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Warsaw Ghetto

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Further information: Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
Warsaw Ghetto
Brick wall of the Warsaw Ghetto dividing the Iron-Gate Square, with view of bombed out Lubomirski Palace (left) on the "Aryan" side of the city, May 24, 1941.
Also known asGerman: Ghetto Warschau
LocationWarsaw: Muranów, Powązki, Nowolipki, Śródmieście Północne, Mirów
(German-occupied Poland)
DateOctober 1940 to May 1943
Incident typeImprisonment, mass shootings, forced labor, starvation, mass deportations to Treblinka and labour camps in the Lublin Reservation
Perpetrators Germany
ParticipantsSS-Totenkopfverbände, Gestapo, Orpo battalions, Einsatzgruppen, Trawnikis, Waffen-SS
OrganizationsSchutzstaffel (SS), RSHA
CampTreblinka, Majdanek [1]
Victims
  • 265,000 at Treblinka [2]
  • 42,000 at Majdanek [2]
  • 92,000 inside the Ghetto [3]
  • with expellees from Germany, Czechoslovakia and other occupied countries.[4]
DocumentationJewish Historical Institute
Museum of the History of the Polish Jews
Memorials

The Warsaw Ghetto[5] (German: Warschauer Ghetto, officially Jüdischer Wohnbezirk in Warschau Jewish Residential District in Warsaw; Template:Lang-pl) was the largest of all the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established by the German authorities in the Muranów neighborhood of the Polish capital between October and November 16, 1940; within the new General Government territory of German-occupied Poland. There were over 400,000 Jews imprisoned there,[4] at an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi), with an average of 9.2 persons per room,[6][7] barely subsisting on meager food rations.[7] From the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews were deported to Nazi camps and mass-killing centers. In the summer of 1942 at least 254,000 Ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp during Großaktion Warschau under the guise of "resettlement in the East" over the course of the summer.[7]

The death toll among the Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas,[8] combined with 92,000 victims of rampant hunger and hunger-related diseases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the casualties of the final destruction of the Ghetto.[2][9][10][11]

Background

Before World War II, Warsaw was one of the most diverse cities in the Second Polish Republic. The majority of Polish Jews lived in the merchant districts of Muranów, Powązki, and Stara Praga, while most ethnic Germans lived in Śródmieście.[12] Over 90% of Catholics lived further away from the bustling commercial and vital centre of the capital.[12] The Jewish community was the most prominent there, constituting over 88% of the inhabitants of Muranów; with the total of about 32.7% of the population of the left-bank and 14.9% of the right-bank Warsaw, or 332,938 people in total according to 1931 census.[12] Many Jews left the city during the depression,[12] which was more severe and longer-lasting in Poland than elsewhere in Europe.[13] In 1938 the Jewish population of the Polish capital was estimated at 270,000 people.[14]

The Siege of Warsaw continued until September 29, 1939. On September 10 alone, the Luftwaffe conducted 17 bombing raids on the city;[15] three days later, 50 German planes attacked the city centre, targeting specifically Wola and Żoliborz. In total, some 30,000 people were killed,[15] and 10 percent of the city was destroyed.[4] Along with the advancing Wehrmacht, the Einsatzgruppe EG IV and the Einsatzkommandos rolled into town. On November 7, 1939, the Reichsführer-SS reorganized them into local security service (SD). Meanwhile, the German fifth column members of Selbstschutz (detained by the defenders of Warsaw) were released immediately. The commander of EG IV, SS-Standartenführer Josef Meisinger (the "Butcher of Warsaw"), was appointed chief of police for the newly formed Distrikt Warschau.[15] After the takeover of Warsaw, the German authorities began the registration of the ethnic Germans who were issued the Kennkarte separate from the rest of the locals.[12] By June 1940 there were 2,500 Reichsdeutsche and 5,500 Volksdeutsche registered in Warsaw. In the next two years their number more than doubled, on top of over 50,000 German military personnel.[12]

Creation

Anachronistic map with borders of the Warsaw Ghetto in November 1940 (see interactive map), with location of Umschlagplatz for awaiting death trains
Anachronistic map with borders of the Warsaw Ghetto in November 1940 (see interactive map), with location of Umschlagplatz for awaiting death trains
Main article: Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland
U.S. aerial photograph of northern Warsaw Ghetto area in May 1943

By the end of the September campaign the number of Jews in and around the capital increased dramatically with thousands of refugees escaping the Polish-German front in any way possible, often on foot.[16] In less than a year, the number of refugees in Warsaw exceeded 90,000.[17] Once the partition of the country between Germany and the invading Soviet Union was complete,[6] on October 12, 1939, the General Government was officially established by Adolf Hitler in the occupied area of central Poland.[18] The Jewish Council (Judenrat) in Warsaw was formed by the Nazis on October 7. It was composed of 24 prominent individuals led by Adam Czerniaków, personally responsible for carrying out German orders.[17] The persecution of Jews began soon thereafter. On October 26, the imposition of Jewish forced labour was announced, to clear the rubble from bomb damage among similar tasks. One month later, on November 20, the bank accounts of Polish Jews and any deposits exceeding 2,000 zł were blocked.[18] On November 23, all Jewish establishments were ordered to display a Jewish star on doors and windows. Beginning December 1, all Jews older than ten were compelled to wear a white armband, and on December 11, they were forbidden from using public transit.[18] On January 26, 1940, the Jews were banned from holding communal prayers ostensibly due to the risk of "spreading epidemics".[19] Food stamps were being introduced by the German authorities, and the liquidation of all smaller Jewish communities in the vicinity of Warsaw had intensified. The Jewish population of the capital reached 359,827 before the end of the year.[17]

Roundup of Jewish men for forced labor by the Orpo police, Krakowskie Przedmieście, March 1940

On the orders of Warsaw District Governor, Ludwig Fischer, the Ghetto wall construction started on April 1, 1940, circling the area of Warsaw inhabited predominantly by Jews. The work was supervised by the Warsaw Judenrat.[20] The Nazi authorities expelled 113,000 ethnic Poles from the neighbourhood, and ordered the relocation of 138,000 Warsaw Jews from the suburbs into the city centre.[21] On October 16, 1940, the creation of the ghetto covering the area of 307 hectares (3.07 km2) was announced officially by the German Governor-General, Hans Frank. The population of the ghetto was 450,000 initially.[17] Before the Holocaust began the number of Jews imprisoned there was between 375,000[22] and 400,000 (about 30% of the general population of the capital).[23] The area of the ghetto constituted only about 2.4% of the overall metropolitan area.[24]

Warsaw Ghetto wall and footbridge over Chłodna Street in 1942

The Germans closed the Warsaw Ghetto to the outside world on November 15, 1940.[16] The wall around it was typically 3 m (9.8 ft) high and topped with barbed wire. Escapees were shot on sight. German policemen from Battalion 61 used to hold victory parties on the days when a large number of desperate prisoners were shot at the ghetto fence.[25] The borders of the ghetto changed and its overall area was gradually reduced, as the captive population was ravaged by outbreaks of infectious diseases, mass hunger, and regular executions.[21]

The ghetto was divided in two along Chłodna Street (pl), which was excluded from it, due to its local importance at that time (as one of Warsaw's east-west thoroughfares).[26] The area south-east of Chłodna was known as the "Small Ghetto", while the area north of it became known as the "Large Ghetto". The two zones were connected at an intersection of Chłodna with Żelazna Street, where a special gate was built. In January 1942, the gate was removed and a wooden footbridge was built over it,[27] which became one of the postwar symbols of the Holocaust in occupied Poland.[28]

Ghetto administration

Two Jewish Ghetto policemen guarding the gates of the Warsaw Ghetto, June 1942 Żelazna Street (looking South) from the intersection with Chłodna Street. In the back buildings from the left: Żelazna 75, Żelazna 75a and Chłodna 25. This section of Żelazna Street was connecting Little and Big Ghetto. This side of the gate and the buildings on the other side of the wall belonged to Polish side.
Jewish Ghetto Police in Warsaw

The first commissioner of the Warsaw Ghetto, appointed by Fischer, was SA-Standartenführer Waldemar Schön, who also supervised the initial Jewish relocations in 1940.[29] He was an attritionist best known for orchestrating an "artificial famine" (künstliche Hungersnot) in January 1941. Schön had eliminated virtually all food supplies to the ghetto causing an uproar among the SS upper echelon.[30] He was relieved of his duties by Frank himself in March 1941 and replaced by Kommissar Heinz Auerswald, a "productionist" who served until November 1942.[31] Like in all Nazi ghettos across occupied Poland, the Germans ascribed the internal administration to a Judenrat Council of the Jews, led by an "Ältester" (the Eldest).[32] In Warsaw, this role was relegated to Adam Czerniaków, who chose a policy of collaboration with the Nazis in the hope of saving lives. Adam Czerniaków confided his harrowing experience in nine diaries.[33] In July 1942, when the Germans ordered him to increase the contingent of people to be deported, he committed suicide.[34]

Czerniaków's collaboration with the German occupation policies was a paradigm for attitude of the majority of European Jews vis à vis Nazism. Although his personality as president of the Warsaw Judenrat may not become as infamous as Chaim Rumkowski, Ältester of the Łódź Ghetto; the SS policies he had followed were systematically anti-Jewish.

Czerniakow's first draft of October, 1939; for organizing the Warsaw Judenrat, was just a rehash of conventional kehilla departments: chancellery, welfare, rabbinate, education, cemetery, tax department, accounting, vital statistics... But the Kehilla was an anomalous institution. Throughout its history in czarist Russia, it served also as an instrument of the state, obligated to carry out the regime's policies within the Jewish community, even though these policies were frequently oppressive and specifically anti-Jewish. — Lucy Dawidowicz, The War Against the Jews [32]

The Council of Elders was supported internally by the Jewish Ghetto Police (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst),[17] formed at the end of September 1940 with 3,000 men, instrumental in enforcing law and order as well as carrying out German ad-hoc regulations, especially after 1941, when the number of refugees and expellees in Warsaw reached 150,000 or nearly one third of the entire Jewish population of the capital.[19]

Catholics and Poles in the Ghetto

In January 1940 there were 1540 Catholics and 221 individuals of other Christian faith imprisoned in the Ghetto, including Jewish converts. It is estimated that at the time of closure of the ghetto there were around 2,000 Christians, and number possibly rose eventually to over 5,000. Many of these people considered themselves Polish, but due to Nazi racial criteria they were classified by German authorities as Jewish.[35][36] Within the ghetto there were three Christian churches, the All Saints Church,St. Augustine's Church and the Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. All Saints Church served Jewish Christians who were detained in the ghetto. At that time, the parish priest, Marceli Godlewski, known for his antisemitism before the war, became involved in helping them. At the rectory of the parish, the priest sheltered and helped many escape, including Ludwik Hirszfeld, Louis-Christophe Zaleski-Zamenhof and Wanda Zamenhof-Zaleska. For his actions in 2009 he was posthumously awarded the Righteous Among the Nations medal.[37]

Conditions

Warsaw Ghetto, 1941, intersection of Ksawery Lubecki and Gęsia street
A child lies on the street in the Warsaw Ghetto, May 1941. Photo by Nazi officer P.K. Zermin, now in German Federal Archive
A child dying on the sidewalk of the Warsaw Ghetto, September 19, 1941

During the first year and a half, thousands of Polish Jews as well as some Romani people from smaller towns and the countryside were brought into the Ghetto. Nevertheless, the typhus epidemics and starvation kept the inhabitants at about the same number.[38] An average daily food ration in 1941 for Jews in Warsaw was limited to 184 calories, compared to 699 calories allowed for the gentile Poles and 2,613 calories for the Germans.[39] In August, the rations fell to 177 calories per person. The German authorities were solely responsible for the arrival of food aid, consisting usually of dry bread, flour and potatoes of the lowest quality, groats, turnips, and a small monthly supplement of margarine, sugar, and meat.[40]

The only real means of survival was the smuggling of food and bartering; with men, women and children all taking part in it. Up to 80 percent of food consumed in the Ghetto was brought in illegally.[40] Private workshops were created to manufacture goods to be sold secretly on the Aryan side of the city. Foodstuffs were smuggled often by children alone who crossed the Ghetto wall any way possible by the hundreds, sometimes several times a day, returning with goods that could weigh as much as they did. Smuggling was often the only source of subsistence for the Ghetto inhabitants, who would otherwise have died of starvation.[40] Unemployment leading to lack of funds was a major problem in the ghetto.

Despite grave hardships, life in the Warsaw Ghetto had educational and cultural activities, conducted by its underground organizations. 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 soup kitchens. There were secret libraries, classes for the children and even a symphony orchestra. Rabbi Alexander Friedman,[41] secretary-general of Agudath Israel of Poland, was one of the Torah leaders in the Warsaw Ghetto; he organized an underground network of religious schools, including "a Yesodei HaTorah school for boys, a Bais Yaakov school for girls, a school for elementary Jewish instruction, and three institutions for advanced Jewish studies".[42] These schools, operating under the guise of kindergartens, medical centers and soup kitchens, were a place of refuge for thousands of children and teens, and hundreds of teachers. In 1941, when the Germans gave official permission to the local Judenrat to open schools, these schools came out of hiding and began receiving financial support from the official Jewish community.[43]

Manufacture of German military supplies

File:Warsaw Ghetto working Jews.jpg
Textile manufacturing in the Ghetto

Not long after the Ghetto was closed off from the outside world, a number of German war profiteers such as Többens and Schultz appeared in the capital.[44] At first, they acted as middlemen between the high command and the Jewish-run workshops. By spring 1942, the Stickerei Abteilung Division with headquarters at Nowolipie 44 Street had already employed 3,000 workers making shoes, leather products, sweaters and socks for the Wehrmacht. Other divisions were making furs and wool sweaters also, guarded by the Werkschutz police.[45] Some 15,000 Jews were working in the Ghetto for Walter C. Többens from Hamburg, a convicted war criminal,[46] including at his factories on Prosta and Leszno Streets among other locations. His Jewish labour exploitation was a source of envy for other Ghetto inmates living in fear of deportations.[45] In early 1943 Többens gained for himself the appointment of a Jewish deportation commissar of Warsaw in order to keep his own workforce secure, and maximize profits.[47] In May 1943 Többens transferred his businesses, including 10,000 Jewish slave workers to the Poniatowa concentration camp barracks.[48] Fritz Schultz took his manufacture along with 6,000 Jews to the nearby Trawniki concentration camp.[44][49]

Treblinka deportations

Umschlagplatz holding pen for deportations to Treblinka death camp

Approximately 100,000 Ghetto inmates died of hunger-related diseases and starvation before the mass deportations started in the summer of 1942. Earlier that year, during the Wannsee Conference near Berlin, the Final Solution was set in motion. It was a secretive plan to mass-murder Jewish inhabitants of the General Government. The techniques used to deceive victims were based upon experience gained at the Chełmno extermination camp (Kulmhof).[50] The ghettoised Jews were rounded up, street by street, under the guise of "resettlement", and marched to the Umschlagplatz holding area.[51] From there, they were sent aboard Holocaust trains to the Treblinka death camp, built in a forest 80 kilometres (50 mi) northeast of Warsaw.[52] The operation was headed by the German Resettlement Commissioner, SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, on behalf of Sammern-Frankenegg. Upon learning of this plan, Adam Czerniaków, leader of the Judenrat Council committed suicide. He was replaced by Marc Lichtenbaum,[7] tasked with managing roundups with the aid of Jewish Ghetto Police. No-one was informed about the real state of affairs.[53]

The extermination of Jews by means of poisonous gases was carried out at Treblinka II under the auspices of Operation Reinhard, which also included Bełżec, Majdanek, and Sobibór death camps.[50] About 254,000 Warsaw Ghetto inmates (or at least 300,000 by different accounts) were sent to Treblinka during the Grossaktion Warschau, and murdered there between Tisha B'Av (July 23) and Yom Kippur (September 21) of 1942.[9] The ratio between Jews killed on the spot by Orpo and Sipo during roundups, and those deported was approximately 2 percent.[50]

The Grossaktion Warschau 1942
The Grossaktion Warschau 1942 boarding onto the Holocaust trains

For eight weeks, the deportations of Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka continued on a daily basis via two shuttle trains: each transport carrying about 4,000 to 7,000 people crying for water; 100 people to a cattle truck. The first daily trains rolled into the camp early in the morning often after an overnight wait at a layover yard; and the second, in mid-afternoon.[54] Dr Janusz Korczak, a famed educator, went to Treblinka with his orphanage children in August 1942. He was offered a chance to escape by Polish friends and admirers, but he chose instead to share the fate of his life's work.[55] All new arrivals were sent immediately to the undressing area by the Sonderkommando squad that managed the arrival platform, and from there to the gas chambers. The stripped victims were suffocated to death in batches of 200 with the use of monoxide gas. In September 1942, new gas chambers were built, which could kill as many as 3,000 people in just 2 hours. Civilians were forbidden to approach the camp area.[53] In the last two weeks of Großaktion Warschau ending on September 21, 1942, some 48,000 Warsaw Jews are deported to their deaths. The last transport with 2,200 victims from the Polish capital included the Jewish police involved with deportations, and their families.[56] In October 1942 the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) was formed and tasked with opposing further deportations. It was led by 24 year–old Mordechai Anielewicz.[2] Meanwhile, between October 1942 and March 1943, Treblinka received transports of almost 20,000 foreign Jews from the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia via Theresienstadt, and from Bulgarian-occupied Thrace, Macedonia, and Pirot following an agreement with the Nazi-allied Bulgarian government.[57]

By the end of 1942, it was clear that the deportations were to their deaths.[2] The underground activity of Ghetto resistors in the group Oyneg Shabbos increased after learning that the transports for "resettlement" led to the mass killings.[58] Also in 1942, Polish resistance officer Jan Karski reported to the Western governments on the situation in the Ghetto and on the extermination camps. Many of the remaining Jews decided to resist further deportations, and began to smuggle in weapons, ammunition and supplies.[2]

Ghetto Uprising and final destruction of the ghetto

Main article: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Suppression of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Captured Jews escorted by the Waffen SS, Nowolipie Street, 1943

On January 18, 1943, after almost four months without deportations, the Germans suddenly entered the Warsaw Ghetto intent upon further roundups. Within hours, some 600 Jews were shot and 5,000 others removed from their residences. The Germans expected no resistance, but the action was brought to a halt by hundreds of insurgents armed with handguns and Molotov cocktails.[59][60][61]

Preparations to resist had been going on since the previous autumn.[62] The first instance of Jewish armed struggle in Warsaw had begun. The underground fighters from ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa: Jewish Combat Organization) and ŻZW (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy: Jewish Military Union) achieved considerable success initially, taking control of the Ghetto. They then barricaded themselves in the bunkers and built dozens of fighting posts, stopping the expulsions. Taking further steps, a number of Jewish collaborators from Żagiew were also executed.[38] An offensive against the Ghetto underground launched by Von Sammern-Frankenegg was unsuccessful. He was relieved of duty by Heinrich Himmler on April 17, 1943 and court-martialed.[63]

Ruins of the house at 27 Dzielna Street. In 1943–1944, thousands of Pawiak prisoners were murdered there.
Warsaw Ghetto area after the war. Gęsia Street, view to the west
Ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto

The final battle started on the eve of Passover of April 19, 1943, when a Nazi force consisting of several thousand troops entered the ghetto. After initial setbacks, 2,000 Waffen SS soldiers under the field command of Jürgen Stroop systematically burned and blew up the ghetto buildings, block by block, rounding up or murdering anybody they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 28, and the Nazi operation officially ended in mid-May, symbolically culminating with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on May 16. According to the official report, at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to German Nazi concentration and death camps (Treblinka, Poniatowa, Majdanek, Trawniki).[64] The site of the Ghetto became the Warsaw concentration camp.

Preserving remnants of the Warsaw Ghetto

Ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1945; left, the Krasiński's Garden and Swiętojerska street. The entire city district was leveled by the German forces according to order from Adolf Hitler after the suppression of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943

The ghetto was almost entirely leveled during the Uprising; however, a number of buildings and streets survived, mostly in the "small ghetto" area, which had been included into the Aryan part of the city in August 1942 and was not involved in the fighting. In 2008 and 2010 Warsaw Ghetto boundary markers were built along the borders of the former Jewish quarter, where from 1940–1943 stood the gates to the ghetto, wooden footbridges over Aryan streets, and the buildings important to the ghetto inmates. The four buildings at 7, 9, 12 and 14 Próżna Street are among the best known original residential buildings that in 1940–41 housed Jewish families in the Warsaw Ghetto. They have largely remained empty since the war. The street is a focus of the annual Warsaw Jewish Festival. In 2011–2013 buildings at number 7 and 9 underwent extensive renovations and have become office space.[65][66]

The Nożyk Synagogue also survived the war. It was used as a horse stable by the German Wehrmacht. The synagogue has today been restored and is once again used as an active synagogue. The best preserved fragments of the ghetto wall are located 55 Sienna Street, 62 Złota Street, and 11 Waliców Street (the last two being walls of the pre-war buildings). There are two Warsaw Ghetto Heroes' monuments, unveiled in 1946 and 1948, near the place where the German troops entered the ghetto on 19 April 1943. In 1988 a stone monument was built to mark the Umschlagplatz.[66]

There is also a small memorial at ul. Mila 18 to commemorate the site of the Socialist ŻOB underground headquarters during the Ghetto Uprising. In December 2012, a controversial statue of a kneeling and praying Adolf Hitler was installed in a courtyard of the Ghetto. The artwork by Italian artist, Maurizio Cattelan, entitled "HIM", has received mixed reactions worldwide. Many feel that it is unnecessarily offensive, while others, such as Poland's chief rabbi, Michael Schudrich, feel that is thought-provoking, even "educational".[67]

Selected locations

  • 17 June 1941 announcement signed by Ludwig Fischer about the risk of typhus from contacting Jews
    17 June 1941 announcement signed by Ludwig Fischer about the risk of typhus from contacting Jews
  • 17 November 1941 Public announcement of the execution of eight Jewish dwellers of the Warsaw ghetto for having trespassed its boundaries, signed by Heinz Auerswald
    17 November 1941 Public announcement of the execution of eight Jewish dwellers of the Warsaw ghetto for having trespassed its boundaries, signed by Heinz Auerswald
  • Erecting ghetto wall on Świętokrzyska seen from Marszałkowska Street
    Erecting ghetto wall on Świętokrzyska seen from Marszałkowska Street
  • Remnant of the Ghetto wall behind a house at 55 Sienna Street
    Remnant of the Ghetto wall behind a house at 55 Sienna Street
  • Ghetto wall remnant behind a house at 62 Złota Street
    Ghetto wall remnant behind a house at 62 Złota Street
  • Former ghetto wall at 11 Waliców Street
    Former ghetto wall at 11 Waliców Street
  • Ghetto Building 14 Waliców Street
    Ghetto Building 14 Waliców Street
  • 82-58 Grzybowska Street in Warsaw showing Ghetto entrance
    82-58 Grzybowska Street in Warsaw showing Ghetto entrance
  • Former Duschik i Szolce factory at 63 Żelazna Street in Warsaw;also part of Ghetto Wall
    Former Duschik i Szolce factory at 63 Żelazna Street in Warsaw;also part of Ghetto Wall
  • 14 Próżna Street in Warsaw Ghetto
    14 Próżna Street in Warsaw Ghetto
  • Jewish Ghetto Policeman at HQ of the Kommissariart IV (Muranów) section of Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst at 4 Gęsia Street in Warsaw Ghetto
    Jewish Ghetto Policeman at HQ of the Kommissariart IV (Muranów) section of Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst at 4 Gęsia Street in Warsaw Ghetto
  • Ruins of townhouses between Sienna and Śliska Streets viewed from Wielka Street in Warsaw during WWII. Well preserved building, in the center was standing on Śliska 6/8 Street
    Ruins of townhouses between Sienna and Śliska Streets viewed from Wielka Street in Warsaw during WWII. Well preserved building, in the center was standing on Śliska 6/8 Street
  • Ghetto is burning: the Germans march the Jews along Nowolipie Street, Stroop Report
    Ghetto is burning: the Germans march the Jews along Nowolipie Street, Stroop Report
  • SS men force women and children out of a bunker during the liquidation of the ghetto
    SS men force women and children out of a bunker during the liquidation of the ghetto
  • Tombstone in Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery of 6,588 Jews executed at RKS Skra Stadium
    Tombstone in Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery of 6,588 Jews executed at RKS Skra Stadium
  • Warsaw Ghetto Heroes monument
    Warsaw Ghetto Heroes monument
  • Miła 18 memorial
    Miła 18 memorial
  • One of 22 Warsaw Ghetto boundary markers
    One of 22 Warsaw Ghetto boundary markers

People of the Warsaw Ghetto

Casualties
Umschlagplatz Memorial on Stawki Street
Survivors
Yitzhak Zuckerman testifies for the prosecution during the trial of Adolf Eichmann
  • Yitzhak Zuckerman – ghetto resistance leader ("Antek"), founder of the Lohamei HaGeta'ot kibbutz in Israel. Died in 1981.
  • Marek Edelman – Polish political and social activist, cardiologist. He was the last surviving leader of the ŻOB. Died in 2009.
  • Jack P. Eisner – author of "The Survivor of the Holocaust". The young boy who hung the Jewish flag atop the burning building in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. ZZW fighter. Commemorator of the Holocaust. Died in 2003.[69]
  • Ruben Feldschu (Ben Shem) (1900–1980) – Zionist author and political activist[70]
  • Joseph Friedenson – editor of Dos Yiddishe Vort. Died in 2013.
  • Bronisław Geremek – Polish social historian and politician. Died in 2008.
  • Martin Gray – Soviet secret police officer and American and French writer.
  • Mietek Grocher – Swedish author and the Holocaust remembrance activist.
  • Alexander J. Groth – Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Davis. Author of Lincoln: Authoritarian Savior and Democracies Against Hitler: Myth, Reality and Prologue, Holocaust Voices, Accomplices: Roosevelt, Churchill and the Holocaust.
  • Ludwik Hirszfeld – Polish microbiologist and serologist, died in 1954.
  • Morton Kamien – Polish-American economist, died in 2011.
  • Zivia Lubetkin – ghetto resistance leader, Aliyah Bet activist, later married Cukierman. Died in 1976.
  • Vladka Meed – ghetto resistance member; author. Died in 2012.
  • Uri Orlev – Israeli author of the semi-autobiographical novel The Island on Bird Street recounting his experiences in the Warsaw Ghetto.
  • Marcel Reich-Ranicki – German literary critic. Died in 2013.
  • Sol Rosenberg – American steel industrialist and philanthropist. Died in 2009.[71]
  • Simcha Rotem – ghetto resistance fighter ("Kazik"), Berihah activist, post-war Nazi hunter.
  • Uri Shulevitz – book illustrator
  • Władysław Szpilman – Polish pianist, composer and writer, subject of the film The Pianist by Roman Polanski (survivor of the Kraków Ghetto) based on his memoir. Died in 2000.
  • Menachem Mendel Taub – Kaliver rabbi in Israel.
  • Dawid Wdowiński – psychiatrist, political leader of the Irgun in Poland, resistance leader of the ŻZW, American memoirist. Died in 1970.
Associated people

See also

References

  1. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia (May 11, 2012). "Holocaust History: Warsaw". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington, DC. Archived from the original on August 15, 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  2. ^ a b c d e f Holocaust Encyclopedia (June 10, 2013) [2008]. "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". US Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on May 2, 2012. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  3. ^ Engelking, Barbara; Leociak, Jacek (2013) [2001]. Getto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście. Warszawa: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów. p. 71. ISBN 978-83-63444-27-3.
  4. ^ a b c Philpott, Colin (2016). Relics of the Reich: The Buildings The Nazis Left Behind. Pen and Sword. p. 122. ISBN 1473844258 – via Google Books.
  5. ^ Megargee, Geoffrey P. (2009). The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Encyclopedia of Camps and Ghettos, 1933–1945. Vol. Volume II: Ghettos in German-occupied Eastern Europe. Bloomington: Indiana University Press. pp. 456–460. ISBN 978-0-253-35599-7. {{cite book}}: |volume= has extra text (help)
  6. ^ a b Bains, Alisha (2016). World War II. Encyclopædia Britannica. pp. 190–200. ISBN 1680483528. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  7. ^ a b c d Gutman, Israel (1998). Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. pp. 118–119, 200. ISBN 0395901308.
  8. ^ Shapiro, Robert Moses (1999). Holocaust Chronicles. Published by KTAV Publishing. ISBN 0-88125-630-7 – via Google Books, 302 pages. 300,000 Jews murdered by bullet or gas.[page 35]
  9. ^ a b Yad Vashem. "Treblinka Extermination Camp in the Generalgouvernement" (PDF). Aktion Reinhard.
  10. ^ Dr. Marcin Urynowicz. "Gross Aktion – Zagłada Warszawskiego Getta" [Gross Aktion – Annihilation of the Warsaw Ghetto]. Biuletyn Instytutu Pamięci Narodowej, 7 /7 (2007) pp. 105–114 (in Polish). Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) – via direct download. Likwidacja getta warszawskiego wiosną 1943 r. oznaczała natychmiastową lub chwilowo odwleczoną śmierć ok. 50 tys. osób. Tymczasem Gross Aktion, tzw. Wielka Akcja, zakończyła się wysłaniem do obozu zagłady w Treblince ok. 250 tys. osób. Zatem to lato 1942 r., a nie wiosna 1943, było okresem faktycznej likwidacji społeczności warszawskich Żydów.
  11. ^ Statistical data compiled on the basis of "Glossary of 2,077 Jewish towns in Poland" Archived February 8, 2016, at the Wayback Machine by Virtual Shtetl Museum of the History of the Polish Jews  Template:En icon, as well as "Getta Żydowskie" by Gedeon  Template:Pl icon and "Ghetto List" by Michael Peters at ARC.
  12. ^ a b c d e f Gawryszewski, Andrzej (2009). Ludność Warszawy w XX wieku [Population of Warsaw in the 20th Century] (PDF). Warsaw: Instytut Geografii i Przestrzennego Zagospodarowania PAN im. Stanisława Leszczyckiego. pp. 191, 193, 195, 202–203. ISBN 978-83-61590-96-5. ISSN 1643-2312 – via direct download, 425 pages. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  13. ^ Melzer, Emanuel (1997). No way out: the politics of Polish Jewry, 1935–1939. Hebrew Union College Press. p. 132. ISBN 0878204180 – via Google Books, 235 pages.
  14. ^ "Warsaw: Life and Death in the Ghetto during WWII". Dr. Peter K. Gessner, Director. Polish Academic Information Center, University at Buffalo. 2000. Archived from the original on January 30, 2012. Retrieved December 12, 2016. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: others (link)
  15. ^ a b c Wardzyńska, Maria (2009). Intelligenzaktion (PDF). Warsaw: Instytut Pamięci Narodowej Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu. pp. 46, 51–55, 88–89 – via direct download. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  16. ^ a b c Berg, Mary; Pentlin, Susan Lee (2007) [1945]. The Diary of Mary Berg: Growing up in the Warsaw Ghetto. New York: L. B. Fischer Publishing / Oxford: Oneworld Publications (2nd ed). pp. 2–5, 38. ISBN 1851684727. Hardcover. Chapter I: Warsaw Besieged: ... the roads were jammed, and gradually we were completely engulfed in the slow but steady flow of humanity toward the capital. Mile after mile it was the same ... as tens of thousands of provincials entered Warsaw in the hope of finding shelter there.
  17. ^ a b c d e Bielawski, Krzysztof; Dylewski, Adam; Kraus, Anna; Laskowska, Justyna. "Warszawa (part 7)". Virtual Shtetl. POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews. [Also in:] "The Warsaw Ghetto (part 2)". Translated by Magdalena Wójcik. Virtual Shtetl. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 15, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  18. ^ a b c Grzesik, Julian (2011). Holocaust – Zagłada Żydów (1939–1945) [Holocaust – Destruction of the Jews (1939–1945)] (PDF). Lublin, 3rd edition, revised. pp. 43–44, 54. Archived from the original (PDF) on April 12, 2013 – via direct download. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  19. ^ a b Trunk, Isaiah (1972). Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. U of Nebraska Press. pp. 191, 475, 543–544. ISBN 080329428X. The Jewish police have learned how to hit, to enforce order, and to send people to the labor camps, and they are one of the contributing factors that keep people in line. — Emanuel Ringelblum [544]
  20. ^ Czerniaków, Adam; Fuks, Marian. Adama Czerniakowa dziennik getta warszawskiego 6 IX 1939 – 23 VII 1942. Opracowanie i przypisy Marian Fuks. Warszawa 1983: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe. p. 101 – via Google Books.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location (link)
  21. ^ a b Bergman, Eleonora. Ludność żydowska w Warszawie [Jewish population of Warsaw]. Virtual Shtetl. Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 14, 2016. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ Levin, Itamar; Neiman, Rachel (2004). Walls Around: The Plunder of Warsaw Jewry During World War II and Its Aftermath. Greenwood Publishing Group. p. 29. ISBN 0275976491.
  23. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia (2008). "Warsaw Ghetto". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  24. ^ The Warsaw Ghetto. Local Life Warsaw, Guide.
  25. ^ Browning 1998, p. 41.
  26. ^ Chłodna Street. Warsaw: Google Maps. 2016. 52°14'13.0"N 20°59'18.0"E.
  27. ^ Kajczyk, Agnieszka (January 24, 2015). "The bridge over Chłodna Street". Jewish Historical Institute. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  28. ^ John D Clare (2014), The Warsaw Ghetto, 1940–43. Modern World History Topics.
  29. ^ Gutman, Yisrael (1989). The Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt. Indiana University Press. pp. 50, 98. ISBN 0253205115.
  30. ^ Browning, Christopher (2005). "Before the "Final Solution": Nazi Ghettoization Policy in Poland (1940–1941)" (PDF). Ghettos 1939–1945. New Research and Perspectives on Definition, Daily Life, and Survival. Symposium Presentations, USHMM. 18 of 175 in PDF.
  31. ^ Yad Vashem. "Auerswald, Heinz" (PDF). Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies – via direct download. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) [Also in:] Browning, Christopher (2005). "Ghettos 1939–1945. New Research and Perspectives on Definition, Daily Life, and Survival" (PDF). Before the 'Final Solution'. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. PDF file, direct download.
  32. ^ a b Dawidowicz, Lucy S. (1975). The war against the Jews 1933–1945. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 228–229.
  33. ^ Hilberg, Raul, et al. (editors). The Warsaw diary of Adam Czerniakow: Prelude to Doom (Stein & Day, NY, 1979).
  34. ^ Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywinski, Editor-in-chief (2004). "Adam Czerniakow". Dia-pozytyw: People. Translated by Dr. Christina Manetti. Adam Mickiewicz Institute. Archived from the original on August 22, 2004. {{cite web}}: |author= has generic name (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  35. ^ Karol Madaj – Duszpasterstwo Żydów-katolików w getcie warszawskim Biuletyn IPN nr 98 (3) / 2009 page 23-39
  36. ^ Christians in the Warsaw ghetto: an epitaph for the unremembered Peter Florian Dembowski - 2005
  37. ^ Karol Madaj – Duszpasterstwo Żydów-katolików w getcie warszawskim Biuletyn IPN nr 98 (3) / 2009 page 23-39
  38. ^ a b Wdowiński, David (1963). And we are not saved. New York: Philosophical Library pp. 222. ISBN 0-8022-2486-5. Note: Chariton and Lazar are not co-authors of Wdowiński's memoir. Wdowiński is considered the single author.
  39. ^ Roland, Charles G, "Scenes of Hunger and Starvation" (1992), pages 99–104.
  40. ^ a b c Laqueur, Walter; Baumel, Judith Tydor (2001). The Holocaust Encyclopedia. Yale University Press. pp. 260–262. ISBN 0300138113.
  41. ^ Farbstein, Esther (2007). Hidden in Thunder: Perspectives on faith, halachah and leadership during the Holocaust. Vol. 1. Feldheim Publishers. p. 31. ISBN 9789657265055. Friedman sought to inform world Jewry of the initial transports, he sent a telegram stating: 'Mr. Amos kept his promise from the fifth-third.' This is an allusion to Amos 5:3: 'The city that goes out a thousand strong will have a hundred left, and the one that goes out a hundred strong will have ten left to the House of Israel'.
  42. ^ Frydman, A. Zisha (1986) [1974]. Wellsprings of Torah. Judaica Press. pp. xii–xxiii. ISBN 0910818045 – via Google Books snippet.
  43. ^ Seidman, Hillel. "Alexander Zusia Friedman", in Wellsprings of Torah: An Anthology of Biblical Commentaries, Vol. 1. Nison L. Alpert, ed. The Judaica Press, Inc., 1974, pp. xii–xxiii.
  44. ^ a b Menszer, John (2015). "Tobbens' Shop in the Warsaw ghetto". Background information to Survivor Stories. Holocaust Survivors: Encyclopedia.
  45. ^ a b Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów (2011). "Getto Warszawskie". Workshops, with internal links to locations (in Polish). CBnZŻ.
  46. ^ Kurzman, Dan (2009). Tobbens Poniatow factories. Da Capo Press. p. 346. ISBN 0786748265. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  47. ^ Powell, Lawrence N. (2000). Troubled Memory. Univ of North Carolina Press. p. 114. ISBN 0807825042.
  48. ^ Nicosia, Francis; Niewyk, Donald (2000). The Columbia Guide to the Holocaust. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 232. ISBN 0231528787. The Jews of Poland were augmented by around 3,000 Slovakian and Austrian Jews (the camp elite) expelled to Poland beforehand, and housed separately from the rest.
  49. ^ Lenarczyk, Wojciech; Libionka, Dariusz (2009). "Obóz pracy dla Żydów w Trawnikach" (PDF / HTML). Erntefest 3–4 listopada 1943 – zapomniany epizod Zagłady, pp. 183–210. Państwowe Muzeum na Majdanku: 189–191. ISBN 978-83-925187-5-4. 'Transfer szopów Schultza z getta warszawskiego'.
  50. ^ a b c Browning, Christopher R. (1998) [1992]. The August Deportations to Treblinka (PDF). Penguin Books. pp. 88–96 (115–123 in PDF). Document size 7.91 MB complete. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help) Also as: PDF cache archived by WebCite.
  51. ^ Memorial Museums.org (2013). "Treblinka Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom". Remembrance. Uwe Neumärker (Director). Portal to European Sites of Remembrance.
  52. ^ Kopówka, Edward (February 4, 2010). The Memorial. Muzeum Walki i Męczeństwa w Treblince. Oddział Muzeum Regionalnego w Siedlcach [Museum of Struggle and Martyrdom at Treblinka. Division of the Regional Museum in Siedlce]. Archived from the original on October 19, 2013 – via Internet Archive. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help); Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  53. ^ a b Edelman, Marek. "The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". Interpress Publishers: 17–39. undated. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help) [Also in:] Musial, Bogdan (2004). "Treblinka — ein Todeslager der "Aktion Reinhard"". "Aktion Reinhard" — Die Vernichtung der Juden im Generalgouvernement. Osnabrück: 257–281. [As well as:] "Operation Reinhard: Treblinka Deportations". The Nizkor Project. 2008 [1991]. [Source:] Court of Assizes in Düsseldorf, Germany. "Excerpts From Judgments (Urteilsbegründung)". AZ-LG Düsseldorf: II 931638. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  54. ^ Kopówka & Rytel-Andrianik 2011, p. 94.
  55. ^ Lifton, Betty Jean (2006). "Janusz Korczak Biography". The King of Children. American Academy Of Pediatrics. 1st edition. ISBN 1581101848. [Also in:] "Janusz Korczak". Stockholm, Sweden: Living Heritage Association. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  56. ^ Arad, Yitzhak. Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka. Indiana University Press, Bloomington, Indianapolis. pp. 97–99.
  57. ^ Holocaust Encyclopedia (June 10, 2013). "Treblinka: Chronology". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Archived from the original on June 5, 2012. Deportations from Theresienstadt and Bulgarian-occupied territory among others. {{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)
  58. ^ The Warsaw Ghetto Oyneg Shabes—Ringelblum Archive. Catalog and Guide. Introduction by Samuel D. Kassow. Indiana University Press in association with USHMM and the Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw. 2009. ISBN 978-0-253-35327-6 – via Academic Publications of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. For years, Oyneg Shabbos had discreetly chronicled conditions and hid their photos, writings, and short films in improvised time capsules. In May 1942, the Germans began filming a propaganda movie titled "Das Ghetto" which was never completed. Footage is shown in the 2010 documentary called "A Film Unfinished" which concerns the making of "Das Ghetto" and correlates scenes from the film with descriptions of them that Czerniakow mentioned in his own diary. {{cite book}}: Unknown parameter |editors= ignored (|editor= suggested) (help)CS1 maint: others (link)
  59. ^ Seeman, Mary V. (August 25, 2013). "Review of Bohaterowie, Hochsztaplerzy, Opisywacze, Wokol Żydowskiego Związku Wojskowego". Heroes, Hucksters and Story-Tellers: On the Jewish Military Union in the Warsaw Ghetto. Scholars for Peace in the Middle East (SPME).
  60. ^ Patt, Avinoam (2014). Henry, Patrick (ed.). Resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto. CUA Press. pp. 414–425. ISBN 0813225892 – via Google Books. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  61. ^ Schoenberner, Gerhard (2004). The Yellow Star: The Persecution of the Jews in Europe, 1933–1945. Fordham Univ Press. pp. 204–205. ISBN 0823223906 – via Google Books. {{cite book}}: |work= ignored (help)
  62. ^ Gilbert, Martin (1986), The Holocaust, pages 522–523.
  63. ^ Jewish Virtual Library, Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg. Source: Danny Dor (Ed.), Brave and Desperate. Israel Ghetto Fighters, 2003, p. 166.
  64. ^ Jürgen Stroop (May 1943). "The Warsaw Ghetto Is No More". The Stroop Report – Translation of Document No. 1061-PS. Nazi Conspriracy and Aggression Volume 3; The Avalon Project: Lillian Goldman Law Library. Archived from the original on November 26, 2010 – via Internet Archive. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |deadurl= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  65. ^ Robert Mielcarek (2016). "Book review". Rafał Chwiszczuk, Ulica Próżna i dzielnica żydowska w Warszawie, Warszawa: Austriackie Forum Kultury, 2013. Forum Żydów Polskich.
  66. ^ a b UMSW (2016). "Miejsca historyczne związane z ludnością żydowską w Warszawie" [Historic places connected to Jewish people of Warsaw]. Judaica. Urząd m.st. Warszawy (official website). Archived from the original on December 20, 2016. Retrieved December 11, 2016. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  67. ^ ""Controversy over Adolf Hitler statue in Warsaw ghetto"". The Guardian. December 28, 2012. Retrieved August 11, 2016.
  68. ^ Libionka, Dariusz; Weinbaum, Laurence (June 22, 2007). "A legendary commander". Haaretz weekend. Though Apfelbaum is listed in many books and articles devoted to the revolt in the Warsaw Ghetto as one of the commanders of the Jewish Military Union (see: Moshe Arens, "The Development of the Narrative of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising," Israel Affairs, Vol.14, No.1, January 2008), and a square was named for him in Warsaw, historians Dariusz Libionka and Laurence Weinbaum have cast doubt about his existence.
  69. ^ Dariusz Libionka; Laurence Weinbaum (2011). Bohaterowie, hochsztaplerzy, opisywacze: wokół Żydowskiego Związku Wojskowego (in Polish). Warsaw: Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, Polish Academy of Sciences. pp. 534–535. ISBN 9788393220281. Eisner's memoir, 'The Survivor' (published in 1980) is challenged as not a reliable source of information.
  70. ^ Laurence Weinbaum, "Shaking the Dust Off" The Story of the Warsaw Ghetto's Forgotten Chronicler, Jewish Political Studies Review Vol. 22 No. 3-4 (Fall 2010).
  71. ^ Monroe News Star (January 31, 2009), "Businessman Sol Rosenthal dies", Monroe, Louisiana.
  72. ^ "A Legendary Commander". Haaretz daily. June 22, 2007. Though he succeeded in convincing a number of historians of the veracity of his story, according to new research by a Polish-Israeli team of historians, Iwanski's unit never entered the ghetto. See: Dariusz Libionka, Laurence Weinbaum: "Bohaterowie, hochsztaplerzy, opisywacze – Wokół Żydowskiego Związku Wojskowego", Stowarzyszenie Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów, Warsaw 2011. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |authors= ignored (help) [also in] Joshua D. Zimmerman (2015). The Polish Underground and the Jews, 1939–1945. Cambridge University Press. p. 218. ISBN 1107014263.

Bibliography

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