Handwritten map of German cities with locations of extermination camps in Germany - created by members of the underground ŻZW - Żydowski Związek Wojskowy - the Jewish Military Union in Poland, with the organization's name abbreviated and disguised as a cartographic marking of a large Z, next to a small z, and a smeared W. [Poland or Germany, 1944] Rare.
On the map, the camps of Ravensbrück (in the Templin district of the state of Brandenburg, Germany), Ohrdruf (near the city of Weimar), Sachsenhausen (the main concentration camp for the Berlin area), and Nordhausen (Dora-Mittelbau - a sub-camp of Buchenwald) are enclosed in squares. The map appears to have been made by a member of the Jewish underground in 1944, towards the end of the war, since the Ohrdruf camp was established in November 1944, and is one of the camps marked on this map. Only these four camps are enclosed on the map, and the main routes between the different cities and camps are marked. Apparently, the map served the underground in attempts to reach the vicinity of the camps, as well as to assist those who managed to escape from the camps. The main routes are marked in thick black ink, secondary routes in green, and the scale in kilometers in red.
The Jewish Military Union, Żydowski Związek Wojskowy in polish (ŻZW) - an armed Jewish underground organization established during World War II, manned mainly by members of Beitar, Brit HaHayal, and the Revisionist movement in the Warsaw Ghetto. The ŻZW operated in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in parallel with the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB), which was composed mainly of socialists. The organizing for the establishment of the ŻZW began c. November 1939. By early 1940, six battalions had been formed in Poland. Recruitment to the cells was secret, and a high degree of separation was maintained between one cell and another. Contact was maintained with the Polish underground and with sources outside Warsaw, people were recruited, and weapons training was conducted. In the organization's early years before the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, it was mainly involved in smuggling Jews from areas under Nazi occupation to the Soviet Union. With the establishment of the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1940, the ŻZW began operating as an organized underground organization responsible for digging escape tunnels out of the ghetto and was one of the prominent Jewish underground organizations during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Size: 33x28 cm. Glued on paper and divided into squares. Overall good condition.
