Warsaws pre-war Jewish population in 1939 was 393,950 Jews,

approximately one-third of the city total. From October 1939 to January 1940,
Germans enacted anti-Jewish measures, including forced labor, the wearing
of a Jewish star and a prohibition against riding on public transportation.
In April 1940, construction of the ghetto walls began. On Yom Kippur,
October 12, 1940, the Nazis announced the building of Jewish residential
quarters. Roughly 30% of the citys population was to be confined to an area
that comprised just 2.4% of city lands. Jews from Warsaw and those deported
from other places throughout Western Europe were ordered to move into the
ghetto, while 113,000 Christians were moved out of the area. The ghetto was
divided into two sections, a small ghetto at the south end and a larger one at
the north end. German and Polish police guarded its outside entrance and a
Jewish militia was formed to police the inside.
The population of the ghetto reached more than half a million people.
Unemployment was a major problem in the ghetto. Illegal workshops were
created to manufacture goods to be sold illegally on the outside and raw
goods were smuggled in. Children became couriers and smugglers.
Hospitals, public soup kitchens, orphanages, refugee centers and recreation
facilities were formed, as well as a school system. Some schools were illegal
and operated under the guise of a soup kitchen. Still, many Jews died from
mass epidemics (such as typhoid) and hunger. The streets were filled with
corpses. Jews in the ghetto still had to pay for burial, and if they couldn't
afford it, the bodies were left unburied.
Clandestine prayer groups and yeshivot were also started. Some religious
Jews believed that their suffering was preordained and would bring about
the Messiah. There were also many religious Jews involved in heroic acts.
One famous leader was Janusz Korczak, the director of the Jewish orphanage,
who chose to accompany the children he cared for when they were deported.
This first mass deportation of 300,000 Jews to Treblinka began in the summer
of 1942. The number of deportees averaged about 5,000-7,000 people daily,
and reached a high of 13,000. At first, ghetto factory workers, Jewish
police, Judenrat members, hospital workers and their families were spared,
but they were also periodically subject to deportation. Only 35,000 were
allowed to remain in the ghetto at one time.Adam Czerniakow, the head of
the Warsaw Judenrat committed suicide on July 23, 1942, to protest the
killing of Jewish children.

A second wave of deportations to Treblinka began on January 18, 1943,

during which many factory workers and hospital personnel were taken.
Unexpected Jewish armed resistance, however, forced the Nazis to retreat
from the ghetto after four days of deportations.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Following the armed resistance in January 1943, all social institutions and
the Judenrat ceased to function and even walking on the streets became
illegal. Mordechai Anielewicz, at the age of 24, became the leader of the
Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). He recruited more than 750 fighters, but
amassed only 9 rifles, 59 pistols and a couple of grenades. A developed
network of bunkers and fortifications were formed. The Jewish fighters also
received support from the Polish Underground.
On April 19, 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising began when German troops
penetrated the ghetto to begin a third round of mass deportations. The ZOB
faced a formidable force of 2,000 armed German soldiers, yet the Germans
were unable to defeat the Jews in open street combat. After several days, the
Germans switched tactics and began burning down houses. The ZOB
headquarters on 18 Mila Street fell on May 8, 1943; at this time Mordechai
Anielewicz died in battle.
On May 16, 1943, the ghetto was liquidated and the Germans blew up the
Great Synagogue on Tomlacke Street in victory. Sixty thousand Jews died in
the ghetto uprising.
Not all Jews were found by the Nazis by May 16 and intermittent fighting
lasted until June 1943. About 50 ghetto fighters were saved by the Polish
"Peoples Guard" and formed their own partisan group, named
after Anielewicz. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising empowered Jews throughout
Poland and resulted in armed resistance in other ghettos. After the ghetto
was liquidated, Jewish leaders continued to work underground on the "Aryan"
side by hiding Jews and issuing forged documents. Many Jews became active
in the Polish underground of Greater Warsaw.
Post-War Warsaw
In September 1944, Warsaws eastern suburb, Praga, was liberated and, in
January 1945, the main parts of the city on the left bank were liberated by
the Soviets. About 6,000 Jews participated in the battle for the liberation of
Warsaw. Two thousand Jewish survivors were found in underground hideouts,
when the city was liberated. When the city stadium was built, the bones of

approximately 100,000 people were found in a mass grave and reburied in

the city cemetery. By the end of 1945, 5,000 Jews settled in Warsaw. The
population doubled when Jews who survived the war in Russia returned to
Warsaw. The city became the seat of the Central Committee of Polish Jews
and a number of Jewish cultural institutions were opened in 1949.
Over the next two decades, waves of immigration were stimulated by antiSemitism and communist persecution. The first large group left for Israel in
1946-47 following the Kielce pogrom. Others left in 1957-58 and 1967-68. By
1968, most Jewish institutions ceased to function.
Present-Day Community
Currently, most of Polands Jewish population lives in Warsaw. The Union of
Religious Congregations has its main office in Warsaw. There is both a Jewish
primary school and a kindergarten. Warsaw also houses the offices of the
Main Judaic Library and Museum of Jewish Martyrology. It is the home also of
the E.R. Kaminska Jewish Theater, the only regularly functioning Yiddish
theater in the world. Most of its actors today are not Jewish. While parts of
Europe have seen an upsurge of anti-Semitism, this has not occurred in
Poland.
While Jews living in Warsaw feel their situation today is good, few are in
prominent positions. One of the major issues for the community remains
the restitution of property taken from Jews during the war.
Israeli President Reuven Rivlin joined Polish officials, Holocaust survivors, and
media representatives on October 28 2014 for the opening of Poland's new
"Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews". The building was innaugurated
last year and the museum cost in total over $100 million. The museum was
built on the grounds where the Warsaw Ghetto stood during the Holocaust.
The visit to the opening of the museum was Israeli President Rivlin's first
foreign trip since his election in Summer 2014. The core exhibit tells the
story of the 1,000 year history of Jews in Poland through 8 chronological
gallery sections.
In 1942, Hitler decided to liquidate the ghettos and, within 18 months, had
the more than two million Jews whod survived the ghettos deported to death
camps.
The Germans ordered the Jewish police in the Warsaw ghetto to round up
people for deportation. Approximately 300,000 men, women, and children
were packed in cattle cars and transported to the Treblinkadeath camp where

they were murdered. This left a Jewish population of between 55,000 and
60,000 in the ghetto.
An organization called the Z.O.B. (for the Polish name, Zydowska Organizacja
Bojowa, which means Jewish Fighting Organization). The Z.O.B., led by 23year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, issued a proclamation calling for the Jewish
people to resist going to the railroad cars.
In January 1943, Warsaw ghetto fighters fired upon German troops as they
tried to round up another group of ghetto inhabitants for deportation.
Fighters used a small supply of weapons that had been smuggled into the
ghetto. After a few days, the troops retreated. This small victory inspired the
ghetto fighters to prepare for future resistance.
The impact on the ghetto residents is described in the Encyclopedia of the
Holocaust:
The Jews in the ghetto believed that what had happened in January was proof
that by offering resistance it was possible to force the Germans to desist
from their plans. Many thought that the Germans would persist in
unrestrained mass deportations only so long as the Jews were passive, but
that in the face of resistance and armed confrontation they would think twice
before embarking upon yet another Aktion. The Germans would also have to
take into account the possibility that the outbreak of fighting in the ghetto
might lead to the rebellion spreading to the Polish population and might
create a state of insecurity in all of occupied Poland. These considerations
led the civilian population of the ghetto, in the final phase of its existence, to
approve of resistance and give its support to the preparations for the
uprising. The population also used the interval to prepare and equip a
network of subterranean refuges and hiding places, where they could hold
out for an extended period even if they were cut off from one another. In the
end, every Jew in the ghetto had his own spot in one of the shelters set up in
the central part of the ghetto. The civilian population and the fighters now
shared a common interest based on the hope that, under the existing
circumstances, fighting the Germans might be a way to rescue.
After the January battle, the Jews spent the following weeks training,
acquiring weapons, and making plans to defend of the ghetto. The Germans
also prepared for the possibility of a fight. On the eve of the final
deportation, Heinrich Himmler replaced the chief of the SS and police in
the Warsaw district, Obergruppenfuhrer Ferdinand von Sammern-

Frankenegg, with SS und Polizeifuhrer (SS and Police Leader) Jurgen Stroop,
an officer who had experience fighting partisans.
The ghetto fighters were warned of the timing of the final deportation and
the entire Jewish population went into hiding. On the morning of April 19,
1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police
entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and
fifty fighters armed with a handful of pistols, 17 rifles, and Molotov cocktails
faced more than 2,000 heavily armed and well-trained German troops
supported by tanks and flamethrowers..
After the Germans were forced to withdraw from the ghetto, they returned
with more and more firepower. After several days without quelling the
uprising, the German commander, General Jrgen Stroop, ordered the ghetto
burned to the ground building by building. Still, the Jews held out against the
overwhelming force for 27 days. On May 8, the headquarters bunker of the
ZOB at 18 Mila Street was captured. Mordecai Anielewicz and a large number
of his colleagues were killed in the fighting, but several dozen fighters
escaped through the sewers.