Everything about The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising totally explained
The
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (German:
"Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto", Polish:
"Powstanie w getcie warszawskim") was the
Jewish insurgency that arose within the
Warsaw Ghetto in
Poland during
World War II, and which opposed
Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the
Treblinka extermination camp. The insurgency was launched against the Germans on
January 18 1943. The most significant portion of the insurgency took place from
April 19 until
May 16,
1943, and ended when the poorly-armed and supplied resistance was crushed by the German troops under the direct command of
Jürgen Stroop. It was the largest single revolt by the Jews during
the Holocaust.
Background
ghettos located in various Polish cities. The largest of these, the
Warsaw Ghetto, concentrated approximately 400,000 people into a densely packed central area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews died due to rampant
disease and
starvation, even before the Nazis under the
SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik began their massive
deportations from the ghetto to the
Treblinka extermination camp. Approximately 300,000 Ghetto residents met their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp in the 52 days preceding
September 12,
1942.
When the deportations first began, members of the
Jewish resistance movement met and decided not to fight the directives, believing that the Jews were being sent to
labour camps and not to their deaths. By the end of 1942, however, it became clear that the deportations were part of an extermination process, and many of the remaining Jews decided to resist.
The fighting
January 1943 rebellion
On
January 18,
1943, the Germans began their second deportation of the Jews, which led to the first instance of armed insurgency within the ghetto. While Jewish families hid in their "bunkers," Germans and the
Jewish Combat Organization (
Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) fighters engaged in two direct clashes. As a consequence, even as the ŻOB suffered severe losses (among them
Yitzhak Gitterman), the deportation was halted within a few days, and only 5,000 Jews were removed instead of the 8,000 as planned by Globocnik.
Two resistance organizations, the
Jewish Military Union (
Żydowski Związek Wojskowy, ŻZW) and the ŻOB took control of the Ghetto. They built dozens of fighting posts and executed Jews whom they considered to be Nazi collaborators, including
Jewish Police officers and
Gestapo agents. The ŻOB established a prison to hold and execute traitors and collaborators.
Józef Szeryński, the former head of the Jewish Police, committed suicide.
Opposing forces
Jewish insurgents
]
Ghetto fighters were armed, if at all, mostly with only a
pistols and
revolvers of a limited value in combat with just a few
rifles and
automatic firearms available. The insurgents had little ammunition, and relied heavily on
improvised explosive devices and
incendiary bottles. Some more weapons were supplied throughout the uprising or captured from the Germans. In his report of May 24, 1943, Stroop claimed to have captured a total of "seven Polish rifles, one Russian and one German rifle, 59 pistols of various calibers, several hundred incendiary bottles, home-made explosives, infernal machines with fuses, a large amount of explosives and ammunition for weapons of all calibers, including some machinegun ammunition" (adding that his forces were able to recover only a small part of the insurgent weapons).
Polish support
Support from outside the Ghetto was limited, but
Polish Resistance units from
Armia Krajowa (AK) (the Home Army) and
Polish Communist Gwardia Ludowa (the People's Guard) attacked German sentry units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons and ammunition into the ghetto. Polish resistance also provided the insurgents with badly needed weapons and ammunitions from its meager stocks. AK also disseminated information and appeals to help the Jews in the ghetto, both in Poland and by way of
radio transmissions to the Allies. In the first day of uprising 19 April 1943 three units of AK under command kpt.
Józef Pszenny"Chwacki" tried to breach the Ghetto walls with
anti-tank mines but the Germans defeated this action. AK engaged the Germans between
April 19 and
April 23 at different locations outside the ghetto walls, in a futile attempt to breach them.
Nazi forces
Ultimately, the combined efforts of the Polish and Jewish resistance fighters proved insufficient against the German forces. The Germans eventually committed an average daily force of 2,090 well-armed troops, including 821
Waffen-SS Panzergrenadier troops (consisting of five SS
reserve and
training battalions and one SS
cavalry reserve and training battalion), as well as 363 Polish
Blue Policemen, who were ordered by the Germans to cordon the walls of the Ghetto.
The other forces were drawn from the SS
Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) "order police" (battalions from the
regiments 22rd and 23rd), the SS
Sicherheitsdienst (SD)
security service, Warsaw
Gestapo, one battalion each from two
Wehrmacht railroad combat engineers regiments, a battery of
Wehrmacht anti-aircraft artillery (and one
field gun), a battalion of
Ukrainian Trawniki-Männer from the SS
Final Solution training camp
Trawniki,
Lithuanian and
Latvian
auxiliary policemen known by the nickname
Askaris (Latvian
Arajs Kommando and Lithuanian
Saugumas), and technical emergency corps. Polish
fire brigade personnel were forced to help in the operation. In addition, a number of
Gestapo jailers and
executioners from the nearby
Pawiak prison, under the command of
Franz Bürkl, volunteered to hunt for the Jews. Most of the remaining Jewish policemen were executed by the
Gestapo, or used in the offensive and then subsequently executed as well.
The Jewish insurgents achieved noteworthy success against von Sammern-Frankenegg's forces, and he subsequently lost his post as the
SS and police commander of Warsaw. He was replaced by
SS-Gruppenführer (then
Brigadeführer) Jürgen Stroop, who rejected von Sammern-Frankenegg's proposal to call in
bomber aircraft from
Kraków and proceeded with a better-organized ground assault that included artillery support.
The longest-lasting defense of a position took place around the ŻZW stronghold at
Muranowski Square from April 19 to late April. In the afternoon of April 19, two boys climbed up on the roof of the concrete headquarters of the ŻZW at Muranowski Square and raised two flags: the red-and-white
Polish flag and the blue-and-white ŻZW flag (blue and white are the colors of the
flag of Israel today). These flags were well-seen from the Warsaw streets and remained atop the house for four entire days, despite German attempts to remove them. Stroop recalled:
The matter of the flags was of great political and moral importance. It reminded hundreds of thousands of the Polish cause, it excited them and unified the population of the General-Government, but especially Jews and Poles. Flags and national colors are a means of combat exactly like a rapid-fire weapon, like thousands of such weapons. We all knew that - Heinrich Himmler, Krüger, and Hahn. The Reichsfuehrer [Himmler] bellowed into the phone: "Stroop, you must at all costs bring down those two flags."
Another German armoured vehicle was destroyed in an insurgent
counterattack, in which ŻZW commander
Dawid Apfelbaum was also killed. After Stroop's
ultimatum to surrender was rejected by the defenders, the Nazis resorted to systematically burning houses block by block with
flamethrowers and blowing up basements and sewers: "
We were beaten by the flames, not the Germans," recalled
Marek Edelman in 2007.
The ŻZW lost all its leaders and, on
April 29,
1943, the remaining fighters escaped the ghetto through the Muranowski tunnel, and relocated to the
Michalin forest. This event marked the end of the organized resistance, and of significant fighting.
The remaining Jews, civilians and surviving fighters took cover in the "bunker" dugouts which were carefully hidden among the largely burned-out ruins of the ghetto. The German troops employed dogs to discover the hideouts, using
smoke grenades and
tear gas (and reportedly even
poison gas) to force Jews out. In many instances, the Jews came out of their hiding places firing at the Germans, while a number of female fighters lobbed hidden grenades or fired concealed handguns after they'd surrendered. Small groups of Jewish insurgents engaged German patrols in night-time skirmishes. However, German losses were minimal following the first ten days of the uprising.
On
May 8,
1943, the Germans discovered the ŻOB's main
command post, located at
Miła 18 Street. Most of its leadership and dozens of remaining fighters were killed, while others committed
mass suicide by ingesting
cyanide. The dead included the organization's commander,
Mordechaj Anielewicz. His deputy, Edelman, escaped through the sewers on
May 10 with a handful of comrades. Two days later, the
Bundist Szmul Zygielbojm committed suicide in
London in protest, citing a lack of assistance for the insurgents on the part of Western governments:
I can't continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being murdered. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I wasn't permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people.
The suppression of the uprising officially ended on
May 16,
1943. Nevertheless, sporadic shooting could be heard within the Ghetto throughout the summer of 1943. The uprising was put down conclusively in a battle which took place on
June 5,
1943 between Germans and a group of Jewish fighters without connection to the resistance groups.
Death toll
Approximately 13,000 Jewish residents were killed during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from
smoke inhalation). Of the remaining 50,000 inhabitants, most were captured and shipped to concentration and extermination camps, in particular to Treblinka.
Jürgen Stroop's final report, written on
May 13 1943, stated:
180 Jews, bandits and sub-humans, were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 20:15 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. (...) Apart from 8 buildings (police barracks, hospital, and accommodations for housing working-parties) the former Ghetto is completely destroyed. Only the dividing walls are left standing where no explosions were carried out.
Pictures
Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 04.jpg|The original German caption reads: "Jewish Rabbis." Interrogation by SS-Oberscharführer
Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 08.jpg|The original German caption reads: "These bandits resisted by force of arms."
Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 12.jpg|A group of Jews executed on the spot after their capture in the ruins of the Ghetto
Image:Stroop J.jpg|SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop in the American military custody during the Dachau Trials
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