germans for the first time, and on 19 April they launched the Ghetto Uprising, with around 500 fighters of their own. Anielewicz died on 8 May in the bunker at 18 Miła Street; survivors escaped through the sewers. ŻOB units also operated in Kraków, Częstochowa and the Zagłębie region, and its envoys prepared resistance in Białystok. In 1944 a group of survivors fought in the Warsaw Uprising.