WARSAW gHETTO uPRISING

During the summer of 1942, more and more Jews were being deported from the Warsaw Ghetto, leading the Ghetto's inhabitants to decide to resist future deportations. A group, of mostly young people, led by Mordecai Anielewicz formed an organization called Z.O.B. (Polish,Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa-Jewish Fighting Organization). The group prepared themselves for conclict but were surprised by another mass deportation of 6500 Jews in January 1943.

Heinrich Himmler decided to liquidate the Ghetto on April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover. The entire Jewish population went into hiding, and after German troops and police entered the ghetto in the morning , the ghetto uprising began. Seven hundred and fifty fighters armed with a handful of pistols, 17 rifles, and Molotov cocktails, which were smuggled in during the last months, faced more than 2,000 heavily armed and well-trained Germans.

General Jürgen Stroop, ordered the ghetto burned to the ground building by building.

The Z.O.B.  resistance  held out for 27 days, until May 16. 1943. It had been the first uprising of an urban population in occupied Europe, and this act of resistance helped raise the morale of Jews everywhere and supported other uprisings in other ghettos and camps.