The Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) was established in the Warsaw Ghetto while 300,000 Jews were being removed in mass deportations. In the lengthy discussions that preceded the founding of the ZOB, some participants argued that the Germans would not annihilate the Jews of Warsaw because of the cityΓÇÖs central location and because they did not wish to forfeit the JewsΓÇÖ labor capacity. An underground organization, they said, might endanger the entire ghetto and prompt the Germans to liquidate it. The great deportation rendered these considerations largely irrelevant. The goals of the ZOB were Jewish self-defense and armed struggle against the Germans. Its first constituents were three Zionist youth movements: Ha-Shomer ha-TzaΓÇÖir, Dror, and Akiva. The ZOB urged the ghetto inhabitants to resist deportation, but, at the same time, was unable to engage in combat operations and reprisals. In practice, only after the great deportation did the ZOB make strong inroads among the surviving ghetto Jews and manage to organize, amass influence, and obtain weapons.
