The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Yiddish: ?????????? ??? ????????? ?????; Polish:Powstanie w getcie warszawskim; German: Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto) was the Jewish resistance that arose within the Warsaw Ghetto in German occupied Poland during World War II, and which opposed Nazi Germany's effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Treblinka extermination camp.

The insurgency was launched against the Germans on January 18, 1943. The most significant portion of the rebellion 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.

In 1940, the German Nazis began to concentrate Poland's population of over three million Jews into a number of extremely crowded ghettos located in large Polish cities. The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto, concentrated approximately 300,000–400,000 people into a densely packed central area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews died due to rampant disease and starvation under theSS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnikand SS-Standartenführer Ludwig Hahn, even before the mass deportations from the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp began.

The Nazi forces conducted many of the deportations during the operation code-named Grossaktion Warschau, between July 23 and September 21, 1942. Just before the operation began, the German "Resettlement Commissioner" SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle called the meeting of the Ghetto Jewish CouncilJudenrat and informed its leader Adam Czerniaków about the "resettlement to the East".[5][6][7] Czerniaków committed suicide once he became aware of the true goal of the "resettlement" plan. Approximately 254,000–300,000 Ghetto residents met their deaths at Treblinka during the two months-long operation. The Grossaktion was directed by SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, the commander of the Warsaw area since 1941. He was relieved of duty by SS-and-Polizeiführer Jürgen Stroop sent to Warsaw by Heinrich Himmler on April 17, 1943. Stroop took over from von Sammern-Frankenegg following his unsuccessful ghetto offensive.

When the deportations first began, members of the Jewish resistance movement met and decided not to fight the SS directives, believing that the Jews were being sent to labour camps and not to their deaths. By the end of 1942 however, it became known to Ghetto inhabitants that the deportations were part of an extermination process. Many of the remaining Jews decided to revolt.

The fighting Opposing forces Jewish insurgents Alleged Jewish fighters.
Stroop Report original caption: "Women captured with arms." (Other versions of caption read "He-Chaluts women captured with arms" and "Armed hags of the Haluzzen movement captured!". Jewish resistance women, among them Malka Zdrojewicz (right), who survived Majdanek extermination camp. Main articles: ?ydowska Organizacja Bojowa and ?ydowski Zwi?zek Wojskowy

The Ghetto fighters (numbering some 400 to 1,000 by April 19) were armed primarily with pistols and revolvers. Just a few rifles and automatic firearms smuggled into the Ghetto were available. The insurgents had little ammunition, and relied heavily on improvised explosive devices and incendiary bottles; more weapons were supplied throughout the uprising or captured from the Germans. Some weapons were hand-made by resistance: sometimes such weapons worked, other times they jammed repeatedly. In his daily reports, Stroop wrote his forces were able to recover the "booty" consisting of:

April 20, 1943:…In today's action we caught, apart from the Jews reported above, considerable stores of incendiary bottles, hand grenades, ammunition, military tunics, and equipment.
April 22, 1943:…captured 80 incendiary bottles and other booty.
April 23, 1943:…We captured apart from valuables and money - some gas masks.
April 24, 1943:..and an amount of paper money, especially dollars was captured; this money has not yet been counted.
April 25, 1943:..and in one bunker 3 pistols and explosive charges were captured. Further today, significant supplies of paper money, currency, gold coins and items of jewelry were secured.
April 26, 1943:…Once again, weapons, Molotov cocktails, explosive devices and large amounts of money were captured.
April 27, 1943:…In this operation we captured 3 rifles, 12 pistols, partly of heavier caliber, 100 Polish "pineapple" hand grenades, 27 German steel helmets, quite a number of German uniforms, tunics and coats which were even furnished with ribbon of the East medal, some reserve magazines for machine guns, 300 rounds of ammunition, etc.
April 28, 1943:..capturing more arms, ammunition, and military equipment
April 29, 1943:..Captured are 2 rifles, 10 pistols, 10 kilograms of explosives, and ammunition of various types
April 30, 1943:..Today, we again captured arms and particularly parts of German uniforms from them.
May 2, 1943:…arms and ammunition captured.
May 3, 1943:…We captured among other things, one German rifle, model 98, two 08 pistols and other calibers, also home-made hand grenades.
May 4, 1943:.. We captured 1 carbine, 3 pistols, and some ammunition.
May 5, 1943:..Today, we again captured arms and ammunition, including one pistol.
May 6, 1943:..One Jew who had escaped from Lublin was caught just outside of the Ghetto wall. He was armed as follows: 1 pistol, ample reserve ammunition, 2 Polish "pineapple" hand grenades.
May 7, 1943:..We captured 4 pistols of various calibers and some stores of ammunition.
May 8, 1943:..We captured about 15 to 20 pistols of various calibers, considerable stores of ammunition for pistols and rifles, moreover a number of hand grenades, made in the former armament factories.
May 9, 1943:..Again we captured some pistols and hand grenades.
May 10, 1943:..Today, we again captured small arms and some ammunition.
May 11, 1943:..Considerable amounts of food were captured or secured, in order to make it more and more difficult for them to get necessary food…We captured several pistols, hand grenades, and ammunition.
May 13, 1943:..Booty: 6 pistols, 2 hand grenades, and some explosive charges.
May 14, 1943:..some pistols, among them one of 12-mm caliber, were captured. In one dugout inhabited by 100 persons, we were able to capture 2 rifles, 16 Pistols, some hand grenades and incendiary appliances. Of the bandits who resisted, some again wore German military uniform, German steel helmets and "knobelbecher."
Apart from the carbines. we captured 60 rounds of German rifle ammunition…Booty: rifles, pistols and ammunition. Further, a number of incendiary bottles (Molotov cocktails).
May 15, 1943:.. We captured 4 pistols of larger calibers, 1 infernal machine with fuse, 10 kilograms of explosives, and a considerable amount of ammunition.
May 24, 1943:

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. Regarding the booty of arms, it must be taken into consideration that the arms themselves could in most cases not be captured, as the bandits and Jews would, before being arrested, throw them into hiding places or holes which could not be ascertained or discovered. The smoking out of the dug-out by our men, also often made the search for arms impossible. As the dug-outs had to be blown up at once, a search later on was out of the question. Poster published by ?OB Furthermore, we captured:

1,240 used uniform tunics (partly equipped with medal ribbons, Iron Cross, and East Medal).
600 pairs of used trousers.
Pieces of equipment, and German steel helmets.
103 horses, 4 of them in the former Ghetto (hearse).

We counted up to 23 May 1943:
4.4 million Zloty. We captured moreover about 5 to 6 million Zloty, not yet counted, a considerable amount of foreign currency, including -
$14,300 in paper.
$ 9,200 in gold.

Large amounts of valuables (rings, chains, watches etc.) Polish support "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had a real influence… in encouraging the activity of the Polish underground."- Samuel Krakowski The cover page of The Stroop Reportwith International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg markings. Announcement of death penalty for Jews captured outside the Ghetto and for Poles helping Jews, November 1941

Support from outside the Ghetto was limited, but Polish Resistance units from Armia Krajowa(AK) (the Home Army) and Polish Communist Gwardia Ludowa( GL) (the People's Guard) attacked German units near the ghetto walls and attempted to smuggle weapons, ammunition, supplies and instructions into the ghetto.

Polish resistance also provided the insurgents with a limited number of badly needed weapons and ammunitions from its meager stocks. Jewish fighters from the Jewish Military Union (?ZW) received only from the National Security Corps (PKB) underground police force: 2 heavy machine guns, 4 light machine guns, 21 submachine guns, 30 rifles, 50 pistols, and over 400 grenades. 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. SeveralJewish Combat Organization (?OB) commanders and fighters later escaped through the sewers with assistance from the Poles and joined Polish underground.

The Polish AK unit, the PKB, 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 Aryanside. 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 Jewish fighters. Participation of the Polish underground in the uprising was confirmed by a report of the German commander Jürgen Stroop, who reported:

"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. (…) 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. Its plan was to hold the Ghetto by every means in order to prevent us from invading it. (…) Time and again Polish bandits found refuge in the Ghetto and remained there undisturbed, since we had no forces at our disposal to comb out this maze. (…) One such battle group succeeded in mounting a truck by ascending from a sewer in the so-called Prosta [Street], and in escaping with it (about 30 to 35 bandits). … The bandits and Jews - there were Polish bandits among these gangs armed with carbines, small arms, and in one case a light machine gun - mounted the truck and drove away in an unknown direction." —Jürgen Stroop Stroop Report 1943

In her book On Both Sides of the Wall, Vladka Meed, who was a member of the Warsaw Ghetto underground, devotes a chapter to the lack of support from the Polish resistance. She states, “We knew that the Polish underground had secret caches of weapons. Mikolai was in touch with the leaders of the Polish underground, ‘They keep making promises!’ he told me again and again. We are urged to be patient…. Often, we wondered why, in spite of our willingness to pay generously, the underground refused to help us. However, our contacts with the Poles were tenuous and often came to grief; many times we were sold out.”

]Nazi forces

Ultimately, the efforts of the 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.

Two Askaris (i.e. Soviets in German service) peer into a doorway past the bodies of Jews killed during the suppression of the uprising.
Stroop Report original caption: "Askaris used during the operation."

The other forces were drawn from the Ordnungspolizei (Orpo) "uniformed order police" (battalions from theregiments 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 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 ordered to help in the operation. In addition, a number of criminals and executioners from the nearby Gestapo Pawiak prison, under the command of Franz Bürkl, volunteered to "hunt the Jews". Most of the remaining Jewish policemen were executed by the Gestapo, or used in the offensive and then subsequently executed as well.

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", the ?ZW, joined by elements of the ?OB, fighters engaged the Germans in two direct clashes

Even though the ?ZW and ?OB suffered heavy losses (including some of the leaders), the Germans also took casualties, and the deportation was halted within a few days. 5,000 Jews were removed instead of the 8,000 as planned by Globocnik. There were hundreds of people in the Warsaw ghetto ready to fight, adults and even children, sparsely armed with handguns, gasoline bottles and a few other weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto by the resistance fighters.

Two resistance organizations, the ?ZW and ?OB, then took control of the Ghetto. They built dozens of fighting posts and executed collaborators, including Jewish Police officers, members of German-sponsored and controlled ?agiew organization, as well as the Gestapoagents (like Judenrat member Dr Alfred Nossig on 22 February 1943). The ?OB established a prison to hold and execute traitors and collaborators. Józef Szery?ski, the former head of the Jewish Ghetto Police, committed suicide.

German assault

On April 19, 1943, on the eve of Passover, the police and SS auxiliary forces entered the Ghetto planning to complete their Action within three days. However, they suffered losses as they were repeatedly ambushed by Jewish insurgents, who aggressively fired and threw Molotov cocktails and hand grenades at them from alleyways, sewers and windows. Two German vehicles: a French-made Lorraine 37L armoured fighting vehicle and an armoured car were set on fire by ?OB petrol bombs, and the German advance was bogged down.

Photo from Nowolipie Street. In the back one can see (from the left) townhouses at Nowolipie 32 (fragment), 30 and 28. Possibly second from right is Josef Blösche. Similar picture at [Stroop report original caption: "Jewish Rabbis". Picture taken at Nowolipie street, between Smocza and Karmelicka street. On the right visible building at Nowolipie 34. Stroop Report original caption: "Smoking out the Jews and Bandits". Stroop Report original caption: "A patrol." SS men on Nowolipie street of Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising. Buildings in the image from the right: Nowolipie 50a, then 52, 54 and wall of the townhouse nr. 56. The original German caption reads: "Forcibly pulled out of dug-outs". Captured Jews are led by German soldiers to the assembly point for deportation. Picture taken at Nowolipie street looking East, near intersection with Smocza street. On the right townhouse at Nowolipie 63 further the ghetto wall with a gate. On the left burning balcony of the townhouse Nowolipie 66. Jewish IDs can be found here at Surrounded by heavily armed guards,SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop (center) watches housing blocks burn. SDRottenführer at right is possibly Josef Blösche ("Frankenstein"). Picture taken at Nowolipie street looking East, near intersection with Smocza street. On the left burning balcony of the townhouse Nowolipie 66, next to it ghetto wall.
Stroop Report original caption: "The leader of the grand operation."

As the battle continued inside the Ghetto, Polish resistance groups AK and GL engaged the Germans between April 19 and April 23 at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, firing at German sentries and positions. In one attack, three cell units of AK under the command of Captain Józef Pszenny ("Chwacki") tried to breach the Ghetto walls with explosives, but the Germans repulsed this attack.

Following von Sammern-Frankenegg's failure to contain the revolt, he lost his post as the SS and policecommander of Warsaw. He was replaced by SS-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.

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 headquarters of the Jewish Resistance there and raised two flags: the red-and-white Polish flag and the blue-and-white banner of the ?ZW (blue and white are the colors of the Flag of Israel today). These flags were well-seen from the Warsaw streets, and the Jews managed to hold off the Germans for four entire days in their 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. TheReichsfuehrer [Himmler] bellowed into the phone: "Stroop, you must at all costs bring down those two flags."

Another German armoured vehicle was destroyed in a Jewish counterattack, in which ?ZW commander Dawid Moryc 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 using flamethrowers and blowing up basements and sewers. "We were beaten by the flames, not the Germans," resistance leader Marek Edelmansaid in 2007. In 2003, he recalled:

The sea of flames flooded houses and courtyards…. There was no air, only black, choking smoke and heavy burning heat radiating form (sic) the red-hot walls, from the glowing stone stairs.

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

German sentries with aMaschinengewehr 08machine gun at one of the gates to the ghetto. Original Caption read "Measures for covering a street." (view on Nowolipie street near Smocza street).

The remaining Jewish civilians and surviving fighters took cover in the bunker dugouts which were hidden among the ruins of the Ghetto. The German troops used dogs to look for the hideouts. Smoke grenades, tear gas and reportedly even poison gas were used to force people out. In many instances, the Jewish fighters came out of their hiding places and shot at the Germans, while a number of female fighters lobbed hidden grenades or fired concealed handguns at the Germans after they had surrendered. Small groups of Jewish insurgents attacked German patrols at night. However, German casualties were mostly minimal after the first few 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 ingestingcyanide. 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 resistance continued. The last skirmish took place on June 5, 1943 between Germans and a holdout group of armed insurgents without connection to the resistance groups.

Death toll

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

Jürgen Stroop's internal SS daily report for Friedrich Krüger, written on May 16, 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.

On May 24, 1943 Stroop reported 621 bunkers had been destroyed.

According to the Stroop's report (both causality lists and separate daily reports), his forces suffered 17 killed in action (16 listed by name) and 93 wounded (86 of them listed by name); 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 (by Edelman's estimate about 300 casualties). For the propagandapurposes, official German casualties were announced to be only a few wounded, while bulletins of the Polish Underground State claimed that hundreds of Nazis died in the fighting.

German daily losses and the official figures for killed or captured Jews and "bandits", according to the Stroop report:

19 April --- 1 killed, 24 wounded ---- 580 captured
20 April --- 3 killed, 10 wounded ---- 533 captured
21 April --- 0 killed, 5 wounded --- 5,200 captured
22 April --- 3 killed, 1 wounded --- 6,580 captured + 203 "Jews and bandits" killed + 35 Poles killed outside the Ghetto
23 April --- 0 killed, 3 wounded --- 4,100 captured + 200 "Jews and bandits" killed + 3 Jews captured outside the Ghetto. Total of 19,450 Jews reported caught
24 April --- 0 killed, 3 wounded --- 1,660 captured + 1,811 "pulled out of dugouts, about 330 shot"
25 April --- 0 killed, 4 wounded --- 1,690 captured + 274 shot + "very large portion of the bandits…captured". Total of 27,464 Jews caught
26 April --- 0 killed, 0 wounded --- 1,722 captured + 1,330 "destroyed"+ 362 Jews shot. 30 Jews "displaced". Total of 29,186 Jews captured.
27 April --- 0 killed, 4 wounded --- 2,560 captured of whom 547 shot + 24 Polish "bandits killed in battle" + 52 Polish "bandits" arrested. Total of 31,746 Jews caught
28 April --- 0 killed, 3 wounded --- 1,655 captured of whom 110 killed + 10 "bandits" killed and 9 "arrested". Total of 33,401 Jews caught
29 April --- 0 killed 0 wounded ---- 2,359 captured of whom 106 killed
30 April --- 0 killed 0 wounded ---- 1,599 captured of whom 179 killed. Total of 37,359 Jews caught
1 May ---- 2 killed, 2 wounded ----- 1,026 captured of whom 245 killed. Total of 38,385 Jews caught + 150 killed outside Ghetto
2 May ---- 0 killed, 7 wounded ----- 1,852 captured and 235 killed. Total of 40,237 Jews caught
3 May ---- 0 killed, 3 wounded ----- 1,569 captured and 95 killed. Total of 41,806 Jews caught
4 May ---- 0 killed, 0 wounded ----- 2,238 captured of whom 204 shot. Total of 44,089 Jews caught
5 May ---- 0 killed, 2 wounded ----- 2,250 captured
6 May ---- 2 killed, 1 wounded ----- 1,553 captured + 356 shot
7 May ---- 0 killed, 1 wounded ----- 1,109 captured + 255 shot. Total of 45,342 Jews caught
8 May ---- 3 killed, 3 wounded ----- 1,091 captured and 280 killed + 60 "heavily armed bandits" caught
9 May ---- 0 killed, 0 wounded ----- 1,037 "Jews and bandits" caught and 319 "bandits and Jews" shot. Total of 51,313 Jews caught + 254 "Jews and bandits" shot outside Ghetto
10 May --- 0 killed, 4 wounded ---- 1,183 caught and 187 "bandits and Jews" shot. Total of 52,693 Jews caught
11 May --- 1 killed, 2 wounded ------- 931 "Jews and bandits" caught and 53 "bandits" shot. Total of 53,667 Jews caught
12 May --- 0 killed, 1 wounded ------- 663 caught and 133 shot. Total of 54,463 Jews caught
13 May --- 2 killed, 4 wounded ------- 561 caught and 155 shot. Total of 55,179 Jews caught
14 May --- 0 killed, 5 wounded ------- 398 caught and 154 "Jews and bandits" shot. Total of 55,731 Jews caught
15 May --- 0 killed, 1 wounded --------- 87 caught and 67 "bandits and Jews" shot. Total of 56,885 Jews caught
16 May --- 0 killed, 0 wounded ------- 180 "Jews, bandits and subhumans" "Destroyed". Total of 57,065 Jews either captured or killed.

Aftermath

Warsaw Ghetto & Uprising