Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Was the Largest Jewish Revo

No surprise here – Warsaw Ghetto was the largest by far with almost half a million inhabitants. After the Grossaktion Warsaw of summer 1942, in which more than a quarter of a million Jews were deported from the ghetto to Treblinka and murdered, the remaining Jews began to build bunkers and smuggle weapons and explosives into the ghetto with the intent to die fighting with valor, dignity and honor – not as sheep in the slaughterhouse.

A small resistance effort to another roundup in January 1943 was partially successful and spurred Polish resistance groups to support the Jews in earnest. It did not make much of a difference overall – but made the SS job harder.

Although the Polish Home Army’s stocks were meager, and general provision of arms limited, the right-wing ;ZW received significant quantities of armaments, including some machine and submachine guns, rifles, pistols and grenades

The uprising started on 19 April when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadef;hrer J;rgen Stroop (subsequently tried and executed in Poland), who ordered the destruction of the ghetto, block by block, ending on 16 May. A total of 13,000 Jews were killed, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. Stroop reported 110 German casualties, including 17 killed (the real death toll was up to 10 times higher).

Overall, 56,065 Jews were killed or captured of which approximately 36,000 deported to extermination camps (Treblinka and Majdanek).

It is worth noting that suppression of the uprising was a multinational effort: German troops included a unit of multinational (commonly but inaccurately referred to by the Germans and Jews alike as “Ukrainians”) ex-Soviet POWs. The latter predictably accounted for lion’s share of German casualties.

Quashing the uprising was not an easy job for the SS – they had to use mortars, flamethrowers, tanks, armored cars and even anti-aircraft guns. Still, the fighting continued for almost a month – to May 16th.

The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II. The Jews knew that victory was impossible and survival unlikely. Marek Edelman, the last surviving rebel commander (yes, there were survivors), said their inspiration to fight was “not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths“.

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the uprising was one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people. Which is very possibly true.