Warsaw

Ghetto Uprising

Table of Contents Conditions in the Ghetto............................................................................................................................ 5 First Uprising ................................................................................................................................................. 6 Second Uprising ............................................................................................................................................ 7 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................................................... 8

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Outline I. Introduction II. Conditions In the Ghetto A. How Germans treated Jews badly B. Basic poor living conditions III. First Uprising IV. Second Uprising V. Conclusion

 Andrew Yoo Ms. Murphy English Period 3 04/22/13

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Warsaw Ghetto Uprising When students are taught about the Holocaust in schools all over the world, they learn about the various aspects of this atrocity: life in the Nazi concentration camps, ghettos, and the grim death statistics. However, students are not taught about how the Jews revolted against their captors to save their lives and their future. The largest and most famous such uprisings were the Warsaw Ghetto Uprisings in 1941 and 1942. The Jews residing in this area fought to prevent being deported to death camps several times, but in the end, the ghetto was burned to the ground and everyone living there was murdered. Conditions in the ghetto In the winter of 1940, during World War II, the Nazis ordered Jews in Poland, Austria, and Czechoslovakia to collect in a certain part in Warsaw. The 400,000 Jews who had been gathered were then sealed off from the rest of the city by ten foot walls in an area about 3.4 square kilometers. They were told that if they attempted to escape the ghetto, they would be shot on the spot; the Jews had no choice but to remain in this prison. Living conditions turned out to be adverse and harsh. The ghetto resembled a normal city, with modern buildings and well-paved streets. However, since there was no connection with the outside world, the Jews relied on the Nazis for basic living needs, including food and water. The Germans took advantage of this fact and kept them on the verge of starvation, giving them inadequate rations every day. Since the ghetto was overcrowded, with several
student 6/11/13 8:57 AM Comment: Good thesis statement student 6/11/13 8:56 AM Deleted: we student 6/11/13 8:57 AM Comment: This is so true

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families living in a single apartment, and with the lack of medicine and fuel for heating, disease spread rapidly as well. When a typhus epidemic broke out in 1941, 43,000 succumbed to the disease that year. Nevertheless, they were forced to aid the German war effort by setting up various workshops around the city that produced weapons and uniforms. The Jews in the ghetto struggled to survive for as long as they could under abject living conditions, but in the summer of 1942, their situation became even more dire. The Nazis, eager to liquidate the ghetto, ordered Jewish leaders to get ready for the deportations of their people to concentration camps. Thinking that only 60,000 Jews would be deported, and completely oblivious to the atrocities that were committed in these camps, the Jews did not resist these commands. Contrary to what they were told, the Nazis deported 300,000 Jews in total. 265,000 Jews were sent to Treblinka, a concealed extermination camp located about fifty miles from the ghetto. Upon their arrival, the Jews were immediately forced to strip off their clothes and relinquish their personal belongings. They were then made to run naked through a passage called the tube and into a gas chamber labeled showers. When the last Jew entered, the doors sealed behind him and carbon monoxide was pumped into the chamber, killing everyone. Apart from being executed at Treblinka, 11,580 Jews were deported to forced labor camps, and the rest to other various concentration camps. The Nazis also brutally murdered 10,000 Jews inside the ghetto, leaving only about 60,000 inhabitants alive after these deportations. When the Jewish leaders discovered what had happened inside the concentration camps that the deportees had been sent to, they unanimously voted to resist further deportation orders by the Nazis. Their mentality behind this decision was that if they did

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not fight back, they would be killed in the gas chambers anyways, so they would try to postpone their death or even escape. Th2us, the Jews started making preparations to revolt. They formed a resistance group led by a young Pole named Mordecai Anielewicz: the ZOB, which was created by Jewish underground organizations,. The fighters in this group immediately started acquiring weapons and training because they never knew when the Nazis would strike again. The ZOB built bunkers and set up hiding places throughout the ghetto and smuggled in weapons such as pistols and automatic rifles from the Polish Home Army. To boost their arsenal, they also assembled bombs and explosives in their homes. The First Uprising Amidst these preparations, on the morning of January 18, 1943, German soldiers took the Jews by surprise and stormed the ghetto to deport 8,000 Jews. The Nazis had expected this operation to be carried out as smoothly and quickly as the last one had been, but this time, they were met with adamant opposition from the ghetto residents. Several Jews failed to report to the Germans and hid in bunkers to avoid being taken to the death camps. Meanwhile, ZOB members fought hard to save deportees from deportation. A few of them infiltrated the columns of deportees waiting in front of the trains that were headed towards Treblinka. When given a pre-determined signal, the ZOB fighters, with their pistols and handguns, fired at the Nazi officers and soldiers conducting the operation. Most of these rebels were killed on the spot, but the chaos caused by their retaliation helped the Jews to break ranks and flee into the bunkers within the ghetto; only 5,000 Jews had been deported by the end of this uprising. Immediately, the disconcerted Nazis started roaming the streets, looking for the Jews who had run away or were in hiding. However, they were

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once again faced with fierce opposition. ZOB members used guerilla tactics to fend them off, shooting the Germans from corners of buildings or rooftops, and then fleeing to another concealed location. The Germans fought back viciously with their machine guns, but their efforts in squashing the resistance was futile, forcing them to eventually suspend deportations. The Jews and the ZOB found new hope in their cause and decided to revolt against the Nazis when they came in again. The ZOB smuggled in more weapons from outside during this time and garnered more members from the ghetto residents. They also created more bunkers, built more fortifications, and mastered the tactics of guerilla warfare, which they would use against the Germans again. Meanwhile, Himmler, the Nazi leader, was enraged after his troops defeat in the ghetto and decided to deport all of the remaining Jews on a single day. He knew that the Jews would revolt again, so he planned on deploying more troops to perform this task, as well as artillery, tanks, and heavy machine guns. Once the Jews succumbed to his greater military might, he would then burn down all the buildings in the ghetto. The Second Uprising On April 19, 1943, on the eve of Passover, 2,000 Nazi soldiers equipped with a tank, a howitzer, two armored cars, machine guns, and flamethrowers surrounded the ghetto and prepared to counter any Jewish uprisings. Jewish underground workers immediately warned the Jews inside the ghetto about this imminent German attack and ordered everyone to take shelter inside the bunkers and hiding places. Thus, when the Nazis finally entered, the ghetto was deserted; not a single person was to be seen on the streets.

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The fighting soon started as ZOB members fired at the entering Germans from buildings and bunkers. The Nazis fought back with their superior weapons and manpower, but nevertheless suffered more casualties than the Jews because they were more exposed and were not familiar with the territory. For the next two days, the 700 Jewish resistance fighters continued to use guerilla warfare. During the nighttime, the Nazis would retreat outside of the ghetto, giving the ZOB fighters time to rest and recuperate from their wounds. It seemed like the Jews would soon be awarded with another victory. But on the third day, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler decided to change his battle tactics and planned to burn the ghetto to the ground using flamethrowers and heavy artillery. The ZOB fighters tenaciously continued to fire at the Germans and conduct sudden, sporadic raids against them, but were unable to prevent the Nazis from burning down the buildings one by one, at the same time, killing those inside or near them. Within a few days of the battle, the Nazis had destroyed the command bunker and Mordecai Anielewicz, making the Jewish military resistance more disorganized. Nevertheless, the Jews continued to fight on for several weeks. On May 16, 1943, a little less than a month after the uprising had begun, the Germans annihilated the local synagogue inside the ghetto to symbolize their victory over the Jews. According to the Nazis, they had killed 7,000 Jews during the battle, and afterwards, they deported about 50,000 to various concentration camps around the ghetto. The Warsaw ghetto no longer existed anymore. It had been reduced to a pile of rubble and dead bodies.

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Bibliography "The Holocaust: A Learning Site for Students." The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. United States Holocaust Museum, n.d. Web. 10 June 2013.

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