Grossaktion Warsaw

Grossaktion Warsaw
Deportation of ghetto inmates at the Umschlagplatz
Location of Warsaw Ghetto in World War II,
southwest of Treblinka extermination camp
Location of Warsaw in Poland today
Warsaw Ghetto (Masovian Voivodeship)
LocationWarsaw, German-occupied Poland
52°08′41″N 20°35′40″E / 52.1446°N 20.5945°E / 52.1446; 20.5945
Date23 July 1942 – 21 September 1942
Incident typeDeportations to Treblinka, mass shootings
OrganizationsNazi SS
CampTreblinka extermination camp
GhettoWarsaw Ghetto
Victims265,000 Polish Jews[1]

The Grossaktion Warsaw ("Great Action") was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July.[2] During the Grossaktion, Jews were terrorized in daily round-ups, marched through the ghetto, and assembled at the Umschlagplatz station square for what was called in the Nazi euphemistic jargon "resettlement to the East". From there, they were sent aboard overcrowded Holocaust trains to the extermination camp in Treblinka.[3]

The largest number of Warsaw Jews were transported to their deaths at Treblinka in the period between the Jewish holidays Tisha B'Av (23 July) and Yom Kippur (21 September) in 1942. The killing centre had been completed 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Warsaw only weeks earlier, specifically for the Final Solution. Treblinka was equipped with gas chambers disguised as showers for the "processing" of entire transports of people. Led by the SS-leader Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, the campaign, codenamed Operation Reinhard, became the critical part of the Holocaust in occupied Poland.[4]

  1. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia (10 June 2013). "Treblinka: Chronology". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original (Internet Archive) on 5 June 2012. Retrieved 12 August 2014. Deportations from Theresienstadt and Bulgarian-occupied territory among others.
  2. ^ Shapiro, Robert Moses (1999). Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust Through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts. KTAV Publishing House, Inc. p. 35. ISBN 978-0-88125-630-7. ... the so-called Gross Aktion of July to September 1942... 300,000 Jews murdered by bullet of gas
  3. ^ Cite error: The named reference Urynowicz was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  4. ^ Kopówka, Edward; Rytel-Andrianik, Paweł (2011), "Treblinka II – Obóz zagłady" [Monograph, chapt. 3: Treblinka II Death Camp] (PDF), Dam im imię na wieki [I will give them an everlasting name. Isaiah 56:5] (in Polish), Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe [The Drohiczyn Scientific Society], ISBN 978-83-7257-496-1, archived from the original (PDF file, direct download 20.2 MB) on 10 October 2014, retrieved 9 September 2013, with list of Catholic rescuers of Jews imprisoned at Treblinka, selected testimonies, bibliography, alphabetical indexes, photographs, English language summaries, and forewords by Holocaust scholars.