One Machine Gun Against Tanks: The Bialystok Ghetto Uprising

We've all heard of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, but many don't know that three months later there was another significant Jewish rebellion, this time in the Bialystok Ghetto.

In June 1941, the Germans captured Bialystok from the Russians. Situated in northeastern Poland, it fell under Russian control due to the Ribbentrop-Molotov Pact. In the initial days of German occupation, a horrific massacre of Jews occurred. Arthur Nebe, the commander of the Berlin police, along with a band of murderers and a Ukrainian auxiliary force, gathered a thousand Jews in a synagogue and burned them alive. An additional four thousand Jews were killed during this time. Later, Nebe was executed by hanging on Hitler's orders following a dispute between them.

In August 1941, all 50,000 of Bialystok's Jews were crammed into a few streets forming the Bialystok Ghetto. They faced starvation and were forced into labor. By February 1943, 10,000 ghetto residents were sent to extermination camps, and 2,000 elderly Jews unable to board the trains were shot on the spot. In August 1943, the Germans decided to liquidate the ghetto. The Jews resolved to resist the liquidation forcefully and avoid going like lambs to the slaughter.

Leading the resistance was Mordechai Tenenbaum, who had previously been involved in organizing the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The rebels had just one machine gun, a few dozen pistols, Molotov cocktails, and acid bottles. Despite the bleak odds against tanks and machine guns, they decided to put up a fight and not surrender passively. For three days, the rebels held their ground. Although the Germans managed to enter and move around the ghetto, 72 fighters were holed up in a bunker on Chemielna Street 7 with abundant weapons and food. This well-concealed bunker allowed them to stay hidden much longer until, possibly due to a betrayal or an unknown cause, the Germans ambushed them at the entrance and killed everyone inside.

In other parts of the ghetto, rebels managed to hold out one more day while the Germans systematically obliterated them. The leaders, Mordechai Tenenbaum and Daniel Moszkowicz, chose to commit suicide rather than be captured. Another bunker located at Fabrichna Street 9, under a cotton factory, went undiscovered by the Germans. Fighters stayed there for two months until it was safe to escape. Several dozens managed to flee and join others who escaped during the uprising, later integrating into the "Armia Krajowa," the notable partisan group in the Bialystok region.

One of the uprising survivors was Eva Kracowska, who was later awarded the "Knight's Cross" of the Order of Merit of Poland by President Bronisław Komorowski for her exceptional service in fostering Polish-Jewish relations.

Upon returning home after the war, she found that none of her extended family survived. Polish squatters occupied her family home and slammed the door in her face, forcing her to sleep in a city park until she decided to leave. Although she married a fellow partisan she met during the fight, she maintained her maiden name, "Kracowska," hoping distant family might recognize it. For seventy years, Eva waited to be found until 2013 when her niece, Ida Kracowska, noticed the familiar name and reached out. They reunited when Eva was in her 90s during her visit to Bialystok for the 70th anniversary of the uprising in August 2013. Eva Kracowska passed away at 93 in her home in Ramat Gan. She was the last known survivor of the Bialystok Ghetto.