| Warsaw Ghetto Uprising | |||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Part of ghetto uprisings during World War II | |||||||||
 Jewish women and children forcibly removed from a bunker by Schutzstaffel (SS) units for deportation either to Majdanek or Treblinka extermination camps (1943); one of the most iconic pictures of World War II. | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Belligerents | |||||||||
|
| |||||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
| |||||||||
| Strength | |||||||||
| Daily average of 2,090, including 821 Waffen-SS | About 600[2] ŻOB and about 400[3] ŻZW fighters, plus a number of Polish fighters | ||||||||
| Casualties and losses | |||||||||
|
January uprising: About a dozen killed
Several dozen wounded April uprising: German figures:17 killed 93 wounded[4] Jewish resistance estimate: 300 casualties[5] | 56,065 killed or captured of which approximately 36,000 deported to extermination camps (German estimate) | ||||||||
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising[a] was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps.
After the Grossaktion Warsaw of summer 1942, in which more than a quarter of a million Jews were deported from the ghetto to Treblinka and murdered, the remaining Jews began to build bunkers and smuggle weapons and explosives into the ghetto. The left-wing Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) and right-wing Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) formed and began to train. A small resistance effort to another roundup in January 1943 was partially successful and spurred Polish resistance groups to support the Jews in earnest.
The uprising started on 19 April when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who ordered the destruction of the ghetto, block by block, ending on 16 May. A total of 13,000 Jews were killed, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. Stroop reported 110 German casualties, including 17 killed.[4]
The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. The Jews knew that victory was impossible and survival unlikely. Marek Edelman, the last surviving ŻOB commander who died in 2009, said their inspiration to fight was "not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths". According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the uprising was "one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people".[6]
- ^ Marian Apfelbaum (2007). Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto. Gefen Publishing House Ltd. p. 15. ISBN 978-965-229-356-5.
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
Guttman 2000was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Maciej Kledzik (18 April 2008). "Zapomniani żołnierze ŻZW". Rzeczpospolita (in Polish). Archived from the original on 28 April 2015. Retrieved 7 November 2012.
- ^ a b Stroop (2009), pp. 25–30.
- ^ McDonough, Frank: The Hitler Years, Volume 2: Disaster 1940–1945, p. 396
- ^ Freilich, Miri; Dean, Martin (2012). "Warsaw". In Geoffrey P., Megargee; Dean, Martin; Hecker, Mel (eds.). Ghettos in German-Occupied Eastern Europe. Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Vol. 2. Translated by Fishman, Samuel. Bloomington: United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. p. 459. ISBN 978-0-253-00202-0.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).