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On this date in 1943, a special transport of 1,196 children and 53 adults arrived at Auschwitz and were gassed shortly thereafter. Thus ended one of the lesser-known tragedies of the Holocaust. The children were very nearly the last survivors of the Bialystok Ghetto, which had been liquidated in August 1943. Almost all of the inhabitants of the ghetto wound up being sent to the Treblinka Extermination Camp and killed, but over a thousand children were mysteriously separated from their parents and taken away for some as-yet-unknown purpose. (The transport list can be found here.) At the time, there were...

WARSAW, Poland - A Polish archbishop has condemned attacks on a gay pride rally by protesters claiming to be defending his cathedral. Some, however, said his remarks were too little, too late, and that his earlier remarks incited violence against the LGBT community. “Acts of violence and scorn are incompatible with the attitude of a Christian and disciple of Christ,” Archbishop Tadeusz Wojda of Bialystok said July 22. “At the same time, I encourage prayer and care for the family and its internal purity, so our families, strong in God, can offer an example of beautiful love in the pattern...

Bialystok Jewish ghetto uprising anniversary 16.08.2006 Events marking the 63rd anniversary of the uprising in the Bialystok Jewish ghetto in eastern Poland are being held in the city today. It was the second biggest Jewish armed rising against Nazi Germans during World War II, after the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising. Over 40,000 people lived in the ghetto, which the Nazis began to liquidate in 1943. Some 800 people were killed on the spot and the rest started to be transported to death camps. The uprising lasted for almost a week. Some 300 to 400 insurgents had only 25 guns and...