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This article is about the 1943 uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. For other uprisings named in a similar manner, see Warsaw Uprising (disambiguation).

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the ultimately unsuccessful Jewish insurgency against Nazi Germany's attempt to liquidate the remains of the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during World War II. The main fighting lasted from April 19, 1943 to May 16 of that year when a tenacious but weakly armed and badly supplied resistance was finally crushed by SS-Gruppenführer (then Brigadeführer) Jürgen Stroop. The significant precursor to the main fighting was an armed insurgency launched against the Germans on January 18, 1943.

Background

Starting in 1940, the Nazis began concentrating Poland's population of over 3 million Jews in a number of extremely overcrowded ghettos in various Polish cities. The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto, held 380,000 people in a densely-packed area in the middle of the city. Thousands of Jews were killed by disease or starvation even before the Nazis began massive deportations of the Jews of the ghetto to the Treblinka death camp. In the 52 days before September 12, 1942 about 300,000 Ghetto residents were sent to the extermination camps and killed. At the start of the deportations, members of the Jewish underground met, but decided not to fight, believing that the Jews were really being sent to work camps rather than their death. By the end of 1942, it was clear that the deportations were instead to death camps, and many of the remaining Jews decided to fight. Of those, approximately 750 to 1,000, actually fought.See the US Holocaust Museum "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising"

The fighting

On January 18, 1943, the first instance of armed insurgency occurred when the Germans started the second expulsion of the Jews. The Jewish insurgents achieved noteworthy success. The expulsion stopped after four days and the ŻOB and ŻZW insurgent organizations took control of the Ghetto, building dozens of fighting posts and killing Jews they considered to be collaborators.

As the frustrated Germans diverted additional resources to end the standoff, during the next three months all inhabitants of the Ghetto prepared for what they realized would be the final fight. Hundreds of bunkers were dug under the houses (including 618 air raid bunkers), most connected through the sewage system and linked up with the central water supply and electricity, and in some cases featuring camouflaged air supplies and tunnels leading to safer areas of Warsaw. The Germans eventually committed 821 Waffen SS troops as part of their 2,054 soldiers fighting in the Ghetto, including 363 Polish Navy-Blue Police who had been ordered by Germans to cordon the walls of the Ghetto.From the Stroop Report by SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop, May 1943.

Support from outside the Ghetto was limited, but Polish units from Armia KrajowaAddendum 2 – Facts about Polish Resistance and Aid to Ghetto Fighters, Roman Barczynski, Americans of Polish Descent, Inc. Last accessed on 13 June 2006. (AK) and Gwardia Ludowa attacked German sentry units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons and ammunition inside. AK engaged the Germans on 19th, 20th, 23rd of April at different locations outside the walls attempting to breach the ghettoOne Polish unit from AK, namely Państwowy Korpus Bezpieczeństwa under the command of Henryk Iwański, even fought inside the Ghetto together with ŻZW and then retreated together to the Aryan side.AK disseminated information and appeals to help the Jews in the ghetto, both in Poland and via radio transmissions informing the Allies. Several partisans of ŻOB and part of the command structure with help from the Poles managed escape via canals. Through the Iwański's action was the most famous, it was just one of many actions by the Polish resistance to help the JewsStefan Korbonski, "The Polish Underground State: A Guide to the Underground, 1939-1945", pages 120-139, Excerpts, however in the end the combined efforts of the Polish and Jewish resistance fighters proved to be not enough against the full force of the Nazi war machine.

The final battle started on the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943. Jewish insurgents shot and threw grenades at Nazi patrols from alleyways, sewers, house windows, and even burning buildings. The SS responded by burning the houses block by block and rounding up or killing any Jew they could capture. Significant fighting ended on April 23, and the uprising ended on May 16. Nevertheless, sporadic shooting could be heard in the area of the Ghetto throughout the summer of 1943.

Aftermath and death toll

During the fighting approximately 7,000 of the Jewish residents were killed. An additional 6,000 were burnt alive or gassed in bunkers. The remaining of the 50,000 people were sent to German death camps, mostly to Treblinka extermination camp. Approximately 300 Nazi troops and Jewish collaborators were killed in the uprising.

After the fighting, the Ghetto became the place where Polish prisoners and hostages were executed by Germans. Most of the houses were levelled to the ground. Later the KL Warschau concentration camp was founded in the area of the Ghetto. During the later Warsaw uprising in 1944, Polish Home Army battalion "Zośka" was able to save 380 Jewish concentration camp prisoners from the Gęsiówka and Pawiak prisons, most of whom immediately joined the AK.

The final report of Jürgen Stroop on May 13, 1943, stated:

180 Jews, bandits, and subhumans were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 2015 hours by blowing up the Warsaw Synagogue.

Total number of Jews dealt with 56,065, including both Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved.

Relation to 1944 Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 is sometimes confused with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The two events were separated in time, and were quite different in aim. The first, in the Ghetto, was a choice to die fighting, with a slight hope of escape, rather than a sure death in a concentration camp, with the moment to fight being chosen as the last moment when the strength to fight was still available. The second was a coordinated action, part of the larger Operation Tempest. Still, there are links between the events. A number (approximately 100) of the insurgents from the Ghetto Uprising took part in the later Warsaw Uprising. Some leaders of the Warsaw Uprising took inspiration from the fight in the Ghetto.

In Israel

A number of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, known as the "Ghetto Fighters", including Icchak Cukierman/Yitzhak Zuckerman (ŻOB deputy commander), and his wife, Zivia Lubetkin who was also one of the commanders of the fighting units, went on to found Kibbutz Lohamey ha-Geta'ot in Israel. In 1984 the members of the kibbutz published Dapei Edut ("Testimonies of Survival," interviewed and edited by Zvika Dror), four volumes of personal testimonies from 96 members of the kibbutz. Located north of Acre, the Kibbutz features a museum and archives dedicated to the memory of the Holocaust.

Yad Mordechai, another kibbutz (just North of the Gaza Strip), was named after Mordechai Anielewicz.

See also

References

Fictional Accounts

Further reading

External links

1943 | Ghetto uprisings | Jewish Polish history | Battles of Poland | Military history of Poland during World War II | Uprisings of Poland | History of Warsaw | Urban warfare

Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto | Rivolta del ghetto di Varsavia | מרד גטו ורשה | Opstand in het getto van Warschau | Powstanie w getcie warszawskim | Revolta do Gueto de Varsóvia | Восстание в Варшавском гетто | Warszawaupproret 1943

 

This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising".

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