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    The document summarizes the history of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War 2. It describes how nearly 400,000 Jews lived in the ghetto by 1939, confined behind walls in a small section of the city. From 1940-1942, over 300,000 Jews were deported to death camps like Treblinka. In January 1943, Jewish resistance fighters revolted when the Nazis tried to deport more people, inspiring preparations for an uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943, with Jewish fighters battling the German army for over a month before most of the remaining Jews were killed or the ghetto was destroyed.

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    Inquiry2 Evidence3 Arellano

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    The document summarizes the history of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War 2. It describes how nearly 400,000 Jews lived in the ghetto by 1939, confined behind walls in a small section of the city. From 1940-1942, over 300,000 Jews were deported to death camps like Treblinka. In January 1943, Jewish resistance fighters revolted when the Nazis tried to deport more people, inspiring preparations for an uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943, with Jewish fighters battling the German army for over a month before most of the remaining Jews were killed or the ghetto was destroyed.

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    The document summarizes the history of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War 2. It describes how nearly 400,000 Jews lived in the ghetto by 1939, confined behind walls in a small section of the city. From 1940-1942, over 300,000 Jews were deported to death camps like Treblinka. In January 1943, Jewish resistance fighters revolted when the Nazis tried to deport more people, inspiring preparations for an uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943, with Jewish fighters battling the German army for over a month before most of the remaining Jews were killed or the ghetto was destroyed.

    Copyright:

    © All Rights Reserved
    Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online from Scribd
    Download as docx, pdf, or txt
    55 views5 pages

    Inquiry2 Evidence3 Arellano

    Uploaded by

    api-311734459
    The document summarizes the history of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War 2. It describes how nearly 400,000 Jews lived in the ghetto by 1939, confined behind walls in a small section of the city. From 1940-1942, over 300,000 Jews were deported to death camps like Treblinka. In January 1943, Jewish resistance fighters revolted when the Nazis tried to deport more people, inspiring preparations for an uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943, with Jewish fighters battling the German army for over a month before most of the remaining Jews were killed or the ghetto was destroyed.

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    of 5

    Warsaws pre-war Jewish population in 1939 was 393,950 Jews,

    approximately one-third of the city total. From October 1939 to January 1940,
    Germans enacted anti-Jewish measures, including forced labor, the wearing
    of a Jewish star and a prohibition against riding on public transportation.
    In April 1940, construction of the ghetto walls began. On Yom Kippur,
    October 12, 1940, the Nazis announced the building of Jewish residential
    quarters. Roughly 30% of the citys population was to be confined to an area
    that comprised just 2.4% of city lands. Jews from Warsaw and those deported
    from other places throughout Western Europe were ordered to move into the
    ghetto, while 113,000 Christians were moved out of the area. The ghetto was
    divided into two sections, a small ghetto at the south end and a larger one at
    the north end. German and Polish police guarded its outside entrance and a
    Jewish militia was formed to police the inside.
    The population of the ghetto reached more than half a million people.
    Unemployment was a major problem in the ghetto. Illegal workshops were
    created to manufacture goods to be sold illegally on the outside and raw
    goods were smuggled in. Children became couriers and smugglers.
    Hospitals, public soup kitchens, orphanages, refugee centers and recreation
    facilities were formed, as well as a school system. Some schools were illegal
    and operated under the guise of a soup kitchen. Still, many Jews died from
    mass epidemics (such as typhoid) and hunger. The streets were filled with
    corpses. Jews in the ghetto still had to pay for burial, and if they couldn't
    afford it, the bodies were left unburied.
    Clandestine prayer groups and yeshivot were also started. Some religious
    Jews believed that their suffering was preordained and would bring about
    the Messiah. There were also many religious Jews involved in heroic acts.
    One famous leader was Janusz Korczak, the director of the Jewish orphanage,
    who chose to accompany the children he cared for when they were deported.
    This first mass deportation of 300,000 Jews to Treblinka began in the summer
    of 1942. The number of deportees averaged about 5,000-7,000 people daily,
    and reached a high of 13,000. At first, ghetto factory workers, Jewish
    police, Judenrat members, hospital workers and their families were spared,
    but they were also periodically subject to deportation. Only 35,000 were
    allowed to remain in the ghetto at one time.Adam Czerniakow, the head of
    the Warsaw Judenrat committed suicide on July 23, 1942, to protest the
    killing of Jewish children.

    A second wave of deportations to Treblinka began on January 18, 1943,


    during which many factory workers and hospital personnel were taken.
    Unexpected Jewish armed resistance, however, forced the Nazis to retreat
    from the ghetto after four days of deportations.
    Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
    Following the armed resistance in January 1943, all social institutions and
    the Judenrat ceased to function and even walking on the streets became
    illegal. Mordechai Anielewicz, at the age of 24, became the leader of the
    Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). He recruited more than 750 fighters, but
    amassed only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and a couple of grenades. A developed
    network of bunkers and fortifications were formed. The Jewish fighters also
    received support from the Polish Underground.
    On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began when German troops
    penetrated the ghetto to begin a third round of mass deportations. The ZOB
    faced a formidable force of 2,000 armed German soldiers, yet the Germans
    were unable to defeat the Jews in open street combat. After several days, the
    Germans switched tactics and began burning down houses. The ZOB
    headquarters on 18 Mila Street fell on May 8, 1943; at this time Mordechai
    Anielewicz died in battle.
    On May 16, 1943, the ghetto was liquidated and the Germans blew up the
    Great Synagogue on Tomlacke Street in victory. Sixty thousand Jews died in
    the ghetto uprising.
    Not all Jews were found by the Nazis by May 16 and intermittent fighting
    lasted until June 1943. About 50 ghetto fighters were saved by the Polish
    "Peoples Guard" and formed their own partisan group, named
    after Anielewicz. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising empowered Jews throughout
    Poland and resulted in armed resistance in other ghettos. After the ghetto
    was liquidated, Jewish leaders continued to work underground on the "Aryan"
    side by hiding Jews and issuing forged documents. Many Jews became active
    in the Polish underground of Greater Warsaw.
    Post-War Warsaw
    In September 1944, Warsaws eastern suburb, Praga, was liberated and, in
    January 1945, the main parts of the city on the left bank were liberated by
    the Soviets. About 6,000 Jews participated in the battle for the liberation of
    Warsaw. Two thousand Jewish survivors were found in underground hideouts,
    when the city was liberated. When the city stadium was built, the bones of

    approximately 100,000 people were found in a mass grave and reburied in


    the city cemetery. By the end of 1945, 5,000 Jews settled in Warsaw. The
    population doubled when Jews who survived the war in Russia returned to
    Warsaw. The city became the seat of the Central Committee of Polish Jews
    and a number of Jewish cultural institutions were opened in 1949.
    Over the next two decades, waves of immigration were stimulated by antiSemitism and communist persecution. The first large group left for Israel in
    1946-47 following the Kielce pogrom. Others left in 1957-58 and 1967-68. By
    1968, most Jewish institutions ceased to function.
    Present-Day Community
    Currently, most of Polands Jewish population lives in Warsaw. The Union of
    Religious Congregations has its main office in Warsaw. There is both a Jewish
    primary school and a kindergarten. Warsaw also houses the offices of the
    Main Judaic Library and Museum of Jewish Martyrology. It is the home also of
    the E.R. Kaminska Jewish Theater, the only regularly functioning Yiddish
    theater in the world. Most of its actors today are not Jewish. While parts of
    Europe have seen an upsurge of anti-Semitism, this has not occurred in
    Poland.
    While Jews living in Warsaw feel their situation today is good, few are in
    prominent positions. One of the major issues for the community remains
    the restitution of property taken from Jews during the war.
    Israeli President Reuven Rivlin joined Polish officials, Holocaust survivors, and
    media representatives on October 28 2014 for the opening of Poland's new
    "Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews". The building was innaugurated
    last year and the museum cost in total over $100 million. The museum was
    built on the grounds where the Warsaw Ghetto stood during the Holocaust.
    The visit to the opening of the museum was Israeli President Rivlin's first
    foreign trip since his election in Summer 2014. The core exhibit tells the
    story of the 1,000 year history of Jews in Poland through 8 chronological
    gallery sections.
    In 1942, Hitler decided to liquidate the ghettos and, within 18 months, had
    the more than two million Jews whod survived the ghettos deported to death
    camps.
    The Germans ordered the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto to round up
    people for deportation. Approximately 300,000 men, women, and children
    were packed in cattle cars and transported to the Treblinkadeath camp where

    they were murdered. This left a Jewish population of between 55,000 and
    60,000 in the ghetto.
    An organization called the Z.O.B. (for the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja
    Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting Organization). The Z.O.B., led by 23year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish
    people to resist going to the railroad cars.
    In January 1943, Warsaw ghetto fighters fired upon German troops as they
    tried to round up another group of ghetto inhabitants for deportation.
    Fighters used a small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the
    ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated. This small victory inspired the
    ghetto fighters to prepare for future resistance.
    The impact on the ghetto residents is described in the Encyclopedia of the
    Holocaust:
    The Jews in the ghetto believed that what had happened in January was proof
    that by offering resistance it was possible to force the Germans to desist
    from their plans. Many thought that the Germans would persist in
    unrestrained mass deportations only so long as the Jews were passive, but
    that in the face of resistance and armed confrontation they would think twice
    before embarking upon yet another Aktion. The Germans would also have to
    take into account the possibility that the outbreak of fighting in the ghetto
    might lead to the rebellion spreading to the Polish population and might
    create a state of insecurity in all of occupied Poland. These considerations
    led the civilian population of the ghetto, in the final phase of its existence, to
    approve of resistance and give its support to the preparations for the
    uprising. The population also used the interval to prepare and equip a
    network of subterranean refuges and hiding places, where they could hold
    out for an extended period even if they were cut off from one another. In the
    end, every Jew in the ghetto had his own spot in one of the shelters set up in
    the central part of the ghetto. The civilian population and the fighters now
    shared a common interest based on the hope that, under the existing
    circumstances, fighting the Germans might be a way to rescue.
    After the January battle, the Jews spent the following weeks training,
    acquiring weapons, and making plans to defend of the ghetto. The Germans
    also prepared for the possibility of a fight. On the eve of the final
    deportation, Heinrich Himmler replaced the chief of the SS and police in
    the Warsaw district, Obergruppenfuhrer Ferdinand von Sammern-

    Frankenegg, with SS und Polizeifuhrer (SS and Police Leader) Jurgen Stroop,
    an officer who had experience fighting partisans.
    The ghetto fighters were warned of the timing of the final deportation and
    the entire Jewish population went into hiding. On the morning of April 19,
    1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police
    entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and
    fifty fighters armed with a handful of pistols, 17 rifles, and Molotov cocktails
    faced more than 2,000 heavily armed and well-trained German troops
    supported by tanks and flamethrowers..
    After the Germans were forced to withdraw from the ghetto, they returned
    with more and more firepower. After several days without quelling the
    uprising, the German commander, General Jrgen Stroop, ordered the ghetto
    burned to the ground building by building. Still, the Jews held out against the
    overwhelming force for 27 days. On May 8, the headquarters bunker of the
    ZOB at 18 Mila Street was captured. Mordecai Anielewicz and a large number
    of his colleagues were killed in the fighting, but several dozen fighters
    escaped through the sewers.

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