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Warsaw has
been in existence since the thirteenth century; it became the
capital of Poland in 1596. It flanks both banks of the Vistula
River: two-thirds of the city's area lying on the west bank, and
one-third on the east bank. In 1935, the city limits covered an area
of 54 square miles (140 sq. km), with a population of 1,300,000.
The Fall of Warsaw
In early September 1939, German forces reached Warsaw and within a
few days they had surrounded the city from all sides. Warsaw stood
up to the German siege for three weeks. Air attacks and artillery
shelling caused heavy damage to residential houses and resulted in
thousands of dead and wounded among the population. On September 28,
Warsaw surrendered. On October 16, Krakow, and not Warsaw, was
established as the capital of the Generalgouvernement.
Nazi Terror
The German authorities terrorized the population in various ways; by
arrests, murder in the streets, public and secret executions,
deportations to concentration camps, and random seizures of persons
for deportation to forced labor in the Reich. The headquarters of
the terror operations was in the Sicherheitspolizei (Security
Police) office, where persons were detained for questioning. The
main terror center was the Pawiak prison. There were several sites
for public and secret executions in Warsaw and its environs, and
they were put into use as early as the autumn of 1939. In the first
stage, the killings were carried out in areas near Warsaw. They
continued throughout the occupation of the city, reaching a climax
in 1943. As of August 1, 1944, 23,000 ethnic Poles had been deported
to concentration camps, and 86,000 had been deported for forced labor in the
Reich.
Economic Repression
Apart from the direct terror operations, the Nazi authorities also
imposed severe economic repression on the population. From
1939-1944, the cost of living rose thirtyfold, whereas the official
income rose only by 150 percent. Ration cards became compulsory and
the rations supplied for them did not meet minimal nutritional
needs. The inhabitants sought to combat hunger by taking on extra
jobs, stealing from the German occupiers, engaging in black-market
dealings, and, primarily, by smuggling in illegal food supplies, for
which those caught were punished. A large part of the population was
employed in armaments factories and other German-controlled
enterprises.
Cultural Repression
The Germans imposed strict limitations on cultural activities, and
the Polish press was liquidated. The population was ordered to turn
over their radios; from time to time, current news reports were
broadcast over loudspeakers in the streets - "barkers," as
people called them. Concerts could be heard only in the
coffeehouses. The films shown in movie houses were nearly all
German. Sports events, too, were prohibited. The educational system
was restricted to elementary schools only, and even there, history
and geography lessons were excluded from the curriculum. Efforts by
the Poles to establish comprehensive schools failed. The Germans
permitted only vocational-training schools, to provide trained
manpower for the Third Reich's economy. Technical colleges were also
permitted to function, but the prewar universities were closed down
completely. The reaction of the Poles to the restrictions on
education and cultural activities was to organize clandestine
classes and cultural events, in various forms.
The Start of the Resistance Movement
The resistance movement was launched as early as September 1939. On
September 26, the Sluzba Zwyciestwa Polski (Service for Polish
Victory) was formed, which was later renamed the Zwiazek Walki
Zbrojncj (Union for Armed Struggle). In February 1942, this
organization became the Armia Krajowa, the Polish Home Army. Warsaw
was also the center of the major political parties that supported
the Polish government-in-exile. In the initial stage, the resistance
movement found its expression in spreading propaganda, by means of
some one thousand underground newspapers; and in storing up weapons,
in arms caches that had been created after the 1939 defeat and which
had been supplemented through purchases from German soldiers. Later,
the resistance manufactured its own arms and ammunition, with
emphasis on hand grenades. In a few instances, arms were parachuted
by Allied aircraft or were stolen from Germans.
The Polish Warsaw Rebellion
The resistance movement in Warsaw encompassed a broad section of the
population, primarily among the intelligentsia and the working
class, especially the young people. The resistance movement
continued to expand, despite the resulting heavy loss of life and
property owing to Nazi acts of reprisal, and it began preparations
for a large-scale armed uprising. On August 1, 1944, the rebellion
broke out on orders of the Armia Krajowa command, without
coordination with the leftist Armia Ludowa. When the Warsaw Polish
Uprising erupted, Hitler wanted to bomb the parts of the city that
were in the rebels' hands from the air, but he gave up the idea. A
few days later, after consultations with Heinrich Himmler, he
ordered the total destruction of Warsaw, with a fortress to be
constructed on the site. Once the uprising was suppressed, the
Germans ordered the civilian population to evacuate the city and
began with systematic destruction of the city.
Liberation
Warsaw was liberated by the Soviet Army on January 17, 1945. The
dimensions of the destruction and losses were unbelievably high. It
is estimated that 80 percent of Warsaw's buildings were destroyed:
10 percent during the siege of the city in September 1939, 12
percent during the liquidation of the ghetto, 12 percent during the
Polish uprising, and the rest in the deliberate destruction of the
city after the collapse of the uprising.
Losses
The losses in life included 20,000 in September 1939, and 32,000 by
executions and other methods. The Jews murdered numbered 370,000.
166,000 persons were killed in the 1944 uprising, and 97,000
perished in concentration and forced-labor camps. Thus, a total of
685,000 residents of Warsaw lost their lives during the Nazi
occupation.
WARSAW JEWS DURING WORLD WAR II
The Jewish Population before the Outbreak of War
The earliest reports of the presence of Jews in Warsaw date from the
fifteenth century. In the 1792 census, 6,750 Jews were found to be
living there, about one-tenth of the city's total population. In the
nineteenth century, Warsaw's Jewish population grew rapidly; it
became the largest Jewish community in Europe, and, in the twentieth
century, the second-largest in the world, next only to New York. On
the eve of World War I, the Jews in Warsaw numbered 337,000. Just
before World War II broke out, Warsaw's Jewish population was
375,000 (29.1 percent of the total). It was in Warsaw that many
Jewish world political and cultural centers were located. Most of
the Polish Jewish newspapers and periodicals were published in
Warsaw in different languages; the various Jewish school systems
received their central direction from Warsaw, and Jewish political
parties, sports organizations, and youth movements had their
headquarters there.
The Fight for the City
On September 28, Warsaw surrendered; the next day, German forces
made their entry into the city. There is no evidence that the
Germans deliberately aimed their fire at the Jewish streets and the
section that was densely populated with Jews. However, the Jews felt
that they had been a special target. The hail of shells that landed
on the High Holy Days (the New Year and the Day of Atonement)
reinforced that impression. Chaim Aaron Kaplan, a Jewish teacher in
Warsaw who kept a detailed diary up to his last day in the ghetto,
made the following entry on September 14: "Yesterday, between
five and seven in the afternoon, as the Jewish New Year, 5700, was
being ushered in, the northern section, populated mostly by Jews,
suffered an air raid." Adam Czerniakow, on September 22,
stated: "Today is the Day of Atonement, truly the Day of
Judgment. All night long the guns were shelling the city."
Initial Anti-Jewish Measures
In November, the first anti-Jewish decrees were issued, such as the
introduction of a white armband with a blue Star of David (Magen
David) on it to be worn by all Jews; the requirement of signs
identifying Jewish shops and enterprises; the order to hand in
radios; a ban on train travel; and so on. The hardest blows came
with the decrees and regulations on economic affairs. On October 17,
the district governor, Ludwig Fisher, issued a decree prohibiting
non-Jews from buying or leasing Jewish enterprises without obtaining
a special permit for this purpose (a Jewish enterprise was defined
as any enterprise in which Jews had a share of more than 25
percent). The Jews were not permitted to reopen their schools, and
for a while they were also barred from attending prayer services.
The restoration of prewar institutions and organizations was
strictly prohibited; even a small group of Jews was not allowed to
meet without a permit. In place of the very many institutions of
different kinds that had existed in the past, only two frameworks
were allowed to function: the Judenrat and the welfare institutions.
Forced Labor
In the course of time, it appeared that the random seizure of Jews
for forced labor by the Germans would be replaced by an orderly
procedure. The Judenrat proposed to the Germans that it would
provide them with a fixed quota of men for work, in place of the
haphazard kidnappings that had brought Jewish life to a total
standstill. According to this arrangement, every Jew was assigned a
fixed number of days per month for forced labor. As a result, the
Judenrat, which did not have the financial resources to cover the
wages of the forced laborers, was in financial straits at all times.
Welfare
The financial base for welfare and mutual help consisted of funds
that had been accumulated by the American Jewish Joint Distribution
Committee (known as the Joint); these amounted to substantial sums
and were available for welfare purposes under the new conditions.
The Joint was registered as an American institution, and at this
time the Germans still had to take that fact into consideration. The
Joint took all the existing welfare institutions under its wing. Its
representation in Poland, based in Warsaw, included a group of
devoted and talented people who demonstrated their ability, courage,
and dedication even during the war and the existence of the ghetto.
Outstanding among them was Yitzhak Gitterman, who for years had been
the moving spirit in the Joint's projects and activities, and the
historian Emanuel Ringelblum, who was to have a hand in many and
varied activities during the war and in the underground.
The House Committees
Important instruments of Jewish self-help, directed by Ringelblum,
were the Komitetly Domowe, or House Committees. The House Committees
gained in importance when the early curfew hours were introduced, by
which time all the tenants had to be in their homes; as a result,
the ties among the tenants were strengthened. The Committees were
staffed by volunteer activists, who developed into an important
local leadership group.
The Establishment of the Ghetto
On November 16, 1940, the ghetto in Warsaw was sealed off, and
thousands of Jews who had left their remaining belongings on the
other side of the wall no longer had access to them. The Germans had
planned for 113,000 Poles to be evacuated from their homes and
resettled elsewhere, and for 138,000 Jews to take their place. As
soon as the ghetto was set up, a flow of refugees converged upon it.
Some 30 percent of the population of Warsaw was being packed into
2.4 percent of the city's area. According to German statistics, the
density of population in the ghetto was 6-7 people to a room. The
apartment buildings in the ghetto area were in a poor state and
lacked sanitary facilities, and there were no lawns or trees in
sight. Of Warsaw's 1,800 streets, no more than 73 were assigned to
the ghetto. The ghetto wall was 11.5 feet (3.5 m) high and topped by
barbed wire. Two thousand Warsaw Jews who had been converted to
Christianity were also put into the ghetto, and one church was left
open, under a priest of Jewish parentage, who, with the rest of his
flock, was regarded as Jewish under the racist laws. The Nazis did
not use the term "ghetto," instead referring to it as the
"Jewish quarter" (Judische Wohnbezirk). The ghetto cut the
Jews off from the rest of the world and put an end to any remaining
business ties with Poles.
Statistics Reflecting Life in the Ghetto
The number of persons employed by the Judenrat increased rapidly,
and a 1,000-man Jewish police force (Judischer Ordnungsdienst) was
formed. Eventually, the police force was increased to 2,000. At its
maximum size, the Judenrat staff consisted of 6,000 persons,
compared to the 530 employed by the Jewish Community Council before
the war. The daily food ration allocated to the Warsaw Jews
consisted of 181 calories - about 25 percent of the Polish rations,
and 8 percent of the nutritional value of the food that the Germans
received for their official ration coupons. In November 1940, the
month the ghetto was sealed off, there were 445 deaths in the
ghetto. The number of deaths thereafter rose rapidly: in January
1941, to 898; in April, to 2,061; in June, to 4,290; and in August,
to 5,560. The last number was the highest monthly figure, which
fluctuated thereafter between 4,000-5,000 for as long as the ghetto
existed. A substantial drop was registered in May 1942, at the time
of the great deportation, when 3,636 deaths were recorded.
Pauperization and Starvation
The pauperization of the inmates proceeded at an ever-growing rate,
with more and more people becoming completely penniless, even to the
point of starving to death. One of the diarists, Stefan Ernst, made
the following entry, at a time when the liquidation of the ghetto
was drawing near: "The ghetto contains 20,000, maybe 30,000,
persons who have enough to eat, and these are the social elite; at
the other end of the ladder are about a quarter of a million people
who are all beggars, completely bereft of everything and who wage a
daily struggle to postpone their death by starvation. In between
these two extremes are about 200,000 people, the 'average' who
somehow manage, are still able to take care of themselves, look
clean and dressed, and their bellies are not swollen from
hunger." Sixty-five thousand persons in the ghetto had jobs -
55,000 of them drawing wages, and the others self-employed. The same
source put the number of people with no means of support of any kind
at over 200,000.
Economic Life
The ghetto's ties with the outside world were handled by the
Transferstelle (Transfer Office), a German authority that was in
charge of the traffic of goods into and out of the ghetto. In June
1941, 333,000 zlotys (about $3,330) worth of items manufactured in
the ghetto passed through official channels. In the following
months, the monthly average was 500,000 zlotys ($5,000), whereas the
clandestine production, as calculated by an economist in the ghetto,
amounted to approximately 10 million zlotys (about $100,000) in that
same period. For two categories alone - carpentry work and brush
manufacture - goods in the amount of 7-8 million zlotys
($70,000-$80,000) were manufactured illegally. The food smuggled
into the ghetto, according to the quantity estimates made by
Czerniakow, represented 80 percent of all the products brought in.
As a rule, the Jews preferred to work in places that manufactured
goods for "illegal export," where they were treated better
and where the pay was much higher than in the German-owned
factories. Several methods were employed to carry out the smuggling
operations, which never ceased as long as the ghetto remained in
existence: through buildings that were connected with buildings on
the "Aryan" side; across the wall, through camouflaged
openings in the wall; and through subterranean canals. Smuggling on
a large scale also went on through the ghetto gates, with the
various policemen and guards - Germans, Poles, and Jews - involved
in the conspiracy and receiving monetary bribes for letting the
smuggled goods pass.
Smuggling
Smuggling on a smaller scale was also engaged in by children and women who,
at the risk of their lives, crossed over to the Polish side in order
to bring back some food for their families. The overall smuggling
operation was a complex organization, maintaining ties with partners
and accomplices on the Polish side. Each individual smuggling
operation, involving dozens of packages, took no more than a few
minutes, and every effort was made to leave no traces. However,
hardly a day passed without people being caught and losing their
lives. The casualties, however, did not deter the smuggling
organization and did not bring the smuggling to even a temporary
halt.
Religion, Education, and Culture in the Ghetto
Among the prohibitions that the Germans did not enforce fully was
the ban on gatherings, which applied even to the privacy of homes.
For a while, the ban of gathering included public prayer services.
This did not prevent Jews from holding daily services in private
homes, with the prayer quorum of at least ten males, while on the
Jewish festivals, thousands of persons attended prayer services. In
the spring of 1941, the ban was abolished and the synagogues were
permitted to reopen. The major educational effort in the ghetto was
an underground operation. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of clandestine
classes, on different levels, were held in private homes in the
ghetto. While regular schools were banned in the ghetto, the
Judenrat was permitted to maintain the vocational training schools
sponsored by the ORT organization.
Underground Political Parties and Youth Movements
After the occupation of Warsaw, members of youth movements and parties
joined together and began to prepare plans of action. As time went
on, the underground embarked upon several courses of action, one of
which was to provide assistance to persons who were in the most dire
straits. The Germans' lack of interest in the underground
activities, and the silence on the subject observed by their Jewish
agents in the ghetto, enabled the underground, prior to the spring
of 1942, to engage in a broad range of activities without the
Germans taking drastic steps to suppress them or to punish the
participants. The underground press led to two results: It provided
the news-hungry ghetto population with reliable information on
international political developments and on the war fronts; and it
raised political and ideological issues that encouraged polemics and
discussions. All parties from the prewar Jewish political scene were
also active in small groups in the ghetto underground.
Oneg Shabbat
A unique and important enterprise created in the ghetto was the
Ringelblum Archive, code-named Oneg Shabbat by the underground.
Youth Movements
The Jewish youth movements and their leaders played an important
role in the underground, especially in the later stages: following
the great deportation, during the months of preparation for the
uprising, and during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising itself. Prior to the
stage in which the mass killings of Jews were launched, no basic
differences existed among the political parties and the youth
movements in the underground. The youth movements were more active
and more daring, and engaged in a wider variety of operations, but
they did not offer themselves as an alternative to the underground's
political leadership or even to the Judenrat. They accepted the
authority of the political parties, acknowledging them as the senior
element in the underground. After the discovery of the Nazi
extermination program in the East, the youth movements came to the
conclusion that the Nazis had embarked upon a program of total
destruction, and therefore resistance and fighting were the Jews'
only remaining choices, even if they offered no prospect for
survival.
The Deportations - the First Phase
The Aktion of mass deportation began on July 22, 1942, and continued
until September 12. On July 23, Adam Czerniakow committed suicide.
He had been ordered to provide a daily quota of 7,000 Jews for
deportation, and to include children in this number. In the first
ten days, 65,000 Jews were taken from the ghetto. This meant that
the Germans had filled the quota they had announced. Even in this
first phase, which lasted to the end of July, there were several
instances of the SS, the German police, and their Ukrainian and
Latvian helpers breaking into the ghetto alleys, rounding up people
at random in the streets, and dragging them out of their homes
without paying any heed to the personal documents in their
possession or to the exempt status they had by virtue of the permits
they held when the daily quota had not been met.
Deportations - the Second Phase
In the second phase, from July 31 to August 14, the German forces
and their helpers took direct charge of the Aktion and the roundups,
with the Jewish police in a secondary role. The German police and
the auxiliary police, comprising Ukrainians, Latvians, and
Lithuanians - a force of some 200 armed men - saw the Aktion
through, day after day.
Deportations - the Third Phase.
The third phase of the deportation began on August 15 and ended on
September 6. At this point, the deportation took on the character of
a total evacuation. The Germans and their helpers conducted a
manhunt, combing the streets and the apartment houses, seizing every
person they found at home, looking into every corner, and hardly
taking note of the papers and exemptions produced by the Jews.
Deportations - the Final Phase
The final phase began on September 6. The "shops" and the
Judenrat were allotted a number of permits; 35,000 such permits were
issued, meaning that the Germans intended to leave in the ghetto 10
percent of its pre-deportation population. In addition to the 35,000
who had permits, another 25,000 - and perhaps a few more - managed
to remain in the ghetto. This was a new ghetto - actually a form of
labor camp. The Jews who were left, mostly women and young men, the
last remnants of their families, went through a great psychological
change. As long as the deportations were going on, the Jews had been
in a constant state of tension, concentrating all their strength on
one goal: to survive. When the deportations came to a halt, they had
time to take stock of their situation. More and more of them said
that they would not surrender to the Germans without a fight.
The Underground and the Ghetto
On July 28, representatives of the youth movements Ha-Shomer ha-Tza'ir,
Dror, and Akiva held a meeting at which they decided to form the
Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization; ZOB).
Although the organization was founded, it had no means at its
disposal and had as yet to adopt a clear policy on the way it would
conduct the struggle. The first steps taken were to try to acquire
weapons and to draw up a plan of action. The ZOB passed a death
sentence on Joseph Szerynski, the Jewish police commander, who had
been released from jail in order to help the Germans in the
deportation.
The Underground after the Deportations
When the wave of deportations came to an end, the ZOB began
operating under different conditions. Mordecai Anielewicz returned
to the ghetto and assumed a leading role in the organization's
activities. Contacts with the Armia Krajowa were established, which
led to its recognition of the ZOB as a fraternal organization in
league with it, and to its supplying a modest quantity of pistols to
the Jewish fighters. Most of the ZOB's arms, however, were acquired
by purchasing them from middlemen, who had bought or stolen them
from Germans or their helpers. A profound change in public opinion
had taken place in the ghetto, and as a result, underground groups
of different political orientations were now willing to join the
Jewish Fighting Organization. By October, the ZOB had been
consolidated and enlarged, with the addition of youth movements and
splinter groups of underground political parties of all persuasions,
from Zionists to Communists. A ZOB command was formed, made up of
representatives of the founding organizations and the fighting
groups. In that period, another organization came to be formed in
the ghetto, under Revisionist Zionist auspices, as with the Betar youth
movement. This underground group adopted the name Zydowski Zwizek
Wojskowy (Jewish Military Union; ZZW).
Deportation and Resistance in January
The second wave of deportations was launched on January 18, 1943.
This time, however, the Jews who were ordered to assemble in the
courtyards of their apartment houses to have their papers examined
refused to comply and went into hiding. The first column that the
Germans managed to round up, in the first few hours, consisting of
some 1,000 persons, offered a different kind of resistance. A group
of fighters, led by Mordecai Anielewicz and armed with pistols,
deliberately infiltrated the column that was on its way to the
Umschlag, and when the agreed-upon signal was given, the fighters
stepped out of the column and engaged the German escorts in
hand-to-hand fighting. The column dispersed, and news of the fight,
which had taken place in the street of the central ghetto, soon
became common knowledge. The fact that the Aktion was halted after
only a few days, and that the Germans had managed to seize no more
than 10 percent of the ghetto population, was regarded, by Jews and
Poles alike, as a German defeat.
The Effect of the Deportations and First Armed Clash
The deportations and other events that took place in January were to
have a decisive influence on the last months of the ghetto's
existence, up to April and May of 1943. The Judenrat and the Jewish
police lost whatever control they still had over the ghetto. In the
central part of the ghetto, it was the fighting organizations that
were obeyed by the population. The ghetto as a whole was engaged in
feverish preparations for the expected deportation, which all
believed would be the last and final one. The general population
concentrated on preparing bunkers. Groups of Jews, made up mostly of
tenants of the same building, went to work on the construction of
subterranean bunkers. The fighters and their commanders were under
no illusion and did not believe that their fighting would lead to
rescue. They were preparing for a revolt that would be a final act
of protest, a last sign of life that they would send to the Jews and
all of humanity in the free world.
Final Liquidation and Revolt
The final liquidation of the ghetto began on Monday, April 19, 1943,
the eve of Passover. This time the deportation did not come as a
surprise. The Jews had been warned of what lay ahead and they were
ready.
In the first three days, street battles were fought in the ghetto.
The systematic burning of the ghetto, building by building, did,
however, force the fighters to abandon their positions, to take
refuge in bunkers, and to go over to a different method of fighting
the Germans, by making sorties in small groups of fighters and
taking the Germans by surprise. In the first two nights, no German
soldier was to be seen in the ghetto. The ghetto was now one great,
burning torch. It was enveloped in dense smoke and permeated by
stifling odors, its very air seeming to burn. The bunkers became
infernos. Situated underground, with building or ruins of buildings
on top, the bunkers and the air in them reached boiling point; the
food was spoiled by the devastating heat; the water was warm, and it
stank. The Jews inside took off their clothes, could hardly breathe
or talk, and were on the verge of going mad. Even so, they would not
surrender to the Germans. Under cover of darkness, they tried to
move from the living hell their bunkers had become to other bunkers
where conditions were slightly better - although these, too, were
bound to suffer the same fate and become uninhabitable within a few
days.
On May 16, SS General Juergen Stroop, commander of the SS forces,
ordered to liquidate the ghetto, announced that the Grossaktion had
been completed. To celebrate the victory, he ordered Warsaw's Great
Synagogue, which was situated outside the ghetto, to be burned down
and destroyed.
Stroop's Report
In his final report on the military campaign that he led against the
ghetto revolt, Stroop provided the following data: "Of the
total of 56,065 Jews who were seized, 7,000 were destroyed during
the course of the Grossaktion inside the former Jewish quarter; in
the deportation to T2 [the Treblinka extermination camp] 6,929 were
exterminated, which adds up to 13,929 Jews destroyed. In addition to
the 56,065, another 5,000 to 6,000 lost their lives in explosions
and fires."
WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
Genesis
In the spring of 1942, some members of the Jewish underground of the
Warsaw Ghetto, especially those in the Zionist pioneering movements,
under the impact of the reports of a mass murder campaign in the
East, had come to the conclusion that a defense force had to be
formed that would go into action if an attempt were made to deport
the Jews from the ghetto.
The Establishment of a Fighting Organization
When the deportations began, renewed efforts were made to establish
a fighting organization, consisting of the various underground
factions operating in the ghetto; but this attempt was quashed by
some of the ghetto leaders, who believed that armed resistance posed
an intolerable threat and could lead to the end of the entire Jewish
ghetto population, including those who might otherwise be saved. The
Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization; ZOB) was
founded on July 28, on a more modest scale, consisting only of the
three Zionist pioneering movements. The operational plans of the new
organization in the summer of 1942 had little effect. The
deportations came to a halt in mid-September, by which time about
300,000 Jews had been removed from the ghetto - 265,000 of them
deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. This left a Jewish
population of 55,000-60,000 in the ghetto.
The Mood in the Ghetto after the Deportations
The survivors felt isolated and bitter. Most of them were young
people, who now blamed themselves for not having offered armed
resistance against the deportation of their families. This mood was
shared by the factions in the ghetto underground. In October, more
of them joined the ZOB which now represented all the active forces
in the underground, with the exception of Betar and the
Revisionists, who set up a fighting organization of their own, the
Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy (Jewish Military Union; ZZW). ZOB
emissaries finally succeeded in establishing contact with the Armia
Krajowa, the major element in the Polish military underground,
gaining its recognition and obtaining from it a small quantity of
arms.
The January Aktion and Revolt
On Monday, January 18, 1943, before the ZOB had completed its
preparations, the Germans launched the second wave of deportations,
the "January Aktion." It was this second Aktion in the
ghetto by the German police and SS that became the ZOB's first
military test. Judging by what it had experienced in the first wave
of deportations, which had taken 83 percent of the Jews in the
ghetto, the surviving Jewish population assumed that the second
Aktion was to be the final deportation of Warsaw's Jews. Two
companies that were equipped with arms - Ha-Shomer ha-Tza'ir and
Dror - went into action. The main operation, commanded by Mordecai
Anielewicz, took place in the street. That fight was the first in
which Germans were attacked in the ghetto. Most of the Jewish
fighters fell in the battle. That day, January 18, 1943, was not
only the ZOB's baptism of fire. In the course of the Aktion, there
was a decisive change in the ghetto population's pattern of
behavior. When the Aktion ended, on the fourth day, 5,000-6,000 Jews
had been caught. The Jews interpreted the early discontinuation of
the Aktion by the Germans as a sign of weakness and a retreat before
the forces that had confronted them; the Polish underground also
assumed that the Jewish resistance had compelled the Germans to
interrupt the Aktion.
Preparations for Another Uprising
The events in January had a decisive impact on the preparations
that were being made for the next uprising; the three months from
January to April were utilized for feverish activities to put the
ZOB in a state of readiness for the forthcoming test on the field of
battle. One of the lessons that the ZOB had learned from the January
events was that the ghetto might once again be taken by surprise
with an Aktion and that, therefore, the ZOB and all its fighters had
to be on permanent alert. A total of twenty-two fighting units were
formed in that period, based on the movements to which their members
belonged. Another "January lesson" was that the enemy had
to be taken unawares by the attacks and that these had to be
launched from well-prepared positions in the maze of the ghetto
buildings and roof attics.
The Underground's Arsenal
The weapons in the hands of the fighting organizations were mostly
pistols and a few automatic weapons. In this waiting period between
January and April, the ZOB could have recruited many new members to
its ranks, but a real expansion of the force was precluded by the
lack of arms. Shortly before the uprising was launched, the ZOB's
armed and organized force consisted of twenty-two fighting units,
with a total of 500 fighters. The ZZW had 200-250 fighters, and the
total Jewish fighting forces in the ghetto numbered 700-750.
Mass Support for Armed Resistance
The civilian population of the ghetto also underwent a
transformation that was to have a decisive impact on the course of
events during the uprising. The Jews in the ghetto believed that
what had happened in January was proof that, by offering resistance,
it was possible to force the Germans to desist from their plans.
Many thought that the Germans would persist in unrestrained mass
deportations only so long as the Jews were passive, but that in the
face of resistance and armed confrontation they would think twice
before embarking upon yet another Aktion. The Germans would also
have to take into account the possibility that the outbreak of
fighting in the ghetto might lead to the rebellion spreading to the
Polish population and might create a state of insecurity in all of
occupied Poland. These considerations led the civilian population of
the ghetto, in the final phase of its existence, to approve of
resistance and give its support to the preparations for the
uprising. The population also used the interval to prepare and equip
a network of subterranean refuges and hiding places, where they
could hold out for an extended period even if they were cut off from
one another. In the end, every Jew in the ghetto had his own spot in
one of the shelters set up in the central part of the ghetto. The
civilian population and the fighters now shared a common interest
based on the hope that, under the existing circumstances, fighting
the Germans might be a way to rescue.
The Outbreak of the Second Uprising
The three months between January and April were used for intensively
training the fighting forces, acquiring weapons, and drawing up a
strategic plan for the defense of the ghetto. The last Aktion and
the resistance campaign, which came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto
Uprising, began on April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover. The ghetto
fighters had been warned and had advance knowledge of the timing of
what was to be the final deportation. There is no doubt that the
chief of the SS and police in the Warsaw district,
Obergruppenfuehrer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, was aware of
the existence of a Jewish defense formation, but he apparently did
not dare admit to his superiors in Krakow that a significant Jewish
fighting force had been established in the ghetto. Heinrich Himmler
did not rely on Sammern-Frankenegg, and on the eve of the final
deportation, he replaced him with a man who had experience in
fighting partisans: SS- und Polizeifuehrer (SS and Police Leader)
Juergen Stroop, whose task it became to suppress the uprising and
bring the ghetto to its knees. In the 27 days that the uprising
lasted, the Nazis deployed a considerable military force. On the
morning of April 19, when the German forces entered the ghetto, they
did not find a living soul in the central part, except for a group
of policemen. The entire Jewish population had taken to the hiding
places and bunkers, and by refusing to comply with the Germans'
orders, they became part of the uprising. That day, following the
first clash, the Germans were forced to withdraw from the ghetto.
Hand-to-Hand Combat
The hand-to-hand combat lasted for several days. The Germans were
not able to capture or hit the Jewish fighters who, after every
clash, managed to retreat by way of the roofs; nor could the Germans
lay hands on the Jews hiding in the bunkers. The Germans therefore
decided to burn the ghetto systematically, building by building;
this forced the fighters to take to the bunkers themselves and to
resort to partisan tactics by staging sporadic raids.
The Bunker War
The bunker war - the burning of the bunkers - turned out to be the
Germans' most difficult and troublesome task. Time and again, Stroop
claimed in his daily reports that he had overcome resistance and
that the uprising was dying out, only to report the next day that
there was no end to the attacks and the losses suffered by his
troops.
Problem of Arms
One of the fighters' most vulnerable points was their lack of arms,
both qualitatively and quantitatively. The small-caliber pistols in
their possession were not suitable for street fighting, and in spite
of the fighters' stubborn persistence and daring, the losses they
inflicted on the Germans were quite small. The people in the bunkers
put up a desperate fight, but their cause was hopeless from the
outset when the entire ghetto was in flames and all inside were
trapped.
The Fall of the Fighters' Headquarters
On May 8, the headquarters bunker of the ZOB at 18 Mila Street fell,
and with it also Mordecai Anielewicz and a large group of fighters
and commanders. The ZOB fighters had not made any plans for a
retreat from the ghetto, their assumption being that the battle
would go on inside the ghetto until the last fighter had fallen. In
a mission arranged by the ZOB men on the Polish side, several dozen
fighters were saved by escaping through the sewers.
The End of the Second Uprising.
On May 16, Stroop announced that the fighting was over and that
"we succeeded in capturing altogether 56,065 Jews, that is,
definitely destroying them." He stated that he was going to
blow up the Great Synagogue on Tlomack Street (which was outside the
ghetto and the scene of the fighting) as a symbol of victory and of
the fact that "the Jewish quarter of Warsaw no longer
exists." Even after May 16 there were still hundreds of Jews in
the subterranean bunkers of the ghetto, which was now a heap of
ruins. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the first instance in occupied
Europe of an uprising by an urban population.
WARSAW POLISH UPRISING
The Polish uprising against the Germans broke out on August 1, 1944,
on the instigation of the Armia Krajowa, the largest Polish
resistance organization, which took orders from the Polish
government-in exile in London. The aim of the uprising was to seize
control of Warsaw before the Red Army entered the city, a
development that was expected to take place shortly. The rebel
forces amounted to some 23,000 ill-equipped troops. Most of the
Polish fighters were young people. They were facing tens of
thousands of Germans troops and police, who were plentifully
supplied with arms and equipment. Four days after the uprising
began, the Germans launched a counterattack, with the help of
reinforcements. On August 4, the rebels liberated several hundred
Jewish prisoners (from Greece and Hungary) from the concentration
camp on Gesia Street, and the latter joined in the fighting. The
civilian population of the city gave strong support to the uprising:
by publishing newspapers, providing first aid, organizing supplies
and postal services, and so on. On September 14, Polish army units
that had previously been parachuted into Warsaw seized control of
the right bank of the Vistula and managed to transfer several
battalions to the left bank, suffering heavy losses in the process.
They could not, however, bring relief to the insurgents. The
besieged city center fell on October 2, and this marked the end of
the uprising.
Losses
Polish losses came to 16,000-20,000 killed and missing, 7,000 wounded,
and 150,000 civilians killed. The last figure included several
thousand Jews who had been in hiding with the Polish population
after the liquidation of the ghetto. German losses were 16,000 dead
and missing, and 9,000 wounded.
In the Wake of the Uprising
The Germans expelled most of the surviving civilians to nearby
camps, and 65,000 of them were subsequently transferred to
concentration camps. About 100,000 were conscripted for forced labor
in the Reich, and the rest were dispersed over the
Generalgouvernement. Following the insurgents' surrender, the
Germans burned and razed those parts of the city that were still
intact. The uprising and the total destruction of Warsaw also caused
great losses to Poland's cultural and spiritual treasures.
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