[Written in 2013]
“My life’s dream has now been realized: Jewish self-defence in the ghetto is now an accomplished fact… I have been witness to the magnificent, heroic struggle of the Jewish fighters.”
Mordecai Anielewicz
This year, on the 19th April 2013, we remember the 70th anniversary of the beginning of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943; it was the eve of Passover.
Ghetto, the Jewish area of Venice, gave name to Jewish neighbourhoods everywhere. On 21st September 1939, Heinrich Himmler decided to segregate the Jewish people from the “Aryans” by locking them into ghettos. The first modern-day ghetto was established on 28th October 1939 in the Polish town of Piotrkow. The Jews of the town and the surrounding area were stripped of all of their belongings, after their properties had been confiscated, before being incarcerated there. Soon all of Poland’s Jews were locked in ghettos in the General Government (that part of Poland not incorporated into the Reich, but still occupied). The largest ones were in Łodz and Warsaw. Jews from the dismantled Czechoslovakia were also transported and dumped in these ghettos. The overcrowding in the Warsaw ghetto was unbearable; at one point 450,000 people were crowded within its walls, an estimated 307 hectares of space. The German authorities established Jewish Councils to run the Ghettos, to serve the Reich’s interests. Conditions were so bad that between 1940 and 1942, 100,000 people died of disease and hunger. But for Germany it was nowhere near enough. They wanted the Jews dying in much larger numbers. Between 22nd July and 21st September 1942, some 265,000 Jewish men, women and children were taken to Treblinka and gassed, 11,580 were taken for slave labour and more than 10,000 people were murdered on the spot. The German authorities officially allowed only 35,000 to remain alive in the Warsaw ghetto, but there were about 20,000 more hiding inside the ghetto.
Heinrich Jöst, a sergeant in the Wehrmacht and a photographic enthusiast, on 19th September 1941, took his Rolleiflex camera and entered the Warsaw Ghetto, with the expectation of taking interesting photos. What he encountered was Dante’s Inferno surrounding him. He took a number of high-quality pictures, documenting the true horrors of the place, and put them away. These photos eventually reached Yad Vashem as testaments of German brutality.
Please take a look at some of his photos with his comments under them:
It had come to the attention of the Ghetto’s Jews that on 18th January 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto was to be liquidated; all the inhabitants were to be transported to Treblinka for gassing. In response, some of the younger elements of the Ghetto organised themselves into defence organisations. The ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa - the Jewish Combat Organisaion) consisted of about 500 members under the leadership of the 23-year-old Mordecai Anielewicz and Betar’s ŻZW (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy - the Jewish Military Union) with about 250 members. In true Jewish fashion, the two organisations were at loggerheads, but they soon realised that in the interest of the resistance they had to co-operate. When the Nazis came to round up people for the next transport, some of the Jewish fighters joined the columns of Jews at the Umschlagplatz (transfer point) and attacked their German escorts with small arms smuggled in from the Free Polish Army. Most of these brave boys died on the spot, but the surprise had disoriented the Germans, giving a chance for the Jews to disperse, and the troops retreated.
Expecting further deportations, the boys of the ghetto built shelters and bunkers to make it difficult for the Nazis. When the Wehrmacht returned on 19th April 1943, on the eve of Passover, the Germans found the streets deserted. The inhabitants had gone into hiding. At 3am the soldiers surrounded the ghetto and battle commenced. 2,000 Germans armed with a tank, two armoured cars, three light-anti-aircraft guns, one medium howitzer, heavy and light machine guns, flame throwers, rifles, pistols and grenades, etc. They were faced off by 700-750 Jewish resistance fighters with a stockpile of a few thousand grenades and a few hundred rifles, some revolvers and pistols. Two or three light machine guns were their most advanced weapons. The Germans planned to clear the ghetto of 60,000 in three days but the Jews were planning to hold out as long as possible.
The heroic youngsters set upon the mighty German Army, killing a few, and the Nazis were forced to withdraw. Following this initial setback, Himmler replaced the German commander with one Jürgen Stroop, an experienced and ruthless partisan fighter, but he also failed to quash the uprising. Though small in numbers and poorly equipped, the Jewish boys and girls stood their ground for 27 days. Losing patience, Stroop ordered the burning down of every building in the ghetto.
On the 8th May, the bunker where the ŻOB operated from was captured and Mordecai Anielewicz and a large part of his brigade were killed. Several dozen fighters managed to escape through the sewers, so the Germans raised the water levels there. It took months and months of combing through the ruins and sewers, demolishing burnt out buildings, before finally everyone was captured. On 16th May, Stroop announced that the fighting was over. The Germans shot 7,000 on the spot and transported the same number to Treblinka, 15,000 to Majdanek, and the remainder to slave-labour camps. The Germans captured 9 rifles, 59 pistols, and several hundred grenades, explosives, and mines. Among the Germans and their collaborators, the stated losses were 16 dead and 85 wounded. As a symbol of victory, Stroop blew up the Warsaw Great Synagogue. It took 28 days for the Germans to vanquish the Warsaw ghetto.
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