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    The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944
    The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944
    The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944
    Ebook155 pages46 minutes

    The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944

    By Ian Baxter

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    About this ebook

    By 1942 the Nazi leadership had decided that the Jewish ghettos across occupied Poland should be liquidated, with Warsaw’s being the largest , processed in phases. In response the left-wing Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) and right-wing Jewish Military Union (ZZW) formed and began training, preparing defences and smuggling in arms and explosives. The first Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943. Although this was quelled at devastating cost to the Jewish community, resistance continued until the summer of 1944. By this time the Red Army was closing on the city and with liberation apparently imminent the 40,000 resistance fighters of the Polish Home Army launched a second uprising. For sixty-three days the insurgents battled their oppressors on the streets, in ruined buildings and cellars. Rather than come to their aid the Russians waited and watched the inevitable slaughter. This gallant but tragic struggle is brought to life in this book by the superb collection of photographs drawn from the album compiled for none other than Heinrich Himmler entitled Warschauer Aufstand 1944.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateJul 7, 2021
    ISBN9781526799920
    The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944
    Author

    Ian Baxter

    Ian Baxter is a military historian who specialises in German twentieth-century military history. He has written more than fifty books. He has also reviewed numerous military studies for publication, supplied thousands of photographs and important documents to various publishers and film production companies worldwide, and lectures to various schools, colleges and universities throughout the United Kingdom and Southern Ireland.

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    • 4/5
      The Warsaw Uprisings 1943 – 1944 – Haunting and Brilliant.Ian Baxter has uncovered once again some rare wartime photographs from Warsaw archives which many in the Western Europe tend to ignore. This is the reason why Baxter is one of the best researchers on the Second World War and everything that happened in the eastern theatre of war. He often brings to the fore issues that are often “forgotten” here in the west or only remembered by a few groups. The Warsaw Uprisings are one of those forgotten war crimes and as any of the survivors become less every year, this book becomes even more important.In 1942 the Nazi leadership had decided that it was time that the Jewish Ghettos in occupied Poland should be liquidised. Warsaw’s ghetto was the largest, and the liquidisation was done in a number of phases. Baxter’s narrative is not controversial it is straightforward and makes it easy for the reader to understand.The Warsaw Uprising which took place, first with the Jewish responses of the Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ZZW) fought against the Nazi occupiers. The Nazi regime quashed violently in April 1943, but this would go on when even the Polish Home Army were involved in 1944. In 1944 the Red Army allowed the Nazis to continue the quashing of any revolt from Jew and Pole alike as they knew it would be easier for them to suppress opposition at a later date with the “work” having been done for them.The pictures in this excellent book show the streets and buildings that were destroyed along with the lives of all those involved. This is a superb and haunting collection of pictures that shows Warsaw that was being destroyed over a year. This book shows the devastation that the SS brought on to the city by blowing up houses and streets and then putting a concentration camp in their place to help them deal with the uprisings.The actual number of Polish and Jewish organisations deaths is unknown but thought to be around 22,000 and we know that the Nazis lost 11,000 soldiers. The civilian population bore the brunt of the disaster of the uprising with somewhere between 150,000 and 200, 000 deaths, with 500, 000 surrendering to the Germans in October 1944.Another excellent and haunting book from Ian Baxter.

    Book preview

    The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944 - Ian Baxter

    Chapter One

    Prelude

    Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 the Nazi government quickly began incorporating large areas of Poland into the Reich. They cleared the Poles and Jews out and replaced them with German settlers. The unincorporated areas, comprising the provinces of Lublin and parts of Warsaw and Krakow, were known as the ‘General Government’. They became the dumping ground for those deemed enemies of the state. It was here that the first deportations of Poles and Jews were sent in their thousands.

    By early 1940 the Germans realised that simultaneously moving Poles, Jews and ethnic Germans had become an administrative nightmare, and it was agreed that the Jews would be forced to live in ghettos. Hundreds of ghettos were built to confine and segregate them. In smaller towns the ghettos often served as temporary holding areas, to use Jews for slave labour and later move them to larger ghettos.

    The largest ghetto built was the Warsaw Ghetto, officially known by the Germans as the ‘Jüdischer Wohnbezirk in Warschau’ (Jewish Residential District in Warsaw).

    On 1 April 1940, District Governor Ludwig Fischer ordered the construction of the ghetto wall. Built primarily by the Jews themselves, it was to completely encircle the ghetto.

    On 2 October, Fischer issued the ‘Regulations for Restrictions on Residence in the General Government of 13 September 1940’. It read:

    1. A Jewish quarter is to be formed in the city of Warsaw, in which the Jews living in the city of Warsaw, or still to move there, must take up residence. The quarter will be set off from the rest of the city by the following streets: [here follows a list of streets and sections of streets].

    2. Poles residing in the Jewish quarter must move their domicile into the other part of the city by 31 October 1940. Apartments will be provided by the Housing Office of the Polish City Hall. Poles who have not given up their apartments in the Jewish quarter by the above date will be forcibly moved. In the event of a forcible removal they will be permitted to take only luggage, bed-linen, and articles of sentimental value. Poles are not permitted to move into the German quarter.

    3. Jews living outside the Jewish quarter must move into the Jewish area of residence by 31 October 1940. They may take only refugee luggage and bed-linen. Apartments will be allocated by the Jewish Elder.

    4. The Appointed Mayor of the Polish City Hall and the Jewish Elder are responsible for the orderly move of the Jews to the Jewish quarter, and the punctual move of the Poles away from the Jewish quarter, in accordance with a plan yet to be worked out, which will provide for the evacuation by stages of the individual police districts.

    5. The Representative of the District Governor of the city of Warsaw will give the necessary detailed instructions to the Jewish Elder for the establishing and permanent closure of the Jewish quarter.

    6. The Representative of the District Governor of the city of Warsaw will issue regulations for the execution of this Decree.

    7. Any person contravening this Decree, or the Regulations for its execution, will be punished in accordance with the existing laws on punishment.

    Head of the Warsaw District, Dr. Fischer (Governor)

    By 16 October 1940 the ghetto was officially in operation and imprisoned around 400,000 Jews.

    As the ghetto became more established, the German authorities began various business enterprises, often for the war effort, using ghetto inhabitants for labour. Work was a welcome relief, as conditions inside the ghetto were soon appalling.

    The Germans did nothing to alleviate hunger and disease. Epidemics became a feature of life along with starvation diets – 76,000 deaths recorded before July 1942.

    At the Wannsee conference in January 1942, senior Nazi officials and SS leaders agreed that the ghettos should be ‘liquidated’. This meant the Jews being deported from the ghettos and sent to the various labour and murder camps that were being built such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

    The clearing of the Warsaw ghetto and transportation to the death camps was an immense undertaking. The first phase, called Grossaktion Warschau, was set in motion on 22 July 1942. The destination was TII, known to the SS as Treblinka.

    In charge of the shipments was SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Höfle. He issued the following order to the Jewish Council in Warsaw:

    1. All Jewish persons irrespective of age or sex who live in Warsaw will be resettled in the east.

    2. The following are excluded from the resettlement:

    (a) All Jewish persons who are employed by the German authorities or by German agencies and can provide proof of it.

    (b) All Jewish persons who belong to the Jewish Council and are

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