On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. By May 16, 1943, the Germans had crushed the uprising and left the ghetto area in ruins. Surviving ghetto residents were deported to concentration camps or killing centers. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest uprising led by Jews during World War II. It was the first significant urban revolt against German occupation in Europe. DetailsThe resistance that came to be known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on the evening of the Jewish holiday of Passover, on April 19, 1943. The ŻOB had received advanced warning of a final deportation action and had warned residents of the ghetto to retreat to their hiding places or bunkers. ŻOB commander Mordecai Anielewicz commanded the Jewish fighters in the Warsaw ghetto uprising. Armed with pistols, grenades (many of them homemade), and a few automatic weapons and rifles, the ŻOB fighters stunned the Germans and their auxiliaries on the first day of fighting, forcing the German troops to retreat outside the ghetto wall. SS and Police Leader [SS-und Polizeiführer] Jürgen Stroop reported losing 12 men, killed and wounded, during the first assault on the ghetto. The uprising lasted 27 days. Stroop had a considerable force at his disposal, some 2,054 soldiers and police, reinforced with artillery and tanks. Clashing with them, sometimes in hand-to-hand combat, were some 700 young Jewish fighters, poorly equipped and lacking in military training and experience. The ŻOB did have the advantage of waging a guerilla war, striking and then retreating to the safety of ghetto buildings, bunkers and underground tunnels. The general ghetto population likewise thwarted German deportation efforts, refusing to assemble at collection points and burrowing underground bunkers. In the end, German were forced to raze the ghetto to the ground, burning and demolishing block by block, in order to smoke out their prey. The ghetto fighters and the population who supported them held the Germans at bay for nearly a month. On May 8, 1943, German forces succeeded in seizing ŻOB headquarters at 18 Miła Street. Anielewicz and many of his staff commanders are thought to have committed suicide in order to avoid capture. On May 16, Stroop announced in his daily report to Berlin that “The former Jewish Quarter in Warsaw is no more.”
via ushmm: WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
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