One link from “wiki” about Poles and Ghetto Uprising:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Ghetto_Uprising
Check the “Polish support” section:
"[i]Polish support
Support from outside the Ghetto was limited, but Polish Resistance units from Armia Krajowa (AK) (the Home Army) and Polish Communist Gwardia Ludowa (GL) (the People’s Guard) attacked German sentry units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons, ammunition, and other materials and instructions into the ghetto. Polish resistance also provided the insurgents with badly needed weapons and ammunitions from its meager stocks. AK also disseminated information and appeals to help the Jews in the ghetto, both in Poland and by way of radio transmissions to the Allies. Several ŻOB commanders and fighters escaped through the sewers with assistance from the Poles.
One Polish unit from AK, the National Security Corps (Państwowy Korpus Bezpieczeństwa), under the command of Henryk Iwański “Bystry”, fought inside the Ghetto along with ŻZW. Subsequently, both groups retreated together (including 34 Jewish fighters) to the so-called “Aryan side”. Although Iwański’s action is the most well-known rescue mission, it was only one of many actions undertaken by the Polish resistance to help the Jews. In one attack, three units of AK under command kpt. Józef Pszenny “Chwacki” tried to breach the Ghetto walls with explosives, but the Germans defeated this action. AK and GL engaged the Germans between April 19 and April 23 at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, shooting at German sentries and positions and in one case attempting to blow-up a gate.
Participation of the Polish underground in the uprising was confirmed by a report of the German commander Jürgen Stroop. He wrote that his forces were “…permanently under gun fire behind the ghetto. It means from the Aryan side … When we invaded the Ghetto for the first time, the Jews and the Polish bandits succeeded in repelling the participating units, including tanks and armored cars, by a well-prepared concentration of fire.” He described Iwański’s action: “The main Jewish battle group, mixed with Polish bandits, had already retired during the first and second day to the so-called Muranowski Square. There, it was reinforced by a considerable number of Polish bandits.[/i]”
Of course, there were people who didn’t care what would happen with the Jews inside the Ghetto. I don’t deny that fact. There were also people that were getting the rewards from the Germans for deconspiring the Jews, so-called “Szmalcownicy”. I assume that this kind of people are everywhere, not only among Poles, they are even among Jews (Kapos in death camps?).
I would really appreciate some more reading you do Kate, before you write such posts:
“I certainly would not call the Polish “Home Army” a “Partisan” organisation.
They were national troops in the service of the nation.
German commanders at Warsaw recognised this distinction at the time, possibly, it is said, with one eye on possible postwar court cases…
And for sheer guts, nothing beats the Warsaw uprising of April-June 1943. The various “Combat Organisations” (ZZB, ZZW to name the largest) had little or no outside help, few resources, and only TREBLINKA to look forward to if captured.
Not enough is said of Warsaw in 1943…Fine example of Jews that didn’t just “toe the line”, or be lead away to cattle-cars with barely a whisper of protest, as some like to portray the situation in Poland.
Ordinary Polish people didn’t want to know at the time…their turn would come in 1944, but in 1943, they just sat back and watched while Warsaw Ghetto men women and children fought on against a situation that got more and more desperate.”
And remember that Polish were dying while helping the insurgents in the Ghetto in 1943.
