Bialystok Ghetto Uprising Was Partially Successful

In the beginning of the XX century, Bialystok (then part of the Russian Empire) was essentially a Jewish city: four out of five inhabitants were Jewish. Pogroms and anti-Semitic policies of the government of independent Poland changed the situation – but prior to World War II the majority of inhabitants were still Jewish.

The Bia;ystok Ghetto was set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland soon after the German invasion of the Soviet Union. In February 1943, the first wave of mass deportations to Treblinka extermination camp took place, under Aktion Reinhard.

The final liquidation of the ghetto was attempted on August 16, 1943, by regiments of the German SS reinforced by Ukrainian, Belarusian, and Latvian auxiliaries (as usual, it was a multinational effort).

The revolt began upon the German announcement of mass deportations from the ghetto. The main objective was to break the German siege and allow the maximum number of Jews to escape into the neighboring forest… or at least to die in combat with honor rather than in Nazi gas chambers.

A group of about 300 to 500 insurgents armed with 25 rifles and 100 pistols as well as home-made Molotov cocktails for grenades, attacked the overwhelming German force with a great loss of life (no surprise here).

The fights in isolated pockets of resistance lasted for several days, but their defenses were broken almost instantly with a tank sent into the ghetto. German soldiers then set fire to the area.

The leaders of the uprising committed suicide after their bunkers ran out of ammunition. In spite of the insurgency, the planned deportations to concentration and extermination camps went ahead on August 17, 1943, without any delay (in this respect, the revolt was an abject failure).

Approximately 10,000 Jews were led to the Holocaust trains and sent to camps in Treblinka, Majdanek and Auschwitz where they died in gas chambers. A transport of 1,200 children were sent to Theresienstadt concentration camp and later to Auschwitz, where they were murdered.

Still, several dozen insurgents managed to break through German lines to the forests surrounding Bia;ystok where they joined the Polish partisans and survived the war. It is estimated that out of almost 60,000 Jews who lived in Bia;ystok before World War II, only several hundred survived the Holocaust. In this respect, the revolt was partially successful.