The youth groups that were instrumental in forming the ŻOB had anticipated German intentions to annihilate Warsaw Jewry and began to shift from an educational and cultural focus to self-defense and eventual armed struggle.

[citation needed] A document published three months before the start of the deportations by Hashomer Hatzair declared: "We know that Hitler's system of murder, slaughter and robbery leads steadily to a dead end and the destruction of the Jews.

"[5] A number of the left Zionist youth groups, such as Hashomer Hatzair and Dror, proposed the creation of a self-defense organization at a meeting of Warsaw Jewish leaders in March 1942.

The streets of the ghetto were vacant; most of the remaining 30,000 Jews were hiding in carefully prepared bunkers including their headquarters located in Ulica Miła 18, many of which had electricity and running water, however they offered no route of escape.

When the Germans marched into the ghetto, they met fierce armed resistance from fighters attacking from open windows in vacated apartments.

This advantage was lost when the Germans began systematically burning all of the buildings of the ghetto forcing the fighters to seek cover in the underground bunkers.

On May 8 in the bunker at 18 Mila Street, Jurek Wilner called on the fighters to commit mass suicide to avoid falling into Germans' hands.

Some Jews who escaped the final destruction of the ghetto, including youth group members and leaders Kazik Ratajzer, Zivia Lubetkin, Yitzhak Zuckerman and Marek Edelman, would participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis.

One can still find the left Zionist youth groups Hashomer Hatzair and Habonim Dror in countries such as Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Bulgaria, Canada, Chile, France, Germany, Hungary, Israel, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, South Africa, Switzerland, Ukraine, the United Kingdom, the United States and Uruguay.