Resistance: They Fought Back

[train rattling] STEVEN MEED: When it started to go bad, it was moving incredibly fast.

The deportations were so overwhelming that of those 330,000 people who had been in the ghetto, only 60,000 were left.

[somber music playing] [tense music playing] PATT: The ghetto is sealed.

Anyone caught leaving or entering is shot on sight.

The walls are porous, and the underground finds ways to sneak fighters in and out to obtain weapons one or two at a time.

Vladka is one of those sent across to the Aryan side to try to find weapons.

I think she would have said, if you asked her directly, that she was afraid all the time, but it didn't make a difference.

She always did what was needed to be done.

REENACTOR: "It was a great event for me "when I managed to procure my first revolver, bought from our landlord's nephew for 2,000 zlotys."

"At the end of December, 1942, "we received our first transport of weapons "from the Polish Home Army.

"It was not much.

"There were only 10 pistols in the whole transport, but it enabled us to prepare for our first major action."

[rifles firing] It was the eve of Passover.

That's one of the things I remember her talking about, is standing by the window that saw into the ghetto.

She spoke of watching and of wanting to be in there and of feeling like, uh, she had been ordered not to.

[feet shuffle] [gunshot] REENACTOR: "Sporadic gunfire erupted in the ghetto.

Powerful detonations made the earth tremble."

"The battle had begun."

The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was the first day of Passover.

Think about it.

They went to fight the Germans with the taste of matzo still in their mouths.

And there was matzo made in the ghetto.

"Battle groups "barricaded at the four corners of the street, "opened concentric fire on them.

"German dead soon littered the street.

"The glorious S.S., therefore, "called tanks into action.

"The first was burned out "by one of our incendiary bottles.

"The rest did not approach our positions.

Not a single German left this area alive."

"Something has happened beyond our wildest dreams.

"The Germans had to flee from the ghetto twice.

"The dream of my life has become a reality.

"I have lived to see Jewish self-defense in the ghetto in all of its greatness and splendor."

[sirens blaring] "Couriers crisscrossed the ghetto to warn the Jews.

"'Do not allow yourselves to be taken!

"'Everyone is to hide in their bunkers!

We must all resist!'"

The vast majority of the population had no access to arms, but they identified with the resisters, and they refused to hand themselves over to the Germans.

It was not a passive resistance.

It was an active, unarmed resistance.

And that is, after all, a matter of some 55,000, 60,000 people.

The Jews are hiding.

The Jews are hiding, and the Germans don't succeed in finding Jews.

It's actually unbelievable.

They're entering house after house.

There are houses in which hundreds of Jews are living there, and they cannot find even one.

"I reflect.

"There are so many forms of resistance.

"The courageous ghetto fighters "firing their pistols, "the mother trying to save her baby, "the father refusing to allow his son to be separated, "the family remaining in hiding under the ghetto.

"These, too, are part of the uprising.

These, too, are forms of resistance."