Żagiew ("The Torch", ''Die Fackel''), also known as Żydowska Gwardia Wolności (the "Jewish Freedom Guard"), was a
Nazi-collaborationist Jewish
agent-provocateur group in
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
**Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
-occupied Poland, founded and sponsored by the Germans and led by
Abraham Gancwajch
Abraham Gancwajch (1902–1943) was a prominent Nazi collaborator in the Warsaw Ghetto during the World War II occupation of Poland, and a Jewish kingpin of the ghetto underworld. Opinions about his ghetto activities are controversial, though m ...
.
Operations
Many ''Żagiew'' members were related to the collaborationist Jewish organization
Group 13
The Group 13 network ( pl, Trzynastka, Yiddish: ''דאָס דרײַצענטל'') was a Jewish Nazi collaborationist organization in the Warsaw Ghetto during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. The rise and fall of the Group ...
, which was also led by Gancwajch. The organization operated primarily within the
Warsaw Ghetto. Żagiew was established in late 1940 and existed until the Ghetto's elimination during the 1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Żagiew had over a thousand Jewish secret agents
and some were permitted by their
Gestapo handlers to possess firearms.
Żagiew's prime goal was to infiltrate the
Jewish resistance network and reveal its connections with the
Polish underground that aided and hid Jews in the
General Government. The organization was able to inflict considerable damage on both fronts.
[Henryk Piecuch, ''Syndrom tajnych służb: czas prania mózgów i łamania kości'' (A Syndrome of Secret Services: A Time of Brainwashing and of Breaking Bones), Agencja Wydawnicza CB, 1999, .] Żagiew agents were also instrumental in organizing the ''
Hotel Polski'' affair, in Warsaw, a German scheme to lure thousands of wealthy Jews, under false promises of evacuation to South America, into a trap and extort their money and valuables before killing most of them.
See also
*
Chaim Rumkowski
Chaim Mordechaj Rumkowski (February 27, 1877 – August 28, 1944) was the head of the Jewish Council of Elders in the Łódź Ghetto appointed by Nazi Germany during the German occupation of Poland.
Rumkowski accrued much power by transformin ...
*
Group 13
The Group 13 network ( pl, Trzynastka, Yiddish: ''דאָס דרײַצענטל'') was a Jewish Nazi collaborationist organization in the Warsaw Ghetto during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. The rise and fall of the Group ...
Notes
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zagiew
Poland in World War II
Jewish collaboration with Nazi Germany
Jewish Polish history
1940 establishments in Poland
1943 disestablishments in Poland