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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
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The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (; ) was the Jewish insurgency that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied 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 rebellion 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.
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Encyclopedia
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (; ) was the Jewish insurgency that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied 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 rebellion 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
In 1940, the Nazis began concentrating Poland's population of over three million Jews into a number of extremely crowded ghettos located in large Polish cities. The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto, concentrated approximately 300,000–400,000 people into a densely packed central area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews died due to rampant disease and starvation under the SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik and SS-Standartenführer http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?t=36303&highlight=griesche Ludwig Hahn, even before the mass deportations from the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp began.
The Nazi forces conducted most of the deportations during the operation code-named Grossaktion Warschau, between July 23 and September 21 1942. Approximately 254,000–300,000 Ghetto residents met their deaths at Treblinka during the 2 months long operation. The Grossaktion was directed by SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, the commander of the Warsaw area since 1941. He was relieved of duty by SS-and-Polizeiführer Jürgen Stroop sent to Warsaw by Heinrich Himmler on April 17, 1943. Stroop took over from Sammern following his unsuccessful ghetto offensive. Just before the operation began, the German "Resettlement Commissioner" SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle called the meeting of the Ghetto Jewish Council Judenrat and informed its leader Adam Czerniaków about the "resettlement to the East". Czerniakow committed suicide once he became aware of the true meaning of the Nazi treacherous plan.
When the deportations first began, members of the Jewish resistance movement met and decided not to fight the SS directives, believing that the Jews were being sent to labour camps and not to their deaths. By the end of 1942 however, it became known to Ghetto inhabitants that the deportations were part of an extermination process. 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 (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ZOB) fighters engaged in two direct clashes. As a consequence, even as the ZOB 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. There were hundreds of people in the Warsaw ghetto ready to fight, adults and children, scarcely armed with handguns and a few other weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto.
Two resistance organizations, the Jewish Military Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy, ZZW) and the ZOB took control of the Ghetto. They built dozens of fighting posts and executed individuals who collaborated with the Germans, including Jewish Police officers, members of German-sponsored Zagiew organization and Gestapo agents (like Judenrat member Dr on 22 February 1943). The ZOB established a prison to hold and execute traitors and collaborators. Józef Szerynski, the former head of the Jewish Police, committed suicide.
Opposing forces
Jewish insurgents
The Ghetto fighters (numbering some 400 to 1,000 by April 19) were armed, if at all, mostly only with pistols and revolvers, which were of limited value in combat and were practically useless at larger distances; just a few rifles and automatic firearms smuggled into the Ghetto were 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, Stroop wrote his forces were able to recover the "booty" consisting of:
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 (GL) (the People's Guard) attacked German units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons, ammunition, supplies and instructions into the ghetto. Polish resistance also provided the insurgents with a limited number of 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. Several ZOB commanders and fighters later escaped through the sewers with assistance from the Poles and joined Polish underground.
Polish AK unit, the National Security Corps (Panstwowy Korpus Bezpieczenstwa), under the command of Henryk Iwanski ("Bystry"), fought inside the Ghetto along with ZZW. Subsequently, both groups retreated together (including 34 Jewish fighters) to the so-called Aryan side. Although Iwanski's action is the most well-known rescue mission, it was only one of many actions undertaken by the Polish resistance to help the Jewish fighters. In one attack, three cell units of AK under command Kapitan Józef Pszenny ("Chwacki") tried to breach the Ghetto walls with explosives, but the Germans defeated this action. AK and GL engaged the Germans between April 19 and April 23 at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, shooting at German sentries and positions and in one case attempting to blow-up a gate.
Participation of the Polish underground in the uprising was confirmed by a report of the German commander Jürgen Stroop, who reported:
Nazi forces
Ultimately, the efforts of the 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 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 criminals and executioners from the nearby Gestapo Pawiak prison, under the command of Franz Bürkl, volunteered to "hunt the Jews". Most of the remaining Jewish policemen were executed by the Gestapo, or used in the offensive and then subsequently executed as well.
German assault
On April 19, 1943, on the eve of Passover, the police and SS auxiliary forces entered the Ghetto planning to complete their Aktion within three days. However, they suffered losses as they were repeatedly ambushed by Jewish insurgents, who shot and launched Molotov cocktails and hand grenades at them from alleyways, sewers and windows. A French-made Lorraine 37L armoured fighting vehicle and an armoured car were set afire with ZOB petrol bombs, and the German advance was halted.
The Jewish insurgents achieved noteworthy success against von Sammern-Frankenegg and he subsequently lost his post as the SS and police commander of Warsaw. He was replaced by SS-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.
The longest-lasting defense of a position took place around the ZZW 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 headquarters of the Jewish Resistance there and raised two flags: the red-and-white Polish flag and the blue-and-white banner of the ZZW (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:
Another German armoured vehicle was destroyed in an insurgent counterattack, in which ZZW 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 using flamethrowers and blowing up basements and sewers. "We were beaten by the flames, not the Germans," resistance leader Marek Edelman said in 2007. In 2003, he recalled:
The ZZW 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.
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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 had 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.
According to Stroop report:
Losses... Germans .........Jews
- 19 April---1 K/24 w .....580 captured
- 20 April---3 K/10 w .....533
- 21 April---0 k/05 w ...5,200
- 22 April---3 k/01 w ...6,580 203 killed + 35 Polish killed outside Ghetto
- 23 April---0 k/03 w ...4,100 200 killed + 3 Jews captured outside the Ghetto=total 19,450 Jews Reported captured
- 24 April---0 k/03 w ...1,660 + 1,811 "pulled out of Dugouts, about 330 shot"
- 25 April---0 k/04 w ...1,690 + 274 shot=total 27,464 Jews captured
- 26 April---0 k/0 w .......29/30 + 1,330 "destroyed"+ 362 Jews shot=total 1,722 Jews reported captured
- 27 April---0 k/04 w .....780 caught of whom 115 shot + 2,560 caught of whom 547 shot-total 31,746 reported caught+ 24 killed and 52 "arrested" +17 poles arrested
- 28 April---0 k/03 w.....1,655 caught of whom 110 killed. Total of 33,401 Jews killed
- 29 April---0 k/0 w ......2,359 caught of whom 106 killed
- 30 April---0 k/0 w ......1,599 caught of whom 179 killed. Total of 37,359 Jews caught
- 01 May---2 k/02 w ......1,026 caught of whom 245 killed. Total of 38,385 Jews caught + 150 Jews killed outside Ghetto
- 02 May---0 k/07 w ......1,852 caught and 235 killed. Total of 40,237 Jews caught
- 03 May---0 k/03 w ......1,569 caught and 95 killed. Total of 41,806 Jews caught
- 04 May---0 k/0 w .......2,238 caught of whom 204 shot. Total of 44,089 Jews caught. + 30 Jews shot
- 05 May---0 k/02 w ......2,250 caught
- 06 May---2 k/01 w ......1,553 caught + 356 shot
- 07 May---0 k/01 w ......1,109 caught + 255 shot. Total of 45,342 Jews caught
- 08 May---3 k/03 w ......1,091 caught and 280 killed
- 09 May---0 k/0 w .......1,037 caught and 319 shot. Total of 51,313 Jews caught + 254 Jews shot outside Ghetto
- 10 May---0 k/04 w ......1,183 caught and 187 shot. Total of 52,693 Jews caught
- 11 May---1 k/02 w ........931 caught and 53 shot. Total of 53,667 Jews caught
- 12 May---0 k/01 w ........663 caught and 133 shot. Total of 54,463 Jews caught
- 13 May---2 k/04 w ........561 caught and 155 shot. Total of 55,179 Jews caught
- 14 May---0 k/05 w ........398 caught and 154 shot. Total of 55,731 Jews caught
- 15 May---0 k/01 w .........87 caught and 67 shot. Total of 56,885 Jews caught.
- 16 May---0 k/0 w .........180 killed. Total of 56,605 Jews either caught or killed.
On May 8, 1943, the Germans discovered the ZOB's main command post, located at Mila 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:
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 last skirmish which took place on June 5, 1943 between Germans and a holdout group of armed criminals without connection to the resistance groups.
Death toll
Approximately 13,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from smoke inhalation). Of the remaining 50,000 residents, most were captured and shipped to concentration and extermination camps, in particular to Treblinka.
Jürgen Stroop's internal SS daily report for Friedrich Krüger, written on May 13, 1943, stated:
According to the Stroop's report , his forces suffered 17 killed in action and 93 wounded (these figures included over 60 members of Waffen-SS, and did not include the Jewish collaborators). The real number of German losses, however, may be well higher if unknown. For the propaganda purposes, official German casualties were claimed to be only few wounded and none killed, while bulletins of the Polish Underground State claimed that hundreds of Nazis died in the fighting.
Aftermath
Former Ghetto under continued Nazi occupation
After the uprising, most of the incinerated houses were completely razed, and the Warsaw concentration camp complex was established in their place. Thousands of people died in the camp or were executed in the ruins of the ghetto. At the same time, the SS were hunting down the remaining Jews still hiding in the ruins.
In 1944, during the general Warsaw Uprising, the AK battalion Zoska was able to rescue 380 Jewish concentration camp prisoners from the Gesiówka sub-camp, most of whom immediately joined AK and fought in the Polish uprising. A few small groups of Ghetto inhabitants also managed to survive in the underground sewer system.
Fate of the Germans involved
Bürkl was assassinated by the Polish resistance in the Operation Bürkl in October 1943. In the same month, von Sammern-Frankenegg was killed by Yugoslav partisan ambush in Croatia.
Globocnik, Himmler, and Krüger all followed Adolf Hitler and committed suicide in May 1945.
Stroop was convicted of war crimes in two different trials and executed by hanging in Poland in 1952 (his aide Erich Steidtmann was exonerated for "minimal involvement"). Hahn went into hiding until 1975, when he was apprehended and sentenced to life for crimes against humanity; he died in prison in 1986.
Relation to 1944 Warsaw Uprising
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 took place over a year before the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The Ghetto had been totally destroyed by the time of the Warsaw uprising, which was part of the larger Operation Tempest. Hundreds of the survivors from the first uprising took part in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, fighting in the ranks of Armia Krajowa and Armia Ludowa.
The Warsaw kneeling
On December 7, 1970, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt spontaneously knelt while visiting a monument to the Uprising in the former People's Republic of Poland. At the time, the action surprised many and was the focus of controversy, but it has since been credited with helping improve relations between the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries.
Remembrance in Israel
A number of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, known as the "Ghetto Fighters," went on to found Kibbutz Lohamey ha-Geta'ot (literally: "Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz"), which is located north of Acre. The founding members of the kibbutz include Yitzhak Zuckerman, ZOB deputy commander, and his wife Zivia Lubetkin, who also commanded a fighting unit. In 1984, the members of the kibbutz published Dapei Edut ("Testimonies of Survival"), four volumes of personal testimonies from 96 kibbutz members. The settlement also features a museum and archives dedicated to remembering the Holocaust.
Yad Mordechai, another kibbutz just north of the Gaza Strip, was named after Mordechaj Anielewicz.
In 2008, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi led a group of IDF officials to the site of uprising and spoke about the event's "importance for IDF combat soldiers."
In popular culture
The uprising was the subject of the 1948 film Border Street by Aleksander Ford, the 1955 film A Generation by Andrzej Wajda, the 2001 film Uprising and the 2002 film The Pianist by Roman Polanski, as well as the 1961 novel Mila 18 by Leon Uris. It was also featured in the 1986 film The Highlander.
Pictures
See also
Further reading
External links
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- Jewish Currents in March 2006
- at A Teacher's Guide to Holocaust
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