The uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto
Introduction
The Warsaw ghetto insurgency is an historical event that has since become an insignia of Jewish resistance and fortitude that has revolutionized the self-acuity of the Jewish people from acquiescence to dynamic armed struggle. The ghetto was established as a result of World War II, when Hitler’s army occupied Poland on September 1st, 1939, and sought to entirely eradicate what they termed as ‘’Jewish race’’. The act of Jewish resistance could not be envisaged especially during the Holocaust. The April 1943 event was full of epic proportions that pitted a few inadequately armed, famished Jews against the might of Nazi influence. After the Jew-led revolt, the Nazi’s become even more relentless on massacring the Jews. The insurgency was the first urban rebellion that had significance in the Nazi-led countries as it represented impertinence and great forfeit in a world epitomized by devastation and death. The Uprising represents a focal point in Jewish history whereby they underwent through horrific events that led to their being massacred in thousands with minimal help, which was non-existent in some cases. This all transpired after the Warsaw ghetto inhabitants were fed up with their dismal living conditions.
Background
The Warsaw ghetto was the biggest ghetto that was set up by the Nazis and it exited from July the 16th, 1940, to July 22, 1942, with latter dates marking the beginning of the mass Jew deportation to the Treblinka death-encampment (Gutman 62). Approximately, half a million Jews were living in the Warsaw ghetto when it was sealed off in 1940 and during this time, the Nazis started concentrating a large number of Poland’s Jewish population that had over three million Jews into various ghettos in polish cities. The sealed ghetto meant that the Jews were completely cut-off from the larger population and were merely reduced to a state of seclusion, insulation, and choking congestion. Even before the massive deportation of Jews to the Treblinka camp, thousands of Jews were dying inside the Warsaw ghetto due to the widespread disease and starvation that also raised the mortality rate in the ghetto especially throughout 1941. Despite the ghetto being created to serve the Nazis’ political ends and ideological creed, the Germans maintained that the internment of the Jews to the ghetto was meant to segregate the focal point of the disease (Gutman 63). In addition, the Nazis justified the establishment of the Ghetto and their elimination efforts of the Jews on criminal, moral, and anthropological nature grounds since they believed the Jews to be morally depraved, crime inducing, intellectually defective, and racially impure (Boni and Leociak 280).
Between July and September of 1942, mass deportations saw an estimated number of 300,000 Jews being deported to special killing centre from the Warsaw ghetto and by the end 1942, about 55,000 Jews were left in the ghetto. Therefore, an underground resistance movement was created when many Jews who remained came to the horrendous realization of minimal survival in the ghetto, also in comprehension that the deportations were part of an eradication sequence (Ellis & Silinsky pr. 5).
The Fighting
When the Germans embarked on their second deportation of the Jews in January 18th, 1943, it led to the first incidence of armed rebellion within the ghetto. Both women and children were among the thousands of Jew fighters who used revolvers and pistols against the substantial Nazi weaponry. The Jewish Military Union and the Jewish Combat Organization which were some of the resistance groups eventually took control of the ghetto and built an overwhelming number of fighting posts from which they executed their fellow Jew police officers whom they deemed to be Nazi collaborators, including ‘Gestapo’ agents who were Nazi secret police. For weeks, the Jewish Fighting Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa) planned and executed the uprising that started in April 1943, and resolutely held out against the Nazi forces under the command of Mordecai Anielewiez, despite being outnumbered and poorly armed (Andrzejewski and Swan xvii). Under the authority of S.S Oberfuhrer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, the German police and SS auxiliary army forced their way into the ghetto with intention of completing their action within three days.
However, they were ambushed by Jewish rebels who were now better prepared and used various tactics to inflict heavy casualties on the Nazi forces. Despite the Jew resistance, the Nazis eventually destroyed the ghetto and set the buildings ablaze with those surviving being deported to death camps or to the slave-labor market.
Polish Support
There was limited outside support to the Ghetto uprising although Polish opposition units such as the Home Army (Armia Krajowa) and the People’s Guard (the Polish Communist Gwardia Ludowa) attack German sentinel positions which were near the Warsaw ghetto walls, and also tried to smuggle ammunitions and other weapons into the ghetto. They also circulated information and help appeals to the Jews through radio transmissions to allies. Although there were also wider alienation and restrictions to the polish community, the National Security Corps from the Armia Krajowa (AK) unit fought along with the Jewish insurgents inside the ghetto, under Henryk Iwanski’s command. Iwanski’s effort is one of the many widely known rescue actions undertaken by various Polish resistance groups in trying to help the Jews (Apfelbaum 201-202). In another instance during the first day of the revolt in 19th April 1943, three units from the AK used anti-tank mines in trying to contravene the ghetto walls under Captain Jozef Pszenny’s command. Despite the joint Polish and Jewish resistance efforts, the German forces quelled these insurgency actions which proved to be insufficient against the German forces who daily committed large number of forces to the uprising. However, the Polish community was deeply inspired by the Warsaw ghetto events which led to the establishment of more Polish resistance groups (Apfelbaum 203-204).
The Mass Murder and Death Toll
The Einsatzgruppen, which were special itinerant killing squads, marked a new point in the Nazi policy which was the total obliteration of the Jewish people. The Einsatzgruppen units under the command of the S.S, was largely made up of policemen, police reservists, and local emissaries who consistently followed the invading German forces. As instructed, the Einsdatzgruppen would go into towns and villages to primarily target and kill Jews whom the Nazis perceived to be state adversaries (Anon 44). The mobile killing units took the Jewish communities by surprise as they acted promptly in rounding up men, women, and children whom they later shot into mass grave sites. Nazi headquarters would daily receive reports of the killing operations from the ground commanders.
The captured victims who were mainly men and women would be sorted into two groups whereby they underwent a selection process on arrival to these camps. The S.S doctors and officers were given the task of deciding on who was to be immediately put to death and who would be exploited for slave labor. Nearly everyone who was below the age of 16, the elderly, the sick and pregnant women would immediately be sent to be exterminated, while those who survived the atrocious selection process were reprieved from instantaneous death and were taken into slavery labor camps and objectives. The slave laborers were instantly deprived of their identity, given prison attires, and their hair was completely shaved. For instance, the Auschwitz slave-labor camp had its victims tattooed on their arms with an identifiable number while they were literally worked to their own death. New arrivals replaced those who died from extreme work conditions and those who could work no more were killed in gas chambers (Anon 48-50).
Thousands and thousands of Jews died in the uprising as the Ghetto was blazed down to the ground along with its immense valuables. The German forces also blazed and bombard the building which housed the hospital on Gesia Street, in the Warsaw ghetto. The hospital personnel which included doctors, nurses, and laboratory technicians were killed by the Nazi forces despite surviving the bombardment while patients were subjected to exceptional acts of cruelty by being thrown into flames, with new born babies being massacred and pregnant women bellies being torn apart (Boni and Leociak 279). After the uprising repression formally ended in May 16th, 1943, an estimated number of over 13,000 Jewish inhabitants were killed in the course of the revolt, and another 6,000 residents among them either died from smoke inhalation or were burnt alive. Most of the remaining 50,000 residents were sent to Treblinka concentration camp which was an extermination site.
Conclusion
Although Jew resistance groups have revolted against their oppressors at various times in history, the Uprising in Warsaw is more conspicuous than other events since it symbolizes the end of two thousand years of Jewish capitulation to prejudice, subjugation, and lastly, genocide. It was an indication of the start of an iron militancy that is deeply entrenched in the will to survive, and also a militancy that was to be shaped and directed by the establishment of the state of Israel. In trying to understand that nation’s mood, approach, policies, and pride to the tensions shaking Middle East, and the current global situation, it is necessary to understand and reflect upon the events at the Warsaw ghetto. The revolt signified the Euphoria, anguish, the perpetual optimism of the ghetto defenders which compromised young men and women who were dearly in love with life yet resolute to fight to death for a better life.
Although this paper on conveys a small part of Warsaw ghetto events, this thesis reveals the atrocious cruelty and excruciating conditions that the Jews were subjected to, and reveals the unity and endurance of both the Jews and polish communities in trying to fight oppression. Although the event says alot more on the Jew-Polish relationship, the ghetto tested both Jewish and Polish hearts and minds as a fairly small number of Poles endangered their lives in order to save the Jews and quite in deed, some died in this quest. However, it also shows fellow Jews ‘turned at each other’ in such circumstances due to suspicion of being collaborators with the enemy. Generally, the far-most outcome from the Warsaw ghetto revealed that under genocidal conditions, the worst exemplified such a small part of the total.
Works Cited
Andrzejewski, Jerzy, and Oscar Swan. Holy Week: a novel of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Ohio: Ohio University Press, 2007. Print
Anon. The Holocaust: Lessons for Humanity. Cape Town: New Africa Books, 2004. Print
Apfelbaum, Marian. Two flags: return to the Warsaw Ghetto. Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing House Ltd, 2007
Boni, Barbara, and Jacek Leociak. The Warsaw ghetto: a guide to the perished city. Connecticut: Yale University Press, 2009. Print
Ellis, Eliahu, and Shmuel Silinsky. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Web. 31 Dec. 1969.
< http://www.aish.com/ho/o/48965521.html>
Gutman, Yisrael. The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943: ghetto, underground, revolt. Indiana: Indiana University Press, 1989. Print.
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