In the midst of a deportation Aktion in the ghetto on September 1-4, 1943, the FPO, the Jewish underground organization in the ghetto, urged the inhabitants not to report for deportation and to launch an uprising. The inhabitants ignored the call, believing that they were heading not to death in Ponary, but to labor camps in Estonia, as the Germans had stated and, as it happened, was indeed the case. In the late afternoon on September 1, members of the underground clashed with German forces that were combing the ghetto. In an armed battle, Yechiel Scheinbaum, commander of one of the underground units, "YechielΓÇÖs Combat Group," was killed.
Lest the Germans destroy the entire ghetto in the event of another armed clash, Jacob Gens, the chairman of the Judenrat, delivered to the Germans the entire quota of Jews that they had demanded for the deportation.
