Jews attempted mass escapes and uprisings in many dozens of ghettos and camps during the Holocaust. This chapter discusses armed resistance in ghettos and camps, looking both at the better-known instances such as the Warsaw ghetto uprising or the Sonderkommando revolt at Auschwitz–Birkenau and also at other cases of armed resistance in ghettos such as Białystok, as well as Sobibór and Treblinka death camps, seeking to identify patterns and connections between these instances.

This chapter explores the pre-war Jewish leadership, pre-war attributes, and political compositions of the three cities: Warsaw, Lodz and Krakow. It examines how the wartime Jewish leadership of these cities were selected shortly after the German invasion from the remaining pre-war prominent community members., the challenges they faced during the early occupation, and the changes in their roles after the creation of the ghettos. This chapter discusses the abuse and violence suffered by the Jewish communal leadership from German authorities while simultaneously enduring an erosion of power to protect their communities. This chapter also examines the creation and closing of each of the ghettos.