Broide, Josef | Los Angeles Museum of the Holocaust

Josef Broide resided in the Bialystok ghetto during the war, and was one of the young resistance members who fought in the Ghetto Uprising. The Bialystok Ghetto Uprising was organized and led by Anti-Fascist Combat Organization, a subdivision of the Anti-Fascist Block. The uprising in Bialystok ghetto is regarded as the second of its magnitude after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Until February 1943 there were approximately 15,000 people still living in the Bialystok ghetto. The Nazis planned the liquidation of the ghetto in February, but due to the outbreak of armed resistance, the plan had been thwarted. However, the deportations to concentration and extermination camps continued at the same pace. The liquidation of the ghetto was resumed in August 1943. During the nights of 15 and 16 of August 1943, several hundred ghetto Jews began armed resistance against the German liquidation action. The Bialystok Ghetto Uprising had no chances of military success. However, many saw it as a way to die in combat rather than be subdued to the Germans. Skirmishes at the isolated pockets of resistance lasted for several days, while the genuine uprising was defeated. A number of Jewish commanders committed suicide after their bunkers ran out of munitions. Most of the remaining ghetto Jews were deported to Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz. Approximately 1,200 children were sent to Theresienstadt ghetto and later deported to Auschwitz.

Several dozen resistance fighters managed to break through and escaped to the forests surrounding Bialystok, where they joined the units of Polish Home Army (Armia Krajowa) or the Soviet partisans. Largely, these people survived the war. The author of this memoir, Josef Broide, was one of them. After the war he settled in Maracaibo, Venezuela.