I had an interesting conversation with a survivor from Hungary many years back. During the 40s he was a young Zionist, By the 1990s he was a non/anti-Zionist. He felt that the dividing line in whether you were likely to resist rested on two things. One, there was a divide between those who thought there was a point to resistance and those who had become fatalistic that crossed ideological boundaries; secondly he said there was a divide between those who went into the ghettoes with clearly formed political ideas and those who didn’t; with those in the first category much more likely to take part in resistance activity.

The point I was emphasising yesterday was that for the Bundists the fight against nazi antisemitism in the ’40s was a continuation of the fight they had waged against antisemitism in the 30s whereas for the Zionists (left and right) fighting antisemitism was largely a new departure. Anyway, hope you will be interested in hearing Wlodka speak – she incidentally had a Bundist father and left-Zionist mother – a mixed marriage so to speak!

You misrepresent the role of the youth groups in Eastern Europe. Their role was not just to prepare for settlement in Palestine. To many of the youth groups, especially the Betar, Zionism was as much a renewal of spirit in terms of discipline and attitude, as it was of the practicalities of settlement. Betar’s emphasis on military training promoted resistance to provocation, especially after the rise of the Maximalists. To the Socialist-Zionist groups – and in the context of this post I’m thinking mainly HaShomer HaTsayir – aliyah was a central concept and the ultimate aim, but the core principles of their sort of romantic-nationlist-socialism included universalist elements which encouraged their continued presence in Europe to struggle for a free society for all.

I do not dispute that the Bundist groups played a key part in the actual uprising, yet I have not read anything that would indicate that they were the instigators of the resistance, as you suggest. Zionist resistance groups were active well before 1942 – that cannot be disputed. The JCO was almost entierly formed from the Polish branches of the Zionist HaShomer HaTsayir, who were among the first to resist and the backbone of the revolt, by most accounts. Additionally the JMU included many Zionist Betar and Tsohar members who had trained with the Polish army from the second half of the 30s – their role was certainly not limited and certainly not short-lived, as you suggest. As an aside, I seem to recall reading that Anilewicz’s military training had in fact come from the Betar.

None of this discounts the role of Bundists and, of course, the Polish Resistance groups. Yet there is a reason why many of the narratives of the Uprising are Zionist-skewed, and that’s because the Zionists played the central part. That’s not just a construction of Zionist historiography. As much as it’s important to remember all those who resisted, any anti-Zionist appropriation of the Uprising – especially one whose history relies on such selective sources – is just as bad as a Zionist appropriation.

When antisemitism became stronger in Poland from the mid’30s onwards, especially with the activities of the far right Nara, the fight against antisemtism was led by two closely cooperating defence forces of the Bund and the Polish Socalist Party (PPS) Left. The only Zionist faction to take part in this work in the 1930s were “Left Poale Zion” (who incidentally also supported the Bund’s pro-Yiddish stance). Other Zionist parties from left to right took no part at all in the fight against antisemitism before the war and concentrated on preparing “pioneers” for Palestine.

The Zionist parties paid for this neglect at the last municipal elections in Poland before the war when their vote was decimated, with the anti-Zionist Bund being the main beneficiaries- winning 60-70 per cent of Jewish votes in many cities.

When the Nazis invaded Poland in September 1939, again it was the PPS/Bund alliance that organised workers battalions to try and defend Warsaw. Inside the ghetto the Bund maintained an underground militia and produced a regular underground publication calling for resistance. it was not until deep into 1942 that courageous Zionist youth groups responded to these calls in revolt against the older Zionist leaderships, and made common cause with Commnists who were up for resistance.

The Bund had an unbroken and consistent position of resistance, fro the 1930s, though they initially stayed aloof from the Zionist and communist groups that they had had longstanding ideological battles with. They put more trust in the contacts they were trying to maintain outside the ghetto with the PPS.

In July 1942 a Bundist “courier” with cooperation from a railway worker (who was a member of the PPS) smuggled themselves on to a train and found out that the deportees from the Warsaw Ghetto were being transported to Treblinka to be murdered en masse. The underground Bund paper published this news with a call to resistance but it still took a while for that call to bear fruit.

By late autumn 1942 the political differences were set aside and in Warsaw (and in other ghettoes) varying combinations of left-Zionists, Bundists and Communists led the armed resistance (in Warsaw the commander was the left wing Zionist, Mordechai Anielewicz).

Significant Bundists such as Marek Edelman (2nd in command in the uprising) and Bernard Goldstein remained hidden in Warsaw after the uprising and took part as organised Jewish resistance fighters in the ’44 Polish uprising too.

Right wing Zionist organisations were well connected with Polish gangsters and right wing Polish army officers outside the ghetto and procured a decent number of arms but their actual involvement in resistance was relatively limited and short lived.

There have been many attempts by Zionist historians to play up the role of Zionists and downplay or marginalise the role of the Bund but the evidence is there in the memoirs of participants such as Goldstein, Edelman, Vladka Meed and in the archives of the Jewish Labour Movement (held at the Yiddish Institute (YIVO) in New York.)