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The massive
German forces that had been brought into the former Warsaw Ghetto to
fight the Jewish rebels burned the ghetto street by street. Only by
torching the buildings could the fighters be flushed out and forced
to seek another place to hide and fight. Terror and inferno raged in
the improvised underground bunkers as the Germans made the fighters
come out in the only way possible-by hurling grenades into the
bunkers or by pumping in tear gas. The ZOB command bunker, staffed
by Mordecai Anielewicz and other leaders of the resistance, fell on
May 8. With the destruction of the Great Synagogue on Tlomackie
Street, outside the confines of the ghetto the German commander
General Juergen Stroop bragged that "there is no longer a
Jewish quarter in Warsaw." On May 19, Warsaw was declared
Judenrein. |
