To honour those who resisted, never stop resisting oppression
JVL Introduction
Today, April 19th 2024, marks the 81st anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising. We are pleased to publish the Jewish Socialist Group’s statement that concludes: “The best way to honour the ghetto resisters is to commit ourselves to opposing injustice wherever it exists. We must continue to challenge those with power in our own community to stop aligning with the oppressors in the world but to stand up with and for the oppressed and participate in building the world of dignity and freedom that those resisters dreamt of.”
We take inspiration as JVL from the words of Marek Edelman (a leader of the uprising, quoted and pictured below) and from the fact that we have seen and continue to see resistance wherever there is oppression; sometimes it is vibrant and forceful, sometimes desperate and barely visible; but giving up is not an option. And for 76 years we have seen the resistance of Palestinians, especially but not only, through steadfastness, “sumud”, resistance through existence, refusing to move and with a determination to carry on with their lives.
France provides another example of the need to keep up the fight even when you think it is won. When neoliberal Presidents such as Sarkozy and Macron claimed to be the upholders of the values of the courageous French Resistance fighters, many people, eg organised through Citoyens Résistants d’Hier et d’Aujourd’hui: (Citizens who resist of yesterday and today) argued rather that honouring the resisters means upholding the Resistance values of solidarity, fraternity, living together and of justice as expressed in the 15 March 1944 manifesto of the Conseil national de la Résistance agreement on which was achieved, across political divides as the way to create a post occupation France that worked for the people.
Resistance to oppression is essential and ongoing; having a vision based on justice for the future is also vital. We are inspired by the heroes of the past and of the present and will do our utmost to uphold those values.
LL
This article was originally published by Jewish Socialist Group on Fri 19 Apr 2024. Read the original here.
How do we honour the ghetto resisters?
Jewish Socialist Group statement on the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
“The most important thing is life, and where there is life, the most important thing is freedom.”
These words were spoken by Marek Edelman, a Jewish socialist, an internationalist and proud anti-fascist, who was Second in Command in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that began on this day, 19th April, in 1943. He died in Poland in 2009, the last surviving member of the command group that led the Uprising.
We honour him and his hundreds of comrades, aged 13-43, who fought an armed guerrilla battle for nearly four weeks against the vastly superior numbers and firepower of their oppressors, who had forced them into a walled ghetto in November 1940, cutting them off from the world. Their occupiers and oppressors dehumanised them and used enslavement, starvation and the spread of disease as weapons long before they brought in their tanks to finish the job.
Those hundreds who rose up in open combat against their oppressors were part of a ghetto population that peaked at nearly half a million, which had been waging a battle for life and for hope, every day.
They did so by holding on to their humanity, by building the most incredible networks of mutual aid, and by somehow keeping their vision of a world of freedom and dignity that could come into being beyond their immediate dire situation.
Today we remember and honour those who fought in that final battle, as well as those who were deported to death camps many months before that battle, and those who stubbornly fought for life but succumbed to starvation and disease before that uprising.
In 2024, in a world where the forces of hate and destruction are running rampant in real time before our eyes, and where authoritarians, ethno-nationalists, racists and fascists are gaining in strength in many countries across the globe, it is important to remember the examples of courage and resilience that were shown in the Warsaw Ghetto. We need to acknowledge the efforts of those of all ethnicities and nationalities today who campaign and fight for a better, more sustainable and peaceful future for humanity.
The best way to honour the ghetto resisters is to commit ourselves to opposing injustice wherever it exists. We must continue to challenge those with power in our own community to stop aligning with the oppressors in the world but to stand up with and for the oppressed and participate in building the world of dignity and freedom that those resisters dreamt of.
In Warsaw today, 19th April, there was a grassroots commemorative march gathering at the monument to Szmul Zygielbojm, Józefa Lewartowskiego 6
Heroes all
My father was taken from Torun , a city about 100 miles from Warsaw . He had seen the cattle trucks , full of innocent people , and heard the cries for water coming from the cramped trucks . That had a affect on my father . He was taken at 14 , but , along with another boy , they managed to escape after two years . They took another year to get to France . Then across to Britain , where he joined the free Polish army . My father had nightmares , depression and mood swings (PTSD) right up until he died . We should honour all who resisted , and all the other innocents who were murdered , by never letting this happen to any people , irrespective of race , religion or colour .
Joseph Gorniak’s story, brings home the impact of continual oppression, brutal oppression, where your life could end at any moment. Even though they had the courage to keep fighting against the oppressors, after it is all over and you become free, it can still impact your life and you suffer with some serious mental stresses and strains, which never fade away. Thousands of Palestinians will almost certainly suffer similar symptoms. What angers and frustrates us is the Zionists are being allowed to get away with their Nakba that’s never ceased since 1948 and right now they are openly Ethnically Cleansing the Palestinians, not only in Gaza but there is increased murders, beatings and property theft in the West Bank, of which the MSM is silent.
In 1942, on orders from Hitler after the German Reichprotektor Reinhard Heydrich was assassinated, 200 men of the town of Lidice in Czechoslovakia
aged over 15 were shot dead in one of the most grave war crimes of the 20th century.
Fast forward 80 years and 35,000 Palestinian men woman and children have been deliberately murdered by the Israeli state, and they have been cheered on by Western Leaders [no ceasefire] i.e. Israel has a right to defend herself, no it does not, as an occupying power it has limited rights to do so and all must be within the parameters of the Geneva conventions.
Now the Police are hunting down critics of Israel. This is disgusting.