Blackwell Reference Online

Extract

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising marked the first instance of open, armed resistance against the Nazis by an underground organization and was the largest Jewish revolt during the Holocaust. Although the fighting ended with the complete destruction of the ghetto and the deaths of nearly all the Jewish resistance fighters involved, news of the uprising spread quickly and influenced resistance movements in Jewish ghettoes throughout Europe. On Yom Kippur, October 12, 1940, loudspeakers located throughout Warsaw announced the establishment of the Jewish Residential Quarter of Warsaw; the Judenrat (Jewish council) was responsible for carrying out the mass relocation of over 150,000 Jews. Cordoned off from the rest of Warsaw, the ghetto was designed to bring about the death of its residents. Jews were allotted a daily ration of 184 calories, compared to 669 for Poles and 2,613 for Germans. By the summer of 1941 the ghetto population surpassed 400,000. Corpses lined the streets; typhus, starvation, and a brutal winter added to the casualties. More than 60,000 perished in the first 15 months. On the morning of July 22, 1942, SS officers announced to Judenrat President Adam Cziernoków that deportations would begin within the next few hours. Members of the Judenrat were taken hostage; if the evacuations failed, the hostages would be shot. Each day, thousands were gathered at the Umschlagplatz ... log in or subscribe to read full text