Destruction of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto
The destruction of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto occurred during World War II as part of the Nazi regime's systematic extermination of the Jewish population in Europe. Established in late 1940, the Ghetto confined around 400,000 Jews to a small area of Warsaw, where they endured severe overcrowding and deprivation. By April 1943, the Nazis, having already carried out mass deportations, sought to eliminate the remaining inhabitants. This led to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, where Jewish fighters mounted a desperate but ultimately doomed resistance against the well-armed German forces. Despite their bravery, the Ghetto was systematically destroyed through military action, including setting fires to buildings and using gas to flush out hidden Jews. By mid-May 1943, the Ghetto was effectively eradicated, with tens of thousands killed. The Nazis concluded this operation by demolishing the Warsaw Synagogue, symbolizing the complete obliteration of Jewish life in the Ghetto. This tragic event remains a poignant reminder of the atrocities committed during the Holocaust.
Destruction of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto
Destruction of the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto
“The Warsaw Ghetto Is No More.” This was the title of a report sent to Adolph Hitler concerning the eradication of the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, after the Ghetto fighting effectively ended on May 15, 1943. The report surfaced during the Nuremburg Trials after World War II, wherein the Americans and other victorious allies tried high-level Nazis for war crimes. The report was prepared by SS Brigadefuehrer Stroop, who was also the major general of Police and the leader of the action against the Ghetto.
After the Nazis conquered Poland in 1939, they forced hundreds of thousands of Polish Jews to settle in a tiny portion of Warsaw that was then walled up in order to prevent escape. The Jews lived in cramped quarters and suffered terrible deprivation while awaiting “resettlement,” the Nazi euphemism for being shipped to concentration camps and near-certain death. By the spring of 1943, less than 60,000 Jews were left in the Ghetto, and the Nazis decided to use their military and police forces to simply eradicate them and the Ghetto by sheer force. The Jews fought back, using the few weapons that they had managed to obtain, but were overwhelmed. Most of them were killed.
Relevant excerpts from the Nazi report are set forth below.
For the Fuehrer and their country the following fell in the battle for the destruction of Jews and bandits in the former Ghetto of Warsaw: [various names followed]
The creation of special areas to be inhabited by Jews, and the restriction of the Jews with regard to residence and trading is nothing new in the history of the East. Such measures were first taken far back in the Middle Ages; they could be observed as recently as during the last few centuries. These restrictions were imposed with the intention of protecting the aryan population against the Jews. Identical considerations led us as early as February, 1940 to conceive the project of creating a Jewish residential district in Warsaw.
In October 1940, the Governor ordered the Commissioner of the District, President for the City of Warsaw, to complete the resettlement necessary for establishing the Ghetto within the City of Warsaw by 15 November 1940. The Ghetto thus established in Warsaw was inhabited by about 400,000 Jews. It contained 27,000 apartments with an average of 2 1/2 rooms each. It was separated from the rest of the city by partition and other walls and by walling-up of thoroughfares, windows, doors, open spaces, etc.
The first large resettlement action took place in the period from 22 July to 3 October 1942. In this action 310,322 Jews were removed. In January 1943 a second resettlement action was carried out by which altogether 6,500 Jews were affected.
When the Reichsfuehrer SS visited Warsaw in January 1943 he ordered the SS and Police Leader for the District of Warsaw to transfer to Lublin the armament factories and other enterprises of military importance which were installed within the Ghetto [in order to use slave labor] including their personnel and machines. The execution of this transfer order proved to be very difficult, since the managers as well as the Jews resisted in every possible way. The SS and Police Leader thereupon decided to enforce the transfer of the enterprises in a large-scale action which he intended to carry out in three days. The necessary preparations had been taken by my predecessor, who also had given the order to start the large-scale action. I myself arrived in Warsaw on 17 April 1943 and took over the command of the action on 19 April 1943, 0800 hours, the action itself having started the same day at 0600 hours.
When we invaded the Ghetto for the first time, the Jews and the Polish bandits succeeded in repelling the participating units, including tanks and armored cars, by a well-prepared concentration of fire. When I ordered a second attack, about 0800 hours, I distributed the units, separated from each other by indicated lines, and charged them with combing out the whole of the Ghetto, each unit for a certain part. Although firing commenced again, we now succeeded in combing out the blocks according to plan. The enemy was forced to retire from the roofs and elevated bases to the basements, dug-outs, and sewers. In order to prevent their escaping into the sewers, the sewerage system was dammed up below the Ghetto and filled with water, but the Jews frustrated this plan to a great extent by blowing up the turning off valves. Late the first day we encountered rather heavy resistance, but it was quickly broken by a special raiding party. In the course of further operations we succeeded in expelling the Jews from their prepared resistance bases, sniper holes, and the like, and in occupying during the 20 and 21 April the greater part of the so-called remainder of the Ghetto to such a degree that the resistance continued within these blocks could no longer be called considerable.
The number of Jews forcibly taken out of the buildings and arrested was relatively small during the first few days. It transpired that the Jews had taken to hiding in the sewers and in specially erected dug-outs. Whereas we had assumed during the first days that there were only scattered dug-outs, we learned in the course of the large -scale action that the whole Ghetto was systematically equipped with cellars, dug-outs, and passages. In every case these passages and dug-outs were connected with the sewer system. Thus, the Jews were able to maintain undisturbed subterranean traffic. They also used this sewer network for escaping subterraneously into the Aryan part of the city of Warsaw. Continuously, we received reports of attempts of Jews to escape through the sewer holes. While pretending to build airraid shelters they had been erecting dug-outs within the former Ghetto ever since the autumn of 1942. These were intended to conceal every Jew during the new evacuation action, which they had expected for quite a time, and to enable them to resist the invaders in a concerted action.
During this armed resistance the women belonging to the battle groups were equipped the same as the men; some were members of the Chaluzim movement. Not infrequently, these women fired pistols with both hands. It happened time and again that these [women] had pistols or hand grenades (Polish “pineapple” hand grenades) concealed in their bloomers up to the last moment to use against the men of the Waffen SS, Police, or Wehrmacht.
The resistance put up by the Jews and bandits could be broken only by relentlessly using all our force and energy by day and night. On 23 April 1918 the Reichs Fuehrer SS issued through the higher SS and Police Fuehrer East at Cracow his order to complete the combing out of the Warsaw Ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy the entire Jewish residential area by setting every block on fire, including the blocks of residential buildings near the armament works. One concern after the other was systematically evacuated and subsequently destroyed by fire. The Jews then emerged from their hiding places and dug-outs in almost every case. Not infrequently, the Jews stayed in the burning buildings until, because of the heat and the fear of being burned alive they preferred to jump down from the upper stories after having thrown mattresses and other upholstered articles into the street from the burning buildings. With their bones broken, they still tried to crawl across the street into blocks of buildings which had not yet been set on fire or were only partly in flames. Often Jews changed their hiding places during the night, by moving into the ruins of burnt-out buildings, taking refuge there until they were found by our patrols.
Their stay in the sewers also ceased to be pleasant after the first week. Frequently from the street, we could hear loud voices coming through the sewer shafts. Then the men of the Waffen SS, the Police or the Wehrmacht Engineers courageously climbed down the shafts to bring out the Jews and not infrequently they then stumbled over Jews already dead, or were shot at. It was always necessary to use smoke candles to drive out the Jews. Thus one day we opened 183 sewer entrance holes and at a fixed time lowered smoke candles into them, with the result that the bandits fled from what they believed to be gas to the center of the former Ghetto, where they could then be pulled out of the sewer holes there. A great number of Jews, who could not be counted, were exterminated by blowing up sewers and dug-outs.
Only through the continuous and untiring work of all involved did we succeed in catching a total of 56,065 Jews whose extermination can be proved. To this should be added the number of Jews who lost their lives in explosions or fires but whose numbers could not be ascertained.
During the large-scale operation the Aryan population was informed by posters that it was strictly forbidden to enter the former Jewish Ghetto and that anybody caught within the former Ghetto without valid pass would be shot. At the same time these posters informed the Aryan population again that the death penalty would be imposed on anybody who intentionally gave refuge to a Jew, especially lodged, supported, or concealed a Jew outside the Jewish residential area.
After the conclusion of the Ghetto operations, the Nazis blew up the Warsaw Synagogue on May 16, 1943.