The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was an uprising by the Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps in 1943. It was the largest single revolt by Jews against the Nazis during World War II.
Background
thumb|left|Corner of Żelazna 70 and Chłodna 23 (looking east). This section of Żelazna street connected the "large ghetto" and "small ghetto" areas of German-occupied Warsaw.
thumb|left|Map of Jewish holdouts in the Warsaw Ghetto during the uprising with dates of liquidation
In 1939, German authorities began to concentrate Poland's population of over three million Jews into a number of extremely crowded ghettos located in large Polish cities. The largest of these, the Warsaw Ghetto, collected approximately 300,000–400,000 people into a densely packed, 3.3 km<sup>2</sup> area of Warsaw. Thousands of Jews were killed by rampant disease and starvation under SS and Police Leader Odilo Globocnik and SS-Standartenführer Ludwig Hahn, even before the mass deportations from the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp began.
The SS conducted many of the deportations during the operation code-named Grossaktion Warschau, between 23 July and 21 September 1942. Just before the operation began, the German "Resettlement Commissioner" SS-Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle called a meeting of the Ghetto Jewish Council Judenrat and informed its leader, Adam Czerniaków, that he would require 7,000 Jews a day for "resettlement to the East". The first armed resistance in the ghetto occurred in January 1943.
Uprising
January revolt
On 18 January 1943, the Germans began their second deportation of the Jews, which led to the first instance of armed insurgency within the ghetto. While Jewish families hid in their so-called "bunkers", fighters of the ŻOB and ŻZW, resisted, engaging the Germans in direct clashes. The fighters managed to kill about a dozen Germans and wound several dozen.
Hundreds of people in the Warsaw Ghetto were ready to fight, sparsely armed with handguns, gasoline bottles, and a few other weapons that had been smuggled into the ghetto by resistance fighters.
Main revolt
thumb|Resistance members captured at Nowolipie 64 near intersection with Smocza. Hasia Szylgold-Szpiro is on the right.
thumb|Captured Jews are led by German troops to the assembly point for deportation. Picture taken at Nowolipie Street, near the intersection with Smocza.
thumb|SS men on Nowolipie Street
thumb|Burning buildings photographed from the intersection of Zamenhof and Wołyńska
thumb|A captured resistance fighter being searched
thumb|German sentries with an [[MG 08 machine gun guarding an entrance to the ghetto during the uprising]]
thumb|A housing block burning
thumb|A resistance fighter being forced out of a bunker
thumb|Burning ghetto viewed from [[Żoliborz district]]
thumb|A German artillery crew firing at Zamenhof Street
thumb|Jews emerging from a bunker and surrendering
thumb|The site of Miła 18, former resistance base, in 1964
thumb|[[Great Synagogue of Warsaw, destroyed in 1943]]
On 19 April 1943, on the eve of Passover, the SS, order police, and Trawniki auxiliary forces began the operation to deport the residents of the ghetto. Under von Sammern-Frankenegg's orders, the deportation action was to be completed within three days. After the ghetto was surrounded at about 2:00 a.m. the ŻOB put it into a high state of preparedness. Fighters were ordered to remain at their positions, civilians were told to hide in the underground shelters, and flags were raised. The walls were also covered with statements such as "honorable death!" and "to arms! Women and children to the air raid shelters!"
The operation commenced at 3:00 a.m. German forces entered the ghetto in two columns. A car with a loudspeaker was sent in with the attackers, summoning the Jews to voluntarily leave their hiding places and report for transport. As the columns moved into the ghetto, they were ambushed by Jewish insurgents firing and tossing Molotov cocktails and hand grenades from alleyways, sewers, and windows. One column was ambushed at the intersection of Nalewki and Gęsia Streets while the other was ambushed at the intersection of Zamenhof and Miła Streets. The German forces sustained casualties and two of their combat vehicles (an armed conversion of a French-made Lorraine 37L light armored vehicle and an armored car) were set on fire by the insurgents' petrol bombs. The Germans retreated after hours of combat. While the uprising was underway, the Bermuda Conference was held by the Allies from 19 to 29 April 1943 to discuss the Jewish refugee problem. Discussions included the question of Jewish refugees who had been liberated by Allied forces and those who still remained in German-occupied Europe.
Hours after the initial attack had been repulsed, the German forces, now under Stroop's command, reentered the ghetto. Rather than focusing on roundups, Stroop's plan was to assault the main insurgent positions so as to push them into a smaller area and destroy them. The main objective was to take control of the area between Zamenhof and Nalewki Streets. The first attack was launched against Zamenhof Street. The German forces encountered resistance and took casualties, but the insurgents were ultimately forced to retreat. At noon, they attacked Nalewki Street, and the insurgents retreated after fighting for six hours. The Germans also bombarded the hospital on Gęsia Street, after which they entered the damaged building and massacred the patients. They then launched an assault on Muranowski Square but were pinned down by fierce resistance and did not manage to take it. The square was defended by ŻZW fighters, who had a machine gun. At 8:00 p.m. Stroop ordered a pause in the assault. German forces retreated from the ghetto while sentries outside of it were reinforced.
The following day, the Germans returned to the ghetto and issued an ultimatum to the Jewish fighters, threatening that unless they surrendered the ghetto would be razed. The ghetto resistance groups ignored the ultimatum and the Germans resumed their attacks. The Germans launched a fresh assault on Muranowski Square. The ŻZW fighters there had been joined by five Polish Home Army fighters on 19 April who smuggled in weapons and ammunition and remained until the following day, losing two killed and two wounded in the fighting. The Germans were particularly determined to take down two flags the insurgents had raised from a building in the square, one Jewish and one Polish. The flags could be seen from most of Warsaw and inspired commentary in Polish underground publications as well as the Polish press in London. Stroop later remarked that "those flags had tremendous political and psychological importance. They unified Poland in a way nothing else could. Hundreds of thousands of people were inspired by the sight of them or the knowledge that they were there. A flag is as much a weapon as a hundred guns." He claimed that Himmler had instructed him to take those flags down whatever the cost. Although in his report Stroop claimed to have conquered the square and taken down the flags on 20 April, eyewitness accounts suggest that combat continued there until 22 April when the ŻZW fighters were forced to retreat. In addition, during the battle for the square Stroop's friend, SS-Untersturmführer Otto Dehmke, was killed in the fighting at Muranowski Square when gunfire detonated a hand grenade he was holding, and his death was listed as having occurred on 22 April. Stroop is thought to have had a few hundred Jewish prisoners summarily executed in retaliation for Dehmke's death.
On 20 April, heavy combat also took place on Miła Street and the area around the workshops but main battle centered around the brush factory. The assault there, which was personally led by Stroop, began at about 3:00 p.m. The insurgents repulsed the first attack, during which they detonated a hidden bomb as the Germans approached. After regrouping they launched another attack which again failed. The Germans then sent in the factory's director to negotiate with the insurgents, who rejected the offer. The fighting continued with the insurgents at the factory continuing to hold out. However, the Germans began setting fires which forced the resistance to retreat on the night of 21/22 April after evacuating civilians.
While the battle continued inside the ghetto, Polish resistance groups AK and GL engaged the Germans between 19 and 23 April at six different locations outside the ghetto walls, firing at German sentries and positions. In one attack, three units of the AK under the command of Captain Józef Pszenny ("Chwacki") joined up in a failed attempt to breach the ghetto walls with explosives.
Stroop subsequently informed Himmler and Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, the Higher SS and Police Leader of the General Government, that the ghetto had been destroyed.
The official figure presented in the Stroop report was 56,065 Jews killed or captured. Of them, 7,000 were killed in the ghetto and 6,929 were transported to the Treblinka extermination camp, meaning that at least 13,929 were killed. An additional 5,000-6,000 were estimated to have been killed by explosions and fires.
Jürgen Stroop's internal SS daily report for Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, written on 16 May 1943, stated: