The comments thread brings up the question of whether armed Jews could have actually stopped the Nazis and changed things.
The Warsaw ghetto is often shown as an example of yes, but that uprising didn't change the ultimate outcome; the Nazis took Warsaw and killed those jews. I say it's not a good example. It's a good case study for showing that any gun is useful to resistance.
The example I think makes our point is the Bielski's. They even made a movie about it. They armed themselves, remained armed and lived to the end. Success!
For various reasons, we hear a lot more about the Warsaw Ghetto than about the later Warsaw uprising. The Poles fought so hard that they got POW status (at first, the Germans had described them as "bandits," and had planned to execute any rebels they captured alive) and when they marched out, in perfect order, to surrender, some German soldiers and units saluted them.
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