On January 18, 1943, the Germans again began to deport Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto. Believing that the final liquidation of the ghetto was at hand, the ZOB, the Jewish Fighting Organization, sent two companies into action. One unit, armed with handguns, planted itself in a convoy of Jews who had been captured and were being led to the umschlagplatz (the collection point for deportation) . When the signal was given, they engaged the groupΓÇÖs German escorts in hand-to-hand combat. Several German soldiers fell in the battle, and almost all the Jewish fighters perished. The second unit, elsewhere in the ghetto, greeted German soldiers with a hail of gunfire.
January 18 was a critical day for the ZOB, marking the organizationΓÇÖs baptism by fire and prompting a crucial change in the behavior of the ghetto inhabitants. The Jews in the ghetto stopped obeying the GermansΓÇÖ orders to leave their homes and report to collection points. We know today that the Aktion in January was not part of a German scheme to liquidate the ghetto; the Nazis intended to remove only a few thousand Jews. However, the ZOB response had a strong effect on morale: Jews interpreted the GermansΓÇÖ decision to halt the Aktion as a sign of weakness and a retreat that they had brought about by use of force.
