Moshe Arens (1925–2019)

This is a review of the advanced copy “Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto” by Moshe Arens for LibraryThing Early Reviewers.

The book is meant to set the record straight about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and the role of the Revisionist Jewish Military Organization (ZZW) led by its commander, Pawel Frenkel.

Arens argues that the mainstream histories of the valiant ghetto defenders focus on Mordechai Anielewicz, the commander of the Zionist Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), and the Jewish Socialist Bund as the primary leaders of the resistance to the Nazi plan to deport the remnant of the ghetto Jews to the Treblinka death camp.

Arens traces the bitter ideological differences between Ze’ev Jabotinsky, the founder of the Revisionists (the forerunner of today’s Likud), and the World Zionist Organization, differences which prevented these armed networks from working together to face their common enemy as the Nazis commenced deporting some 365,000 ghetto Jews to Treblinka.

The result was that the surviving members of ZOB who fought the Nazis refused to acknowledge the role of its rival organization and excluded them from memoirs and books that recount the fight against Nazis in Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

People appreciate when the record is set straight. This reviewer is recommending this book and rates the book with 4 1/2 out of 5 stars.… (mais)

This is the first book that I have read about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. I was of course very familiar with the general story - from articles, memorials and special museum exhibits, like the one at the kibbutz that bears the name of the leader of uprising Mordechai Anilewicz. I don't think I was aware that the heroes of the uprising, as it has been memorialized, were all members of the left wing and communist Jewish youth groups that abounded in Poland before and during the war - and which, of course, all had their political counterparts in Palestine and later Israel. The case Moshe Arens makes is that, because members of these organizations were virtually the only ones to survive the uprising and tell the tale, we consequently have heard nothing about the role that the right wing Revisionists played. In fact, it has been deliberately obscured and marginalized.
Arens painstakingly reconstructs, from multiple sources, the days of the uprising and documents impartially the role of the ZOB, the left wing groups' fighting organization, as well as that of the ZZW , the Revisionist fighters. Apart from the grim facts of the Germans' determination to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto, and the selfless heroism of all the Jewish fighters, I was shocked by the revelation that - even in the face of impending extermination - the right and left could not put aside their political differences to form a common fighting front. According to Arens, the Revisionists - who had already formed a Jewish defense organization, Betar - were the better prepared and better armed of the two. It took the left wing organizations much longer to organize; in fact resolving their own internal political differences - between the Bundists, the socialist groups and the communists - and setting up a political coordination committee, was a necessary prerequisite for setting up a fighting organization. The Bundists and the communists were concerned throughout to coordinate all their activities with the non-Jewish Polish resistance movements whose political agenda they shared, and from whom they received very little help during the uprising. Betar were apparently prepared to welcome people of any affiliation into their organization, whereas the left wings groups' antagonism toward the Revisionists was such as to preclude them joining with them.
Arens' account leaves no doubt that during and after the days of the uprising, all of the fighters - whatever their political affiliation - gave of their utmost and displayed unbelievable determination and valor in the face of what they knew would almost certainly be their own personal extinction. Whether the ultimate outcome would have been different had the two groups fought as a unified force, is doubtful. But that is not the author's point; he just wants to set the record straight in the face of what he says has been a deliberate attempt to manipulate the historical record for political purposes. Given the multiple sources he cites - including the daily journal of the SS officer in charge of the operation against the ghetto, which is quoted in full in an appendix - one is left in no doubt about the major role of the Revisionist fighters in the uprising, nor about its subsequent excision from the many accounts and memorials.… (mais)

What a perfect time to read this book! I was full well aware of a Jewish Resistance in Poland during World War II, but I was absolutely unclear of the actual group. Come to find out that it was actually 'groups'. I have read snippets here and there and have seen enactments in movies, but had generalized all that information. It appears that the one I had been reading about all this time was the one that was never really recognized or discussed. Why would they be? They were all murdered, so really, there was no one left to really talk about it. A must read for anyone interested in underground resistance groups. There is quite a bit of history and back info in this book.… (mais)