Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (German: "Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto", Polish: "Powstanie w getcie warszawskim") was the Jewish insurgency that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the Treblinka extermination camp. The insurgency was launched against the Germans on January 18 1943. The most significant portion of the insurgency took place from April 19 until May 16, 1943, and ended when the poorly-armed and supplied resistance was crushed by the German troops under the direct command of Jürgen Stroop. It was the largest single revolt by the Jews during the Holocaust.^[1]

Background

Memorial at Treblinka death camp representing the Jewish community of Warsaw, 2005

In 1940, the Nazis began concentrating Poland's population of over three million Jews into a number of extremely crowded ghettos located in various Polish cities. The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto, concentrated approximately 400,000 people into a densely packed central area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews died due to rampant disease and starvation, even before the Nazis under the SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik and SS-Standartenführer Ludwig Hahn began their massive deportations from the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp. Approximately 300,000 Ghetto residents met their deaths at the Treblinka extermination camp in the 52 days preceding September 12, 1942.

When the deportations first began, members of the Jewish resistance movement met and decided not to fight the directives, believing that the Jews were being sent to labour camps and not to their deaths. By the end of 1942, however, it became clear that the deportations were part of an extermination process, and many of the remaining Jews decided to resist.^[2]

The fighting

January 1943 rebellion

On January 18, 1943, the Germans began their second deportation of the Jews, which led to the first instance of armed insurgency within the ghetto. While Jewish families hid in their "bunkers," Germans and the Jewish Combat Organization (?ydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ?OB) fighters engaged in two direct clashes. As a consequence, even as the ?OB suffered severe losses (among them Yitzhak Gitterman), the deportation was halted within a few days, and only 5,000 Jews were removed instead of the 8,000 as planned by Globocnik.^[3]

Two resistance organizations, the Jewish Military Union (?ydowski Zwi?zek Wojskowy, ?ZW) and the ?OB took control of the Ghetto. They built dozens of fighting posts and executed Jews whom they considered to be Nazi collaborators, including Jewish Police officers and Gestapo agents.^[4] The ?OB established a prison to hold and execute traitors and collaborators.^[5] Józef Szery?ski, the former head of the Jewish Police, committed suicide.^[6]

Opposing forces

Jewish insurgents

The original German caption reads: "Women captured with arms." For Jewish IDs see [http://www.gfh.org.il/eng/ archive photo #1893

]

Ghetto fighters were armed, if at all, mostly only with pistols and revolvers, which were of limited value in combat. Just a few rifles and automatic firearms were available. The insurgents had little ammunition, and relied heavily on improvised explosive devices and incendiary bottles. Some more weapons were supplied throughout the uprising or captured from the Germans. In his report of May 24, 1943, Stroop claimed to have captured a total of "seven Polish rifles, one Russian and one German rifle, 59 pistols of various calibers, several hundred incendiary bottles, home-made explosives, infernal machines with fuses, a large amount of explosives and ammunition for weapons of all calibers, including some machine gun ammunition" (adding that his forces were able to recover only a small part of the insurgent weapons).

Polish support

Support from outside the Ghetto was limited, but Polish Resistance units from Armia Krajowa (AK) (the Home Army)^[7] and Polish Communist Gwardia Ludowa (GL) (the People's Guard)^[8] attacked German sentry units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons, ammunition, and other materials and instructions into the ghetto.^[9] Polish resistance also provided the insurgents with badly needed weapons and ammunitions from its meager stocks.^[10] AK also disseminated information and appeals to help the Jews in the ghetto, both in Poland and by way of radio transmissions to the Allies.^[7] Several ?OB commanders and fighters escaped through the sewers with assistance from the Poles.^[7]

One Polish unit from AK, the National Security Corps (Pa?stwowy Korpus Bezpiecze?stwa), under the command of Henryk Iwa?ski "Bystry", fought inside the Ghetto along with ?ZW. Subsequently, both groups retreated together (including 34 Jewish fighters) to the so-called "Aryan side". Although Iwa?ski's action is the most well-known rescue mission, it was only one of many actions undertaken by the Polish resistance to help the Jews.^[11] In one attack, three units of AK under command kpt. Józef Pszenny "Chwacki" tried to breach the Ghetto walls with explosives, but the Germans defeated this action.^[9] AK and GL engaged the Germans between April 19 and April 23 at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, shooting at German sentries and positions and in one case attempting to blow-up a gate.^[9]

Participation of the Polish underground in the uprising was confirmed by a report of the German commander Jürgen Stroop. He wrote that his forces were "...permanently under gun fire behind the ghetto. It means from the Aryan side .. When we invaded the Ghetto for the first time, the Jews and the Polish bandits succeeded in repelling the participating units, including tanks and armored cars, by a well-prepared concentration of fire." He described Iwa?ski's action: "The main Jewish battle group, mixed with Polish bandits, had already retired during the first and second day to the so-called Muranowski Square. There, it was reinforced by a considerable number of Polish bandits."^[12]

Nazi forces

Nazi sentries with a Maschinengewehr 08 machine gun at one of the gates to the ghetto

Ultimately, the combined efforts of the Polish and Jewish resistance fighters proved insufficient against the German forces. The Germans eventually committed an average daily force of 2,090 well-armed troops, including 821 Waffen-SS Panzergrenadier troops (consisting of five SS reserve and training battalions and one SS cavalry reserve and training battalion), as well as 363 Polish Blue Policemen, who were ordered by the Germans to cordon the walls of the Ghetto.^[13]

Two Ukrainian Askaris peer into a doorway past the bodies of Jews killed during the suppression of the uprising

Two Ukrainian Askaris^[14] peer into a doorway past the bodies of Jews killed during the suppression of the uprising

The other forces were drawn from the SS Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) "order police" (battalions from the regiments 22rd and 23rd), the SS Sicherheitsdienst (SD) security service, Warsaw Gestapo, one battalion each from two Wehrmacht railroad combat engineers regiments, a battery of Wehrmacht anti-aircraft artillery (and one field gun), a battalion of Ukrainian Trawniki-Männer from the SS Final Solution training camp Trawniki, Lithuanian and Latvian auxiliary policemen known by the nickname Askaris (Latvian Arajs Kommando and Lithuanian Saugumas), and technical emergency corps. Polish fire brigade personnel were forced to help in the operation. In addition, a number of Gestapo jailers and executioners from the nearby Pawiak prison, under the command of Franz Bürkl, volunteered to hunt for the Jews. Most of the remaining Jewish policemen were executed by the Gestapo, or used in the offensive and then subsequently executed as well.^[15]

German assault

On the eve of Passover, April 19, 1943, the police and SS auxiliary forces entered the Ghetto under the command of SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, planning to complete their Aktion within three days. However, they suffered losses as they were repeatedly ambushed by Jewish insurgents, who shot and launched Molotov cocktails and hand grenades at them from alleyways, sewers and windows. A French-made Lorraine 37L armoured fighting vehicle and an armoured car were set afire with ?OB petrol bombs, and the German advance was halted.^[15]

Surrounded by heavily armed guards, SS Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop (center) watches housing blocks burn. SD Rottenführer at right is possibly Josef Blösche ("Frankenstein")

The Jewish insurgents achieved noteworthy success against von Sammern-Frankenegg's forces, and he subsequently lost his post as the SS and police commander of Warsaw. He was replaced by SS-Gruppenführer (then Brigadeführer) Jürgen Stroop, who rejected von Sammern-Frankenegg's proposal to call in bomber aircraft from Kraków and proceeded with a better-organized ground assault that included artillery support.

The longest-lasting defense of a position took place around the ?ZW stronghold at Muranowski Square from April 19 to late April. In the afternoon of April 19, two boys climbed up on the roof of the concrete headquarters of the ?ZW at Muranowski Square and raised two flags: the red-and-white Polish flag and the blue-and-white ?ZW flag (blue and white are the colors of the flag of Israel today). These flags were well-seen from the Warsaw streets and remained atop the house for four entire days, despite German attempts to remove them. Stroop recalled:

The matter of the flags was of great political and moral importance. It reminded hundreds of thousands of the Polish cause, it excited them and unified the population of the General-Government, but especially Jews and Poles. Flags and national colors are a means of combat exactly like a rapid-fire weapon, like thousands of such weapons. We all knew that - Heinrich Himmler, Krüger, and Hahn. The Reichsfuehrer [Himmler] bellowed into the phone: "Stroop, you must at all costs bring down those two flags."^[16]

April 22, 1943: A man jumping out of a window of a burning house during the fighting; German troops nicknamed such people "parachutists"

Another German armoured vehicle was destroyed in an insurgent counterattack, in which ?ZW commander Dawid Apfelbaum was also killed. After Stroop's ultimatum to surrender was rejected by the defenders, the Nazis resorted to systematically burning houses block by block with flamethrowers and blowing up basements and sewers: "We were beaten by the flames, not the Germans," recalled Marek Edelman in 2007.^[17] "The sea of flames flooded houses and courtyards... There was no air, only black, choking smoke and heavy burning heat radiating form the red-hot walls, from the glowing stone stairs," Edelman recalled in 2003.^[18]

The ?ZW lost all its leaders and, on April 29, 1943, the remaining fighters escaped the ghetto through the Muranowski tunnel, and relocated to the Michalin forest. This event marked the end of the organized resistance, and of significant fighting.

A group of SS men on the street of Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising

Original German caption reads: "Forcibly pulled out of dugouts." Captured Jews are led by German soldiers to the assembly point for deportation. For identification of Jewish victims see http://www.ushmm.org/uia-cgi/uia_doc/photos/3513?hr=null and [http://www.ushmm.org/uia-cgi/uia_doc/photos/5230?hr=null

]

The remaining Jews, civilians and surviving fighters took cover in the "bunker" dugouts which were carefully hidden among the largely burned-out ruins of the ghetto. The German troops employed dogs to discover the hideouts, using smoke grenades and tear gas (and reportedly even poison gas) to force Jews out. In many instances, the Jews came out of their hiding places firing at the Germans, while a number of female fighters lobbed hidden grenades or fired concealed handguns after they had surrendered. Small groups of Jewish insurgents engaged German patrols in night-time skirmishes. However, German losses were minimal following the first ten days of the uprising.

On May 8, 1943, the Germans discovered the ?OB's main command post, located at Mi?a 18 Street. Most of its leadership and dozens of remaining fighters were killed, while others committed mass suicide by ingesting cyanide. The dead included the organization's commander, Mordechaj Anielewicz. His deputy, Edelman, escaped through the sewers on May 10 with a handful of comrades. Two days later, the Bundist Szmul Zygielbojm committed suicide in London in protest, citing a lack of assistance for the insurgents on the part of Western governments:

I cannot continue to live and to be silent while the remnants of Polish Jewry, whose representative I am, are being murdered. My comrades in the Warsaw ghetto fell with arms in their hands in the last heroic battle. I was not permitted to fall like them, together with them, but I belong with them, to their mass grave. By my death, I wish to give expression to my most profound protest against the inaction in which the world watches and permits the destruction of the Jewish people.

The suppression of the uprising officially ended on May 16, 1943. Nevertheless, sporadic shooting could be heard within the Ghetto throughout the summer of 1943. The uprising was put down conclusively in a battle which took place on June 5, 1943 between Germans and a group of Jewish fighters without connection to the resistance groups.

Death toll

Approximately 13,000 Jewish residents were killed during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from smoke inhalation). Of the remaining 50,000 inhabitants, most were captured and shipped to concentration and extermination camps, in particular to Treblinka.

Jürgen Stroop's internal SS report for Friedrich Krüger, written on May 13 1943, stated:

180 Jews, bandits and sub-humans, were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. The large-scale action was terminated at 20:15 hours by blowing up the Warsaw Synagogue. (...) Total number of Jews dealt with 56,065, including both Jews caught and Jews whose extermination can be proved. (...) Apart from 8 buildings (police barracks, hospital, and accommodations for housing working-parties) the former Ghetto is completely destroyed. Only the dividing walls are left standing where no explosions were carried out.^[13]

According to the Stroop's report, his forces suffered 16 killed in action and 86 wounded (these figures included over 60 members of Waffen-SS, and did not include the Jewish collaborators). The real number of German losses, however, may be well higher if unknown. For the propaganda purposes, official German casualties were claimed to be only few wounded and none killed, while the Polish underground bulletins claimed that hundreds of Nazis died in the fighting.

Aftermath

Former Ghetto under continued Nazi occupation

Leveled area of the former Warsaw Ghetto in 1945

After the uprising, most of the incinerated houses were razed, and the Warsaw concentration camp complex was established in their place. Thousands of people died in the camp or were executed in the ruins of the ghetto. At the same time, the SS were hunting down the remaining Jews still hiding in the ruins.

In 1944, during the general Warsaw Uprising, the AK battalion Zo?ka was able to save 380 Jewish concentration camp prisoners from the G?siówka sub-camp, most whom immediately joined the AK. A few small groups of Ghetto inhabitants also managed to survive in the underground sewer system.

Fate of the German war criminals

Bürkl was assassinated by the Polish resistance in the Operation Bürkl in October 1943. In the same month, von Sammern-Frankenegg was killed by Croatian partisans in Yugoslavia.

Globocnik, Himmler, and Krüger all followed Adolf Hitler and committed suicide in May 1945.

Stroop was convicted of war crimes in two different trials and executed by hanging in Poland in 1952 (his aide Erich Steidtmann was exonerated for "minimal involvement"). Hahn went into hiding until 1975, when he was apprehended and sentenced to life for crimes against humanity; he died in prison in 1986.

Relation to 1944 Warsaw Uprising

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 is sometimes confused with the Warsaw Uprising of 1944. The two events were separated in time, and their aims were different. The first Ghetto uprising was an act of desperation, a choice between dying in battle with a slim hope of escape, or facing certain death in an extermination camp. The second uprising was a coordinated action, and part of the larger Operation Tempest.

However, hundreds of the survivors from the first uprising took part in the 1944 general Warsaw Uprising, fighting in the ranks of the Armia Krajowa and Armia Ludowa.

Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw in 2006

The Warsaw kneeling

On December 7, 1970, West German Chancellor Willy Brandt spontaneously knelt while visiting a monument to the Uprising in the former People's Republic of Poland. At the time, the action surprised many and was the focus of controversy, but it has since been credited with helping improve relations between the NATO and Warsaw Pact countries.

Remembrance in Israel

A number of survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, known as the "Ghetto Fighters," went on to found Kibbutz Lohamey ha-Geta'ot (literally: "Ghetto Fighters' Kibbutz"), which is located north of Acre. The founding members of the kibbutz include Yitzhak Zuckerman, ?OB deputy commander, and his wife Zivia Lubetkin, who also commanded a fighting unit. In 1984, the members of the kibbutz published Dapei Edut ("Testimonies of Survival"), four volumes of personal testimonies from 96 kibbutz members. The settlement also features a museum and archives dedicated to remembering the Holocaust.

Yad Mordechai, another kibbutz just north of the Gaza Strip, was named after Mordechai Anielewicz.

In 2008, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi led a group of IDF officials to the site of uprising and spoke about the event's "importance for IDF combat soldiers."^[19]

Pictures

<gallery> Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 04.jpg|The original German caption reads: "Jewish Rabbis." Interrogation by an SS-Oberscharführer Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 08.jpg|The original German caption reads: "These bandits resisted by force of arms." Image:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 12.jpg|A group of Jews executed on the spot after their capture in the ruins of the Ghetto Image:Stroop J.jpg|SS-Gruppenführer Jürgen Stroop in the American military custody during the Dachau Trials. </gallery>