The warsaw ghetto uprising

Mordechai Anielewicz was the leader of the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB). In English this translates to Jewish Combat Organization. Even though he was only 23 during the time of the uprising, Mordechai was able to lead the single largest Jewish armed resistance against the Nazis during the Holocaust. Born to a poor family in 1919, Anielewicz lived in Warsaw his whole life. It didn't take him long to become involved in social organizations that brought out his skills as an organizer and leader. He joined the Zionist movement ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir and was a full time underground activist. He set up youth groups and underground newspapers. By mid-1941 he started to concentrating his efforts on transforming the underground youth movements into an armed resistance. He also began creating self-defense organizations in the ghetto. As commander of the ZOB, Anielewicz was always trying to stop the injustices. He was always in the midst of the fight. Later, when the Germans began to burn down the ghetto, Anielewicz and the main group of fighters were killed in the bunker to which they had retreated. Emmanuel Ringelblum, the official Warsaw Ghetto archivist, wrote the following about Mordechai:

"Mordechai threw himself into the defense activity with all his zeal. Together with other groups and parties the Fighters' Organization was created, at whose head the coordinating commission of the political organization placed Comrade Mordechai. ...Mordechai was the soul of the organization, one of its most devoted workers."