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Ghettos
Warsaw Ghetto
Last Update 14 September 2006
Warsaw became the capital of
Poland in 1596, the city flanks
both side of the Vistula River,
two thirds of the cityʼs area lying
on the west bank and one third
on the east. Jews lived in
Warsaw from the 15th century,
in the 19th century Warsawʼs
Ghettos
Jewish population grew rapidly,
becoming the largest Jewish community in Europe, and by
the 20th century the second largest in the World, behind
Warszaw Ghetto Map
New York. Jews were to be found in every part of the city,
but predominantly in the Northern part, with many apartment houses and certain streets
inhabited exclusively by Jews. In 1935 the city limits covered an area of 54 square miles with a
population of 1.3 million people.
On the eve of WW2 the Jewish population in Warsaw numbered 337,000, about 29% of the
total population of the city, this figure rose to 445,000 by March 1941.
Early September 1939 following the German invasion of Poland on 31 August 1939, the
German forces reached the southern and western parts of the city on 8 and 9 September 1939.
Within a few days they had surrounded the city from all sides, Warsaw bravely stood up to the
German siege for 3 weeks, with air attacks and artillery shelling causing heavy damage and
significant loss of life.
As a result of the constant
bombardments from the air and by
Warsaw Ghetto People artillery fire, there was a great
exodus from the city. Warsawʼs
mayor Stefan Starzynski appointed Adam Czerniakow as
Chairman of the Jewish Council on 23 September 1939.
From the first days of the occupation the Jews were
subjected to attacks and discrimination, such as being
driven from food lines, seized for forced labour and
assaults on religious Jews wearing their traditional garbs.
Boy, selling Armbands
Teachers, craftsman, professionals, members of welfare
and cultural institutions lost their positions, without any compensation, with little or no prospect
of obtaining similar positions.
In November 1939 the first anti-Jewish decreeʼs were
issued, such as the introduction of the white armband with
a blue Star of David on it to be worn by all men, women
and Jews over 10 years of age, from 1 December 1939,
the requirement of signs identifying Jewish shops and
enterprises and a ban on train travels. Radios were also
confiscated from Jews and Poles.
The harshest measures came with a number of decrees on
economic affairs, such as the prohibition of non-Jews
buying or leasing Jewish enterprises without obtaining a
Jews, forced to remove
special permit for this purpose, decreed by District
Barricades, in 1939
Governor Ludwig Fischer on 17 October 1939.
In November 1939 more decrees followed concerning the handling of money by Jews. Jews
were ordered to deposit their money in a blocked bank account. The banks could release no
more than 250 zloties per week to the holder of the account.
These orders made it impossible for Jews to carry on economic activity in the open, and
particularly outside of Jewish circles. In addition to blocking Jewish accounts and putting a stop
to economic activity, the Germans also embarked upon the confiscation of Jewish enterprises,
excluding small stores in the Jewish area. Jewish managers and staff were often removed, only
being retained, if it suited the new owners.
Even in the early stages of the occupation the assets, accumulated in the past, served the
Jews as their main source of subsistence. Jews with savings or goods that they had managed
to conceal began trading them for food - a practice that was to continue throughout the war. As
time went on the Jewsʼ property and resources dwindled, and more and more Jews became
penniless and faced a slow death, owing to the lack of food and other basic requirements they
needed to exist.
In place of the many institutions that had existed pre-war,
only two frameworks were allowed to function under the
occupying power: the Judenrat and Welfare Institutions.
The Judenrat was a new body, set up by the Germans, in
place of the traditional Jewish Community Council. On 4
October 1939 Adam Czerniakow was taken to the
Gestapo and Police Headquarters on Aleja Szucha, where
he was told to appoint 24 persons to the Community
Council and become its chairman.
The Judenrat headquarters was on Grzybowska Street
Warsaw Ghetto
and amongst the leading men that worked there were:
Jaszunski, Sztoclcman, Milejkowski, Lichtenbaum, Zabludowski, Kobryner, Zundelewicz,
Rozensztat, Kupczyker, Zygielbojm, Sztokhamer, Dr. Szoszkies, and Gepner. The
Judenrat was the sole official body that the German authorities dealt with, thus facilitating the
stranglehold the occupying powers had over the Jews. The complete Judenrat staff at its height
numbered 6,000 persons.
Before long it became evident that the number of needy cases was growing and that an
organisation had to be created and equipped that would be able to meet the requirements of
the entire Jewish population. The American Joint Distribution Committee sponsored ZTOS
(Jewish Mutual Aid Society) lent assistance to 250,000 Jews during the Passover of 1940. Its
most important means of aiding masses of people were its soup kitchens, which doled out a
bowl of soup and a piece of bread to all comers. When this operation was at its height, more
than one hundred such soup kitchens were in operation in Jewish Warsaw.
In March 1940 a wave of muggings and attacks on Jews was launched by Polish gangs.
Individual Jews were robbed in the streets without any interference by bystanders. During the
Easter season these attacks turned into a real pogrom, which continued for eight days, and
only ended when the German authorities ordered it to stop.
The first attempt to set up a ghetto had been made by the SS in November 1939, but at the
time the military governor General Karl Ulrich von Neumann-Neurode, put a stop to the plan.
In February 1940, however, Waldemar Schön, the official in charge of evacuation and
relocation in the German District Administration, was ordered to up plans for the establishment
of a ghetto. Various possibilities were considered, one of them being the removal form the city
to the Praga suburbs.
On 12 October 1940, The Day of Atonement, the Jews were informed of the decree
establishing a ghetto. A few days later a map was published indicating the streets assigned to
the ghetto area. The creation of the ghetto meant that 113,000 Poles had to vacate their
homes, and for 138,000 Jews to take their place. Some 30% of the population of Warsaw was
packed into 2.4% of the cityʼs area.
In mid-November 1940 the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw was sealed off by a high wall. Its
construction took many months to complete. The work was carried out by the construction firm
Schmidt & Münstermann, based on 8/3 Mars Street, which later helped building the
Treblinka death camp. The ghetto wall was 3.5 m high, topped by glass and barbed wire.
The Nazis did not use the term ghetto, but referred to the area as Jüdischer Wohnbezirk
(Jewish Quarter).
Warsaw Ghetto Market
A Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst ("Jewish Order Service" /
Jewish police force) was established and at its height,
numbered 2,000 members.
The leader of the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst was Josef
Szerynski, a Polish police colonel who had converted to
Christianity. He changed his name from Szenkman and
developed an anti-Semitic attitude. After his arrest in May
1942, Jakob Lejkin, his deputy, took over temporary
command of the Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst. This
organization played a significant role in the "Great
Deportation Action" in the summer of 1942.
The daily food rations, allocated to the Warsaw Jews, consisted of 181 calories - about 25% of
the rations for non-Jewish Poles, and only 8% of the nutritional value of the food that the
Germans received for their official ration coupons.
In November 1940 the ghetto was sealed off. There were already 445 deaths in the ghetto.
The death toll thereafter rose rapidly: in January 1941 to 898, in April to 2,061, in June to
4,290 and in August to 5,560. Then the monthly figure fluctuated between 4,000-5,000 for as
long as the ghetto existed.
The ghettoʼs ties with the outside world were handled by the Transferstelle, a German authority
that was in charge of the traffic of goods, both into and out of the ghetto. The first official in
charge of this office was Alexander Palfinger, finally succeeded by a certain Bischof.
In May 1941 a Berlin attorney, named Heinz Auerswald, was appointed Kommissar of the
Jewish quarter on behalf of the German authorities. Auerswald's appointment over the Jewish
quarter was parallel to that of Ludwig Leist, who was the commander of the entire city.
Czerniakow similarly became the head of the quarter. Auerswald's office also assumed
control of the Transferstelle and managed the Jewish affairs. Of course the police and SS
continued to intervene in its work.
In the summer of 1941, some 11,300 were sent to labour camps in Warsaw, Lublin and
Krakow, where they were forced to do back-breaking work, suffering from hunger, poor
sanitary conditions and harsh discipline.
Another focal point of authority and power in the Warsaw ghetto was an agency known as the
"13", which took its name from the address of its headquarters on Leszno Street. The "13"
network was closely identified with the name of its founder and moving spirit, Abraham
Gancwajch and the group of men of his environment. Gancwajch and most of his senior aides
were not even veteran residents of Warsaw but had come to the city as refugees.
The principal division of the "13" network (founded in December 1940) was the "Office to
Combat Usury and Profiteering in the Jewish Quarter of Warsaw", and a supervisory unit. The
300-400 men of "13" wore polished boots, caps with a green band (regular police wore blue)
and epaulets and stars to denote their ranks. Their rise to power in the ghetto was due to the
sanction they received from key figures in the occupation regime, particularly the SD
(Sicherheitsdienst / Security Service). They were simply collaborators.
In May 1941 Gancwajchʼs agency set up "First Aid", a kind
of Red Cross emergency station. Gancwajch also inspired
the establishment of a department to supervise weights and
measures in the ghetto, an organisation of disabled
veterans of the 1939 fighting, and cultural and religious
societies.
During a certain period, two refugees from Lodz, Kohn
and Heller were counted among Gancwajchʼs associates.
In time they broke with him and began operating on their
own, but they did not give up their German patronage and
found protectors among the Gestapo men. Kohn and
Heller built up various commercial operations, one being Postcard, sent from the Ghetto
the horse-drawn wooden trolleys that transported passengers in the ghetto. Kohn and Heller
maintained their power longer than Gancwajch and his men. In July 1941 Auerswald closed
down Gancwajchʼs principal bastion of power, the "Office to Combat Usury and Profiteering". It
is impossible to pinpoint the exact cause of Gancwajch defeat in his contest with the Judenrat.
Gancwajch's fate is not known.
German manufacturers appeared in the
ghetto in the summer of 1941, having
been granted authorisation to operate in
the Warsaw area. First to appear on the
scene, in July 1941, was Bernard
Hallmann, owner of a carpentry company.
In September 1941, the Fritz Schulz
Company,
a
Gdansk-based
fur
establishment, became active in the
ghetto. The most important among these
business men was Walther Többens, a
manufacturer of textile goods, who began
his activities in autumn.
At first the German companies placed
orders with existing Jewish workshops, but
before long they put up their own
workshops in the ghetto.
Several methods were employed to carry
out the smuggling operations: through
buildings that were connected with
Jewish Street Sweeper
buildings on the "Aryan" side, across the
wall, through camouflaged openings in the
wall and through underground canals. Smuggling on a larger scale also took place at the
ghetto gates. Policemen, guards, Germans, Poles and Jews were involved, bribery was the
order of the day.
Children and women were also engaged on a smaller scale, risking their lives too. Every day
smugglers were caught, paying the ultimate sacrifice. According to Czneriakow the necessary
food, smuggled into the ghetto, represented 80% of all the products brought in.
Self-help grew out of necessity to survive because the German ghetto policy regarding the
distribution of food aimed at starvation on a massive scale. A Polish source calculated that the
daily calorific content of food, officially distributed to national groups in 1941, was as follows:
Germans 2,613 calories, Poles 699 calories, Jews only 184 calories. The nutritional value of
the official Jewish rations was 15% of the minimum daily requirement for survival.
In December 1941, Czerniakow estimated that there were about 10,000 ghetto inhabitants with
capital, 250,000 who could support themselves, and 150,000 who were destitute. Only by
selling all goods most of the inhabitants could survive. The critical problem was keeping the
impoverished 150,000 Jews from malnutrition.
Therefore soup kitchens were organised that provided a daily midday meal (having 600-800
calories) for free. Of course starvation was still inevitable on such a diet...
Until the entry of the United States into the war in December 1941, the prime source of funding
for aid to the ghetto was the "American-Jewish Joint Distribution Committee", known familiarly
as the "The Joint". Its monetary resource gradually dwindled.
Men such as Yitzhak Gitterman and Emanuel Ringelblum organised and led a variety of
self-help agencies. Among these were "ZTOS", the "Jewish Mutual Aid Society", which
operated over one hundred soup kitchens in Warsaw; and "Centos", the "National Society for
the Care of Orphans", which ran schools and provided food, clothing and shelter. These selfhelp organisations employed hundreds of people, offering a daily bowl of soup as salary. They
operated independently, besides the Judenrat. In January 1942, as the financial support from
the "Joint" began to decline, the self-help organisations ceased relying upon voluntary
donations and instead were empowered to impose taxes.
Amongst the most important elements of self-help were the "house committees", which
functioned in almost every apartment house. They imposed a double monthly payment on the
residents, one for the benefit of self-help, the other for the needs of the apartment house itself.
They collected food from every family that was able to make a contribution, and distributed the
food to starving families. A person, carrying a bucket, went from apartment to apartment,
collecting food, goods and clothing from the more fortunate who donated whatever they could
spare.
The house committees also assessed everybodyʼs resources and imposed a monthly payment
upon each household. Money and goods were given to the central fund, which supported the
soup kitchens. To enforce its effectiveness, the house committees used the only weapon
available to them, shaming those who were selfish. Families who were able to make a
contribution but refused to do so, found their names displayed at the entrance to their
apartment building.
However, despite of all efforts, 5,000 ghetto people died every month in early 1942, most of
them by starvation.
The Germans tried to ban private and public prayer
services, but the Jews continued with daily services in
private homes. In spring of 1941, the ban was abolished
and the synagogues were permitted to re-open. The Great
Synagogue on Tlomacki Street was re-opened in June
1941, in a festive ceremony. Rabbi Kalonymos Kalmisch
Shapira, the Hasidic rabbi of Piaseczno, maintained his
flock of followers in the ghetto and preached to them on
Sabbath.
School instruction was prohibited in the ghetto. From time
to time Czerniakow asked the German authorities for
Making Jews like a Fool
permission to re-open the schools. In 1941 permission was
granted to open the school year for several elementary-school classes. This regular school
year, the only one that was observed in the ghetto, started in October 1941. While regular
schools were banned in the ghetto, the Judenrat was permitted to maintain the vocational
training schools, sponsored by the "ORT" organization. The first training courses were opened
in 1940, but they reached their maximum development after the ghetto was established. In
mid-1941 2,454 students were attending such courses.
Cultural life in the ghetto consisted of activities, conducted by the underground organisations.
The "Idische Kultur Organizacje" (IKOR), a clandestine organisation for promoting Yiddish
culture, in which Emanuel Ringelblum and Menahem Linder were active, sponsored literary
evenings and special meetings to mark the anniversaries of noted Jewish writers.
Clandestine libraries circulated officially banned books. An eighty-member symphony orchestra
offered a repertoire of famous German composers. Artworks of Jewish composers were not
allowed. Well known writers and poets continued to work in the ghetto: Itzhak Katzenelson,
Israel Sztern, Jehoszua Perle, Hillel Zeitlin, Peretz Opoczynski, and Kalman Lis.
Theatrical groups gave performances, well-known actors such as Michael Znicz, Zigmunt
Turkow or Diana Blumenfeld appeared on stage. The audience mostly consisted of nouveaux
riches, who preferred light entertainment to forget the horrors of daily life.
Underground activities by political circles
and organisations had already begun
when the Germans entered Warsaw.
Members of youth movements and parties
joined together and began preparing plans
of resistance.
At an early stage, the question arose as
to whether political organisations could
confine themselves to material aid and
abandon political activity. At clandestine
meetings in the soup kitchens, open
discussions and debates were held and
the different political positions were
probed. The next step was to establish an
Victims, died by Starvation or Epidemics *
underground press and to persist in efforts
to communicate with political elements
outside the country.
At first the Germans displayed a lack of interest in the underground activities. Therefore the
underground was enabled, prior to spring of 1942, to engage in a broad range of activities. The
underground press achieved the aims of providing the news-hungry ghetto population with
reliable informations about international political developments, and on the progress of war. It
also raised political and ideological issues that encouraged polemics and discussions.
Especially prominent were the "Bund" and the socialist Zionists "Poʼalei Zion Z.S.".
A unique and important enterprise, created in the ghetto, was the Ringelblum archive, codenamed "ONEG SHABBAT". While it was not directly initiated by the political bodies, the archive
depended on the support of public leaders and the underground organisations. The extant
material, collected by the Ringelblum archive, consists of tens of thousands of pages:
documents, notes, diaries, and a rich collection of underground newspapers. It is the most
important source collection for research on the fate of Jews under the Nazi occupation of
Warsaw and Poland in general.
Jewish youth movements and their leaders played an important role in the underground,
especially in the later stages, following the great deportations.
During the war and in the ghetto the activities of the youth movements and their relarive power
underwent a gradual change. They manifested a greater aptitude than other movements for
changing circumstances and for taking dynamic action when necessary. The youth leaders
Mordecai Anielewicz, Yitzhak Zuckerman, Zivia Lubetkin, Chaim Kaplan, and Israel Geller
developed into acknowleged underground leaders because of their political instincts and
leadership qualities.
The youth movements did not confine
their activities to Warsaw. They extended
their work to cover the undertakings of the
different movement branches and cells in
all ghettos and Jewish communities in
occupied Poland. These young people
under false identities provided the link to
isolated ghettos, cut off from the the
world.
A drastic change happened in the
relationship between the underground and
the power structures in the ghetto when
first reports came in about massacres at
Ponary and other killing sites in eastern
Europe. At this point a new concept arose
A Mass Grave on the Jewish Cemetery *
- that the Germans had embarked upon
the total destruction of the Jews and that therefore the Jews had no choice other than to stand
up and fight, even if this offered no prospect of survival.
In March 1942, at a meeting of the Warsaw Jewish leaders, Yitzhak Zuckerman, on behalf of
the youth movements, sought to win agreement for creating an overall defence organisation.
His proposal was turned down, regarded as too pessimistic. This failure led to the
establishment of the "Antifascist Bloc", sponsored by the Communists and the "Zionist Left".
This organization existed during March and April 1942, its military branch had 500 armed
members. The plan of escaping to the forests and take up the fight from there, was not
realized, expected weapons did not arrive... Just before the target date (in May 1942), the
whole structure collapsed. The Communist leaders of the "Bloc" were imprisoned and the
organization went out of existence.
337,000 Jews lived in the ghetto
See our pages
"Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation"
"Daily Statistics"
"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising"
The Warsaw Album
Photos:
GFH *
Sources:
Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust
Gutman Y., The Jews of Warsaw 1939 - 43, The Harvester Press Ltd., Brighton 1982
The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, edited by R. Hilberg, S. Staron, J. Kermish, New
York, 1979
Special thanks to Barbara Engelking.
© ARC (http://www.deathcamps.org) 2005
ARC Main Page
Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Last Update 9 April 2006
Following the Great Deportation during the
summer of 1942, a profound change took
place in the Jewish outlook. The awful
truth of what had taken place, became too apparent. Those who had been deported were
dead, and those that remained faced the same end. The longing for relatives who had been
torn away and the searing pain over their loss were truly felt only after the deportations had
ended, mixed with feelings of guilt for remaining alive. A new mood arose in this post
deportation period, deep hatred for the Nazis, desire for revenge, and the growth of determined
resistance.
At the end of October 1942, a consultation was held at the Ha-Shomer Hazair headquarters at
61 Mila Street, and the ZOB had been consolidated and enlarged with the addition of youth
movements and splinter groups of underground political parties of all persuasions from Zionists
to Communists. A ZOB command was formed, made up of representatives of the founding
organisations and the combat groups. At this October 1942 meeting on the agenda were two
key subjects: the defence of the Warsaw ghetto, and to teach the Jewish Police and workshop
owners a lesson.
The ZOB's first operations were directed against the Jewish Police, in retaliation for its
diligence and brutality during the mass deportations, senior officials of the Judenrat who were
known to be on close terms with the Germans, and Jews who had developed a reputation as
agents for the various branches of the German police. The ZOB leadership were convinced
that the ghetto could not be set in gear for an armed struggle, as long as it contained a Fifth
Column, prepared to collaborate with the Germans, by passing on information, or handing Jews
over to the Germans.
Following the unsuccessful assassination attempt on Jozef Szerynski on 20 August 1942 by
Yisrael Kanal, the first person condemned to death by the ZOB was Jacob Lejkin, who as
Szerynskiʼs deputy, had played a leading role in the mass deportations. The assassination
was planned with great care, and the group that accepted the mission consisted of three
members of the Ha-Shomer Hazair: Margalit Landau and Mordechai Grobas trailed Lejkin
for some time, charting his regular movements and hours of work, while Eliyahu Rozanski
was chosen as the assassin.
Towards evening on 29 October 1942 Lejkin was shot to death while walking from the police
station to his home on Gesia Street. His aide, Czaplinski, who was walking by his side, was
injured.
The next assassination was directed against Yisrael First, a senior official of the Judenrat.
First had been one of the directors of the Economic Department, but his influence extended far
beyond that sphere. From the earliest of the Judenrat, he had been the councilʼs liaison officer
with various branches of the German police, and he played a part during the "Great Action".
The assassination was carried out on 28 November 1942, by David Schlman of Dror He
Halutz, on Muranowska Street.
The second wave of deportations was launched on 18 January 1943. This time, however, the
Jews who were ordered to assemble in the courtyards of their apartment houses to have their
papers examined, refused to comply and went into hiding. The first column that the Germans
managed to up in the first few hours, consisted of some one thousand persons, who offered a
different kind of resistance.
A group of fighters, led by Mordechai Anielewicz, armed with pistols, deliberately infiltrated
the column that was on its way to the Umschlagplatz. When the agreed upon signal was given,
the fighters stepped out of the column and engaged the German escorts in hand-to-hand
fighting. The column dispersed, and news of the fight, which had taken place in the street of
the central ghetto, soon became common knowledge.
Eliyahu Rozanski and Margalit Landau who were involved in the killing of Lejkin, fell in this
battle, Anielewicz was nearly killed after running out of ammunition.
That first day the Germans also met with armed resistance on the corner of Zamenhofa and
Mila Streets, from an apartment in which a group of Dror members including Yitzhak
Zuckerman, had taken up positions. Some SS-men were killed, others ran off, leaving their
weapons behind.
Clearing of a Factory*
According to German
sources on 20 January
1943 two SS-battalions
surrounded
Többens
and Schultzʼs shops.
This operation was
commanded by von
Sammern-Frankenegg
and the commandant of
Treblinka
I
labour
v. Sammern
camp, Theodor von
Eupen. The fact that the "action" was
halted after a few days, and that the
Germans have managed to seize no more
than 10% of the ghetto population, was
regarded by Jews and Poles alike as a
German defeat.
The Germans however, had not intended to deport the whole ghetto. In fact they carried out an
order by Heinrich Himmler (after his visit to Warsaw on 9 January 1943), to deport 8,000
Jews from the ghetto. With this deportation the levels set by Himmler prior to the "Great
Action", would be met.
The deportations and other events that took place in January were to have a decisive influence
on the last months of the ghetto existence, up to April and May 1943. The Judenrat and the
Jewish police lost whatever control they still had over the ghetto. In the central part of the
ghetto it was the fighting organisations that were obeyed by the population. Odilo Globocnik
appointed one of the German shop owners, Többens, as Ghetto commissar. His assignment
was to transfer the machinery and workers of the major shops in the Warsaw Ghetto to labour
camps in the Lublin area. Többens however, ran into opposition from the workers, who were
taking their instructions from the ZOB.
The Jewish resistance also impressed the Poles, and they now provided more aid to the
Jewish fighters than in the past. The fighting organisations used the few months they had left
before the final liquidation to consolidate, equip themselves, and prepare a plan for the defence
of the ghetto.
The ZOB now had 22 fighting squads, of 15 fighters each, the Military Union had about half the
number of fighters, but it operated in a similar manner.
The ghetto as a whole was engaged in feverish preparations for the expected deportation,
which all believed would be the last and the final one. The general population concentrated on
preparing bunkers. Groups of Jews, made up mostly of tenants of the same building, went to
work on the construction of subterranean bunkers, shelters such as these had helped evade
capture during the January 1943 deportations. Many Jews were now ready to entertain the
hope that the combination of resistance and hiding might provide the route to rescue.
The network of bunkers
in the ghetto was
expanded,
and
a
substantial part of the
ghetto population was
kept busy at night
digging the hideouts
and
communication
trenches under
the
ground. Much thought
and sophistication went
Bunker #2*
Bunker #1*
into the planning of the
entrances and exits of the hiding places. Bunkers and wooden bunks were installed in them,
and air circulation was provided for, as well as electricity and water supplies, food, and
medicines to last for months.
The preparation of bunkers became a mass movement in the central ghetto area, and as the
final deportation drew near every inhabitant of the ghetto had two addresses - one on the
ghetto surface and a subterranean one in a bunker.
Revolt and Final Liquidation
The final liquidation of
the ghetto began on 19
April 1943, the eve of
Passover. This time the
deportation
did
not
come as a surprise.
The Jews had been
warned of what lay
ahead and they were
ready. The Germans
SS questioning Ghetto Fighters* had
a
substantial Trawnikis after shooting Tenants*
military force on the alert for the deportation, but they were
taken by surprise, by the street battles, and the determination of the Jews to resist. This lack of
understanding cost SS-Oberführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg his post as HSSPF
Warschau. Himmler replaced him with SS- and Police General Jürgen Stroop, who was
experienced in fighting partisans, to supervise the deportation and liquidation of the ghetto. In
his telex to the HSSPF Ost, F.W. Krüger, from 22 April 1943 Himmler ordered the most
possible toughness for the ghetto liquidation.
Stroopʼs daily progress reports to Krüger and his final summary when the revolt had come to
an end, constitute the basic historical documentation of the resistance offered by the Jews and
the methods used by the Nazis to overcome it.
According to Stroop the Großaktion ("Great Action") began on 19 April 1943, when a strong
police force surrounded the ghetto at 3 a.m.. The German armed forces that had been
assembled for the operation consisted of 850 men and 18 officers, under the command of von
Sammern-Frankenegg. It entered the ghetto in two sections, met with armed resistance and
was forced to retreat. The forces were drawn from SS Panzergrenadiere, cavalry training, SS
and police regiments, technical emergency corps, security police, Wehrmacht engineers,
Trawniki-Männer from the SS training camp Trawniki, as well as Polish police and fire brigade
personnel.
On the first day the
Germans
became
aware of the kind of
uprising
they
were
facing.
The
central
ghetto, which had a
population of more than
30,000, was completely
empty, except for a
handful of Judenrat
members and a Jewish Marching to the Umschlagplatz*
The Ghetto in Flames*
police unit. No Jews
could be rounded up for deportation, and the freight cars at the Umschlagplatz had to remain
empty. The magnitude of the hiding operation took the Germans by surprise, as had the armed
resistance.
In the first three days, street battles took place in the ghetto, Stroop decided to systematically
set fire to the buildings to flush out the fighters. This meant that the Jewish fighters had to
abandon their positions and seek refuge in the bunkers. The ghetto was now one great burning
torch, enveloped in dense smoke and permeated by stifling odours. The temperatures in
bunkers below burning houses reached boiling point. Most of the food was spoiled by the
devastating heat, the people had to quench their thurst by drinking warm and stinking water.
One could hardly breathe or talk, being on the verge of going mad, but still the Jews refused to
surrender to the Germans.
Under
cover
of
darkness they tried to
leave
the
burning
bunkers.
Everyone
looked for a bunker
where conditions could
be
slightly
better,
although this was likely
to be a temporary
improvement. In the
Emerging a Bunker #1*
Emerging a Bunker #2*
second week of the
uprising, the bunkers
were the main arena of resistance. In this fight, the Germans had to struggle for each bunker.
They used tear gas or poison gas, forcing the Jews out. In many instances Jews kept firing as
they emerged, and a number of women fighters threw grenades, hidden in their clothes, after
they had surrendered. The Germans made the Jewish women remove their clothes, in order to
lessen the chances of being killed or wounded.
On 8 May 1943, the command bunker of the ZOB, which contained about 100 people, was
attacked by the Germans. The five exits were blocked, the main entrance was broken open
and canisters of poisonous gas were thrown inside. Arie Wilner and Lolek Rotblat called on
the fighters to take their own lives rather than surrender to the Germans. Some of the fighters
did indeed commit suicide, while others were killed by the gas, some managed to escape.
Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the revolt, fell at 18 Mila Street, along with many other
brave fighters.
On 16 May 1943,
Stroop announced that
the Großaktion had
been completed. To
mark the end of this
action, he ordered the
destruction of the Great
Warsaw Synagogue on
Tlomackie Street, at 8
p.m..
In his final report on
See and read more!
Stroop
the military campaign
that he led against the ghetto revolt, Stroop provided the following data: Of the total of 56,065
Jews who were seized, 22,000 were deportated to Majdanek, 14,000 - 16,000 to Poniatowa,
5,000 - 6,000 to Trawniki, and 7,000 to Treblinka. 5,000-6,000 lost their lives in explosions
and fires. Stroop exaggerated the figures of Jews exterminated, as well as reducing the
casualty figures experienced by his forces, 16 killed and 85 wounded.
Stroop proposed establishing a concentration camp in Warsaw. Its prisoners could be used to
clear away the ruins and buildings on the territory of the former ghetto. Between 16 May and
19 July 1943 Stroop's idea was realized and KZ Warschau established.
In 1951, Stroop was tried in Warsaw. He was sentenced to death for war crimes, and hanged.
Stroopʼs report was used at the Nürnberg War Crimes Trial in Germany.
Photos:
USHMM*
GFH*
Sources:
Encyclopaedia of the Holocaust
Yisrael Gutman. The Jews of Warsaw 1939-43. Harvester Press, 1982
The Stroop Report
© ARC (http://www.deathcamps.org) 2005
ARC Main Page
Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation
Last Update 3 April 2006
In the months proceeding the mass
deportations increasing unease was felt,
under the impact of growing reports and
rumours about the deportations from other
ghettos and places of Jewish habitation in occupied Poland.
Unrest and panic were created and grave
doubts were raised among the ghetto
population by the night raids undertaken
by the German police and security forces.
These raids were carried out according to
prepared lists. The persons on the lists
were seized in their homes, taken out and
shot at a nearby location. The most
murderous raid took place on 18 April
1942, when 52 persons were killed that
night. This night became known as the
"Night of Blood" or the "Bartholomewʼs
Night".
After Expulsion
Immediately
after
completion of Treblinka
the Große Umsiedlungsaktion ("Great Resettlement Action") started on 22
July 1942.
Responsible leaders of the "Great Action" were SS- und Polizeiführer
Warschau Ferdinand v. Sammern-Frankenegg, Kommandeur der
Sicherheitspolizei und des Sicherheitsdienstes in Warschau, Dr Ludwig
Hahn and SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle who acted as representative
of Odilo Globocnik (SS- und Polizeiführer Lublin).
Executive bodies: The Warsaw Order Police, a small unit of the Warsaw
v. Sammern
Security Police, a special unit of Volksdeutsche and the Jewish Order
Service. Later SS-men from the forced labour camp in Trawniki played the main part in the
ghetto liquidation.
The Jewish Order Service (Police) played an important role during the early stages of the
"Great Action". The Jewish Police commander Josef Szerynski had been arrested by the
Germans on 1 May 1942, on charges of smuggling furs from the ghetto to the Aryan side of
the city. Jakob Lejkin, his deputy, took over the command and exactly carried out the German
orders, saying that it is better not to leave it to the cruel Germans.
The 2,000 - 2,500 Jewish policemen and their families were promised immunity by the
Germans for their co-operation. As the "action" progressed they began to understand that they
were not more than a tool of the Germans and their future like ordinary Jews was clouded in
doubt. Therefore they began to desert in droves. The German's response: each policeman was
personally ordered to bring in five heads per day for deportation. Those who did not fulfill this
order were threatened with having their relatives transported to make up the difference.
The SS directed the deportations from two centres in the ghetto. The Aktion Reinhard
command, which consisted of a dozen SS officers, sergeants and soldiers set up its
headquarters at 103 Zelazna Street (Ul. Zelazna), after having evicted the Jews from the
building.
Ber Warman, a Jewish policeman, who guarded 103 Zelazna Street, wrote at the end of
August / early September 1942 that SS men started to live there. Before end of August 1942
the Befehlsstelle (order HQ) was on 17 Ogrodowa Street, at the Jewish police headquarters.
At the door to one of the rooms was a plaque that read Gastzimmer des SSSonderkommandos Treblinka ("Guestroom of the SS Special Command Treblinka").
The HQ on Ogrodowa Street was mainly manned with SS and Gestapo-men who has been
stationed in Warsaw for some time. The most prominent members of this group were
Hohmann, Witosek, Jesuiter and Stabenow. Tempo and character of the "resettlement"
actions were dominated by Karl-Georg Brandt and Gerhard Mende.
At 10 a.m. on 22 July 1942 Höfle,
Michalsen, Worthoff and other officers of
Aktion Reinhard visited the Judenrat.
Höfle dictated to the Judenrat the German
conditions for the "resettlement to the
east".
In this way the Judenrat was forced to
help "cleaning" the ghetto. The main
orders were:
All Jews will be resettled to the east,
regardless of age and sex.
With the exception of:
Jews working for German institutions or
companies
Jews working for the Judenrat
Jewish hospitals' staff
Announcement #1
Members of the Jewish Order Service
Wifes and children of above-mentioned persons
Patients of a Jewish hospital on the day of resettlement.
Each person which will be resettled is allowed taking along 15 kg luggage and all valuables:
Gold, jewellery, money etc.
Provisions for three days is necessary.
The resettlement will start on 22 July 1942, 11 o'clock (11 a.m.).
The Judenrat is responsible for delivery of 6,000 persons daily until 4 p.m.. Assembly point is
the Jewish hospital at Stawki Street.
On 22 July 1942, the Jewish hospital at Stawki Street has to be emptied so that the building
can be used for the people being resettled.
The Judenrat has to announce the German orders.
Punishments:
Each Jew who is leaving the ghetto during the resettlement action will be shot.
Each Jew who is acting against the resettlement will be shot.
Each Jew who doesn't belong to the above-mentioned persons and who will be discovered in
Warsaw after the resettlement action will be shot.
The first contingents put together by the Judenrat consisted of refugee assembly institutions,
prisons and old people's homes.
If these orders will not be carried out, a corresponding number of hostages will be shot.
When SS-Hauptsturmführer Worthoff ordered to provide
10,000 Jews for the 24 July 1942, including children of a
children's transport, the Judenrat leader Adam Czerniakow
committed suicide.
His successor became Marek Lichtenbaum.
The Jewish order service took over the control. It was
responsible for hanging up posters on 29 July, announcing
that each person who will volunteer for resettlement will get
3 kg bread and 1 kg marmalade.
Because of starvation many Jews followed that
announcement. The Germans provided 180,000 kg bread
and 36,000 kg marmalade.
Announcement #2
On 23 July 1942, the Jewish underground organisations met. Its leaders refused organizing
resistance. Only the organisation of the young Zionists, Hashomer Hatzair, organized a
propaganda action in the ghetto, informing on handbills that the deportees will be sent to a
death camp and not to work. The Jews in the ghetto supposed that it was just a German
provocation.
The assembly point (Umschlagplatz) was formerly used by the Transferstelle as a corridor for
transports to and from the ghetto. In the adjoining yard, which was surrounded by a high fence,
was the abandoned Jewish hospital, into which the victims were crowded until the freight trains
arrived. The Germans organized a Dulag (Durchgangslager - transit camp) on Leszno Street.
From there after a selection on the Umschlagplatz Jews being able to work were sent to
different work camps, including the KZ Majdanek.
In July 1942, 64,606 Jews were deported to Treblinka. This number doesn't include the people
who were shot on the streets and in the houses in course of "cleaning" the buildings. Until 29
July 1942, the round ups were organized only by the Jewish police in the ghetto. Afterwards
the "actions" were carried out by members of Aktion Reinhard.
In August 1942, the deportations continued with the same relentless efficiency. During the first
week in August the Janusz Korczak orphanage was closed. 200 children marched through
the ghetto to the Umschlagplatz, accompanied by the old doctor and his long-time assistant
Stefania Wilczynska. This incident became a legend.
Between 19 and 21 August 1942, the Warsaw Ghetto
saw a break in the Aktion: During these days the Jews
from the towns near Warsaw were deported to
Treblinka: Otwock, Falenica, Miedzeszyn and Minsk
Mazowiecki. In fact the number of deportees to
Treblinka in August could be estimated at around
135,000 people.
On 23 August 1942, Jankiel Wiernik was deported to
Treblinka. He was one of a few Treblinka survivors,
who participated in the Treblinka revolt. Read his
story about his deportation!
From 28 August until 3 September 1942, there was
another break in the deportations.This fact could be
connected with the backlog at Treblinka, where Eberl
(the commandant) had allowed more transports to
arrive than the camp could manage. The inadequate
gassing facilities at Treblinka led to a complete
breakdown of the camp's operation. Irmfried Eberl was
relieved of his command and Christian Wirth was
ordered by Odilo Globocnik to dispose of the mass of
corpses. All transports were suspended whilst order
Janusz Korczak
was restored.
In August 1942, the underground organisation of "Bund" in the Warsaw Ghetto sent their
activist Zalman Friedrich to discover what had happend to the transports from the ghetto. In
Sokolów Podlaski near Treblinka he was informed by Polish railway workers that every day a
freight trains (with people on board) passed the town to Treblinka. After several hours these
trains returned empty. There were no food supplies to the camp...
On Sokolów Podlaski market Friedrich met two naked Jews who had escaped from
Treblinka. They described what had happend to the deportees. The information about
Treblinka and the fate of the transports from Warsaw Ghetto were confirmed by Dawid
Nowodworski who could escape from Treblinka. He returned to the Warsaw Ghetto in late
August 1942.
On 14 August 1942, from the Warsaw Ghetto Dulag 1,260 Jews were sent to Lublin. About
1,000 of them were sent to the concentration camp Majdanek, others to the work camp on
Lipowa Street 7 in Lublin.
The last phase of the "Great Action" opened on 6 September 1942. Its main feature was a
comprehensive selection that went on until 10 September 1942.
The Jews having a permission for work (35,000 permissions have been handed out by the
Germans) were concentrated in a "cauldron" in the David quarters ("Cauldron" means "Kesl"
in Yiddish, "Kociol" in Polish). During this selection 35,885 Jews were deported, according to
the Judenrat lists (published in 1988, Warsaw State Archive). 2,648 were shot on the spot
and 60 committed suicide.
After this selection approximately 60,000 Jews remained in the ghetto.
On 15 September 1942, 2,100 Jews from Warsaw (among them 150 Jewish policeman) were
sent to Lublin. 600 of them were sent to the work camp on 7 Lipowa Street, 60 to the
Flugplatz Camp, and others to KZ Majdanek. Their names are partially avaible at the archive
of the State Museum Majdanek in Lublin.
On 24 September 1942, SS-Untersturmführer Karl Brandt proclaimed the end of the
resettlement action in the Warsaw Ghetto.
According to German sources 253,742 Jews were deported. According to Jewish sources
270,120 were sent to Treblinka, 10,300 died in the ghetto, 11,580 were sent to Dulag (among
them more than 3,500 were deported to Lublin) and 8,000 escaped from the ghetto.
Exact figures about the Warsaw Ghetto drama are partially available but they differ. Jews were
deported to the ghetto, escaped from it, were sent to forced labour camps, died by starvation
and epidemics, perished somewhere in hidden places or lost their lifes in the struggle against
the Germans. Last but not least too many notes got lost and witnesses died before they could
tell about their observations.
Photos: GFH
Sources:
T. Berenstein: Zydzi warszawscy w hitlerowskich obozach pracy przymusowej. Biuletyn ZIH,
No.67 (1968)
B. Engelking, J. Leociak: Getto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejacym miescie. Warszawa
2001
Tak bylo... Sprawozdania z warszawskiego getta 1939-1943. (Wybór). Oprac. J. Adamska, J.
Kazmierska, R. Sakowska. Warszawa 1988
Archive of the State Museum Majdanek
Encylopedia of the Holocaust
Yisrael Gutman: The Jews of Warsaw,1939-1943: Ghetto, Underground, Revolt. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1982.
The Diary of Adam Czneriakow
Stanislaw Adler: In the Warsaw Ghetto
© ARC (http://www.deathcamps.org) 2005
ARC Main Page
Warsaw Ghetto
Warsaw Ghetto Liquidation
Daily statistics about the deportations from Warsaw
Ghetto
to the Death Camp Treblinka
Last Update 5 April 2006
July 1942
Date
22.07.1942
23.07.1942
24.07.1942
25.07.1942
26.07.1942
27.07.1942
28.07.1942
29.07.1942
30.07.1942
31.07.1942
Resettled
6250
7200
7400
7350
6400
6320
5020
5480
6430
6756
Transit camp
-
Total
6250
7200
7400
7350
6400
6320
5020
5480
6430
6756
August 1942
Date
01.08.1942
02.08.1942
03.08.1942
04.08.1942
05.08.1942
06.08.1942
07.08.1942
08.08.1942
09.08.1942
10.08.1942
11.08.1942
12.08.1942
13.08.1942
14.08.1942
15.08.1942
16.08.1942
17.08.1942
18.08.1942
19.08.1942
Resettled
6220
6276
6458
6.568
6623
10.085
10.672
7304
6292
2158
7725
4688
4313
5168
3633
4095
4160
3926
Transit camp
45
49
99
140
160
1369
154
351
1920
1531
452
331
174
408
220
-
Total
6265
6325
6557
6708
6783
11.454
10.826
7655
8212
3689
8177
4688
4313
5499
3807
4503
4160
4146
-
20.08.1942
21.08.1942
22.08.1942
23.08.1942
24.08.1942
25.08.1942
26.08.1942
27.08.1942
20,000 (19.-24.)
3002
3000
2454
134820
7403
20,000
3002
3000
2464
142223
Transit camp
-
Total
4609
1699
3634
6840
13.596
6616
5199
5,000
6906
174
291
2196
56.173
September 1942
Date
03.09.1942
04.09.1942
06.09.1942
07.09.1942
08.09.1942
09.09.1942
10.09.1942
11.09.1942
12.09.1942
13.09.1942
18.09.1942
21.09.1942
01.-30.1942
Resettled
4609
1669
3634
6840
13.596
6616
5199
5000
4806
2196
54,165
© ARC 2006
2100
174
291
2565