Hashomer Hatzair

Commissioned by Jacobin in commemoration of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. In this article, I describe the physical and psychological conditions of the ghetto and its young inhabitants, the new situations various pre-war Jewish socialist organisations found themselves in, the contemporary attitudes of the socialists themselves, and the organisation and activation of armed resistance.

About 600 young members of the Hashomer Hatzair Zionist-Socialist youth movement who fled from Poland at the beginning of WWII to Lithuanian-controlled Vilna formed a collective group there, a 'Rikuz'. Despite poor physical and material conditions, they led a rich cultural, intellectual, and spiritual life, which they documented intensively. Their detailed first-person ego-documentation consisted of writings and photographs. This unique body of documents survived, brought to Eretz-Israel, and preserved. Interestingly, the unusual story of the Rikuz in Vilna, although exceptional and well documented, was not researched enough nor brought to public attention. The article analyses the documents and discusses the possible reasons for this omission. It aims to tell the Rikuz's story as was perceived by its protagonists and reclaim its rightful place in historical acknowledgment.