The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Holocaust Studies ^ | unknown | Rabbi Eliahu Ellis & Rabbi Shmuel Silinsky

[Sparta]

In the most famous of the revolts against their tormentors, the ill-equiped, starved Jews of the ghetto fought back against the German war machine.

The Warsaw Ghetto originally contained almost 450,000 people. By January of 1943,it was down to roughly 37,000 people. The rest had already been taken away to slave labor or death camps. Word got out that the Germans were going to finish off the ghetto, clean it out. Those half-starved, disease-weakened ghetto inhabitants decided to fight.

They had actually been preparing for this, and had convinced the Germans to let them build 631 air-raid shelters. Bombing was going on all around them, and the Germans needed their slave laborers so, to keep them safe from Allied bombings, the Germans had allowed them to do this. Now the people used those very shelters to fight against the Germans.

When the Germans came in to clean out the ghetto, much to their surprise, they were met with resistance.

There were over a thousand fighters, including children. They used pistols and Molotov cocktails against the Nazi weaponry, and they successfully repulsed the Germans.

It was a short-lived victory. The Germans returned a short while later. This time they brought major fire power. They started to destroy buildings, bit by bit by bit, knocking everything down. After about a day, they broke into the hospital, shot everyone in their beds, and torched the place. Gradually, they destroyed the entire ghetto.

When the Nazis reached the air-raid shelters, they drilled down, and gassed the people inside. Some fighters escaped to the sewers, and the Germans raised the water levels.

In about three weeks, the main fighting was over.

Most of the remaining Jews were rounded up, but it actually took months and months of combing through the ruins and demolishing the destroyed buildings before the uprising was finally put down.

Although the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was not really very successful, it was the first time in all of German-occupied Europe that there was any organized uprising against the Nazis. Word got out, and it set a climate. And afterwards, there was Jewish resistance in many other places, inclusing some of the camps.

While the Warsaw Ghetto was fighting for its life, the world had called another conference. They met in Bermuda and, again, absolutely nothing was done to help.

[FreedomPoster]

I'm at about the 1/3-way point in The Haj. If it is any indication, there is a lot more of Leon Uris in my future. Great stuff!

[dware]

You should also check out "Unintended Consequences" by John Ross...has an interesting Warsaw Ghetto Uprising connection (although the book is fiction, it contains a TON of great firearms history).

[dutchess]

All four grandparents came here in their teens, I have many cousins still in Poland and had the wonderful opportunity to go there about 8 years ago...was at the Jewish ghetto monument, several many other gravesites of polish resistence, and ofcourse, the most humbling, Auschwitz. There are definately lessons to be learned by all of this.

While I have watched and heard my family struggle from wanting freedom from communism, to giving up "being taken care of" to suddenly within the past decade start to realize the fruits of freedom....I am amazed that there are so many in our country who want government control.

Would appreciate being added to your ping list. Thanks

[waterstraat]

What if all the jews in the 1930's, owned personal firearms, and fought to defend themselves, instead of meekly walking into a gas chamber?

The liberal democrat gun control Jews in Isreal learned this lesson well, the jews in New York have no idea what the holocast was about, or why it happened.

[JZoback]

It should be required reading in every High School

That would change the world

[Hank Kerchief]

Can't own a gun in Massachussetts

You can own anything you like anywhere you like if you know enough to keep your mouth shut about what you own.

In Mass, especially, there is always someone you can pay the "squeeze" and that will get you a permit for anything.

When your dealing with gangsters, use their methods.

Hank

[JZoback]

I can say reading that book was a watershed event in my life.

It changed my entire outlook at life.

It started me on the road to understanding the concept that liberty costs something.

I read it when I was about 15. Stayed up all night to finish it

[Revolting cat!]

I'd like to recommend a memoir by Wladyslaw Szpilman titled The Pianist, which was the basis for the Roman Polanski film of the same title (opening soon, but read the book instead.) Szpilman was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, and while the book is not about the Uprising itself or about the subsequent Warsaw Uprising which was a much bigger affair and has been totally disregarded if not suppressed in the freeiest country of all for purely political reasons, it covers both events and covers them with the kind of honesty that's no longer possible today, probably because it was written immediately the war (and suppressed not much longer after that.)

Otherwise, read the fiction by some American literary hack or read the historical fiction by politically correct (and corrected) American historians.

[sharktrager]

Of course the Warsaw jews lasted longer than the French.

The only way the French would get killed was if they fought. By not fighting all they had to do was help the Germans kill other people.

[Aliska]

I think I read it in about 1963 or so. I tried to read as many of his books as I could find. All that come to mind now are Mila 18, Trinity and Exodus (which are probably all I read).

I wish I could remember more details about it. All I remember is the little kids going out through the sewer to find food and the heroine, Deborah.

[PAR35]

Also by Uris - QB VII. It is a sequel of sorts to Exodus.

[Aliska]

Oh yes! Read that, too, much later. A trial book. Usually didn't like trial books but it was riveting. But can't remember one thing about it now! I hate that!

[foreverfree]

Bump from a Ukrainian (father's side). Wasn't Lvov in Poland before Adolf and Uncle Joe partioned it, and then reverted to Ukraine?

foreverfree

[lone star annie]

Another good book about the Warsaw Uprising was called, The Wall by John Hersey. I also read Mila 18 and it is a wonderful read.

[ezo4]

one man with a pistol and a rifle is a dangerous thing. Serveral would be really scary

[bonfire]

The Haj is a great book....view from the other side. Been years since I read it and keep meaning to pick it up again. Enjoy!

[csvset]

Is that a Sten?

[archy]

I named my oldest daughter after a character in the book.

And as one of the characters in the book did, I named the first German MP40 *Schmeisser* machinepistol to come my way after his girlfriend.

She was certainly a sweet little number, of Austrian parentage.

[Toirdhealbheach Beucail]

And heavens knows, we can't have the little blighters thinking for themselves...creates problems.

Mila 18 is a great read. It's been years since I read it - time to pick it up again...