Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and Destruction of The Ghetto
On January 18, 1943, after almost four months without any deportations, the Germans suddenly entered the Warsaw ghetto intent upon a further deportation. Within hours, some 600 Jews were shot and 5,000 others rounded up.
The Germans expected no resistance, but preparations to resist had been going on since the previous autumn. The first instances of Jewish armed resistance began that day. The Jewish fighters had some success: the expulsion stopped after four days and the ŻOB and ŻZW resistance organizations took control of the Ghetto, building shelters and fighting posts and operating against Jewish collaborators.
The final battle started on the eve of Passover of April 19, 1943, when a Nazi force consisting of several thousand troops entered the ghetto. After initial setbacks, the Germans under the field command of Jürgen Stroop systematically burned and blew up the ghetto buildings, block by block, rounding up or murdering anybody they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 28, and the Nazi operation officially ended in mid-May, symbolically culminating with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on May 16. According to the official report, at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to German Nazi concentration and death camps, most of them to Treblinka.
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Famous quotes containing the words ghetto, uprising and/or destruction:
“We have got to stop the nervous Nellies and the Toms from going to the Man’s place. I don’t believe in killing, but a good whipping behind the bushes wouldn’t hurt them.... These bourgeoisie Negroes aren’t helping. It’s the ghetto Negroes who are leading the way.”
—Fannie Lou Hamer (1917–1977)
“An uprising would punish only the country, and that is out of the question. But there is yet another approach, the most effective form of resistance: contemptuous compliance.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“Despotism may govern without faith, but liberty cannot.... How is it possible that society should escape destruction if the moral tie is not strengthened in proportion as the political tie is relaxed? And what can be done with a people who are their own masters if they are not submissive to the Deity?”
—Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859)