The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

[S'13]

On January 18th it will be 61 years since the first acts of resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto...


Many Jews in ghettos across eastern Europe tried to organize resistance against the Germans and to arm themselves with smuggled and homemade weapons. Between 1941 and 1943, underground resistance movements formed in about 100 Jewish groups. The most famous attempt by Jews to resist the Germans in armed fighting occurred in the Warsaw ghetto.

In the summer of 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw to Treblinka. When reports of mass murder in the killing center leaked back to the Warsaw ghetto, a surviving group of mostly young people formed 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 23-year-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.

On 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 fought the heavily armed and well-trained Germans. The ghetto fighters were able to hold out for nearly a month, but on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended. The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to killing centers or concentration camps.

http://www.springfieldlibrary.org/websightings/images/warsaw2_50.GIF

[Uncle Sam]

You gotta see the move : The Pianist http://www.thepianist-themovie.com/ By Roman Polanski...Excellent movie

SYNOPSIS

Roman Polanski's THE PIANIST is based on the memoirs of the talented pianist Wladyslaw Szpilman (Adrian Brody), a Polish Jew, who miraculously survived World War II.

The first half of the film transports viewers to 1939 Poland, and brings it to life clearly and believably. Szpilman is a tall, handsome, winsome man who is revered for his piano performances on public radio.

He lives with his family--an intelligent, loving, and spirited bunch--in an upscale flat in central Warsaw. Bombings have begun to torment the citizens of Warsaw, and step by step, the Nazis infiltrate, the Jews are branded and set apart from their neighbors, imprisoned in a ghetto, and slowly exterminated.

The story is told through Szpilman's eyes, and thus carries as much confusion and fear as disgust and torment. Polanski paints Warsaw in bleak shades of gray and black, expressing the helplessness of the Jewish people and the cruelty of the Nazis with captivating photography.

In the second half of the film, which takes place in the early 1940s, Szpilman is alone, having managed to avoid the trains to the death camps.

His struggle to survive, with some help from non-Jews but mostly his own will to thrive, takes place in long, silent, languid stretches filled with the imagined piano music that inspires Szpilman to live.

In a climactic scene of immense beauty and spine-tingling tension, Szpilman must actually perform for a German soldier who is inexplicably patrolling the near-deserted and utterly dilapidated Warsaw ghetto.

THE PIANIST, in the subtlety of its sublime and heartbreaking tale, is carried by the intensely moving performance of Brody, whose transformation is truly unforgettable.

[EvanL]

A truly amazing and brave thing those guys did. It should never be forgotten.

[S'13]

In northern Israel there is a kibbutz called Kibbutz Lohamei Hagetaot. This Kibbutz was established in 1949 mostly by survivors of the uprising, former partisans and survivors of the concentration camps.

[Herrmannek]

First memorial of that brave men and women build in 1946 on Warsaw rubble:

"Tym, którzy polegli w bezprzykładnie bohaterskiej walce o godność i wolność narodu żydowskiego, o wolną Polskę, o wyzwolenie człowieka. Żydzi polscy"

"For those who falled in unprecedented & valiant fight, fight for freedom of jewish nation, free Poland, and human's liberty....by polish Jews"
http://www.jewish.org.pl/polskie/materialy/powstanie/pomnik_1946.jpg

[StarvingStudent47]

Amazing courage. Not much else to say.

[HappyCat]

there was an excellent article in world war 2 magazine a few months back, it chronicled the entire uprising from start to end. It was one of the hardest things I have ever had to read, the bravery of some of those men (and women) even when they know they have almost no chance of living. It said the first person to die in the fight was a 17 year old girl after she killed several SS soldiers with a grenade.

[juhae]

Amazing courage. Not much else to say.
Amazing courage has rarely alone resulted anything strategically significant, as was the case of the uprisings at Warsaw.

I do not mean to belittle their fight against the fascist rule, but in the end everybody died in vain, the red army stood behind and wasn't really interested about what was going on in the town.

It requires courage to revolt against the governing rule in arms, but one should also think of the strategic consequences in the big scale.

[Mr. Nielsen]

There were two uprisings in Warsaw, we need to be careful not to mix them up.

1 : Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 19 April 1943 - 16 May 1943

2 : The Warsaw Uprising 1 August 1944 - 5 October 1944

The first one was mostly symbolic fight, and futile from the start. In the spring of 1943 the German armies were still deep inside Russia, and Warsaw was out of range of allied planes. There were no chance what so ever of relieve.

Here the jews in the Ghetto decided to die fighting rather than being gassed in a death camp. The Germans had massive superiority in men and equipment, and took their time to crush the uprising with few losses to themselves.

http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/wgupris.htm

http://www.adl.org/uprising/Warsaw.asp

[Mr. Nielsen]

The second one was the uprising of the entire city of Warsaw. During the summer the Red Army had destroyed the entire german army group center, and had reached the river Vistula outside Warsaw when the outran their supply train. With the Red Army outside Warsaw the uprising had a chance. But the Soviets did nothing. They just watched the slaughter going on for months. Allied planes could drop supplies but the Soviets denied them landing on their teritory. And in the end the uprising was defeated costing the live of more than 250.000 poles.

http://www.apacouncil.org/ww2/14wu.html