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81 years ago this week, in the Polish capital Warsaw, desperate Jewish fighters fought a long and bloody battle against Himmler's SS, the Germans determined to crush the Jewish Ghetto revolt with the utmost brutality. This is an omnibus edition of the story of the uprising, nicknamed 'Ghettograd' by the Germans as the fighting resembled that at Stalingrad.

Jewish advocacy groups have protested after an American reporter erroneously referred to an uprising against a “Polish and Nazi regime” during World War II.A monument honouring the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising fighters in the Polish capital. Photo: Szczebrzeszynski [Public domain], from Wikimedia CommonsWhile reporting from the Polish capital on Wednesday, Andrea Mitchell, a foreign affairs correspondent for the MSNBC television network, suggested that a World War II-era uprising by Jews in the Warsaw ghetto was staged against “the Polish and Nazi regime.”The American Jewish Committee's Warsaw-based Central Europe office has responded in a tweet that “it is beyond the pale...

Former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg reportedly argued Friday that guns need to be kept out of the hands of minorities in order to keep them alive. While speaking at the Aspen Institute, Mr. Bloomberg, 72, said 95 percent of murders fall into a specific category: a male minority between the ages of 15 and 25, The Aspen Times reported. Cities need to get guns out of this group’s hands and keep them alive, the former three-term mayor said, according to The Times. “These kids think they’re going to get killed anyway because all their friends are getting killed,” Mr....

Friday, July 05, 2013 The Polish Woman Who Saved 3000 Jews Posted by Daniel Greenfield @ the Sultan Knish blog The recent 70th commemoration of the Warsaw ghetto uprising focused renewed attention on the destruction of Polish Jewry during WWII and the people who lived through those days. As always, the question remains -- could more Poles have defied the Nazis and helped the Jews? This, and other questions, will forever remain within the realm of the unknown, but the examples of those non-Jewish Polish citizens who did take action provide history with some food for thought. One such Polish...

An artist has caused huge controversy after placing a statue of Adolf Hitler praying on his knees in the former Warsaw Ghetto, the Daily Mail reports. Some Jewish groups have expressed fury at the decision to install the provocative artwork in the area where thousands of Jews were forced to live during the rule of the Nazi regime. In total, around 300,000 Jews from the Ghetto died or were sent to their death in concentration camps. The statue by Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, entitled “HIM”, has attracted a large number of visitors since its installation last month, reported the Daily...

Tributes were paid in Poland's capital on Tuesday to those who took part in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis exactly 68 years ago. Wreaths were laid at Warsaw's Monument to the Ghetto Heroes by a number of top state officials, including the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, Bogdan Zdrojewski, the Deputy Speaker of the Senate, Zbigniew Romaszewski, and Warsaw Mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Representatives from the embassies of Israel, the US and Germany were also in attendance, while the presidential advisor on historical policy, Thomas Nałęcz, laid a wreath on behalf of President Bronisław Komorowski. The Warsaw Ghetto...

Roughly 50 men and women in the Warsaw Ghetto chose a special form of resistance. In a secret archive, they documented their path to doom for future generations, chronicling the Nazis' crimes as they were being perpetrated. David Graber was 19 when he hurriedly scribbled his farewell letter. "I would be overjoyed to experience the moment when this great treasure is unearthed and the world is confronted with the truth," he wrote. While German soldiers combed the streets outside, Graber and his friend Nahum Grzywacz buried 10 metal boxes in the basement of an elementary school on Nowolipki Street in...

In a world where there are Holocaust deniers, where European cities (in deference to Muslims living there) have decided to do away with Holocaust commemorations, in a world where schools in the UK find it expedient (in the interest of incorrect "Political Correctness") to ignore important historical facts (such as the Holocaust), I thought I should tell a simple story on Yom Hasho'a - the day that commemorates the Holocaust. There are 6,000,000 stories of those that died, I cannot tell them all! Many of these are known, some (most, like their protagonists and their families) have totally vanished from...

WARSAW (Reuters) - The last leader of the wartime Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Poland, Marek Edelman, died in Warsaw on Friday at the age of 87, friends said. Edelman was the last surviving leader of small Jewish militant groups which fought against the Nazis in 1943 when the occupiers moved to liquidate the ghetto. Jewish fighters were poorly armed and the uprising was crushed in a few weeks of fighting. "It's a very said day. He was a man of great character," said Szewach Weiss, former Isreali ambassador to Poland.

WARSAW (Reuters) - Irena Sendler, a Polish woman who saved thousands of Jewish children during World War Two by smuggling them out of the Warsaw Ghetto, died in the Polish capital on Monday after a long illness, local media said. Israel's Holocaust remembrance authority, Yad Vashem, said in a statement that it mourned her death. The web portal of Poland's leading daily, Gazeta Wyborcza, said Sendler, 98, died in Plocka Street hospital early on Monday. The hospital declined to comment on the report. Yad Vashem chairman Avner Shalev said: "Irena Sendler's courageous activities rescuing Jews during the Holocaust serve as...

Bad manners at Warsaw Ghetto Israeli youths in Poland ceremony score failing grade with disrespectful behavior Attila Somfalvi Published: 04.24.08, 10:36 / Israel Opinion It’s been a while since I felt both so proud and so embarrassed to be Israeli at the same time, as I felt during my visit to Poland. On the one hand, I was overwhelmed by powerful patriotic feelings, nationalistic even, when I stood under the blue-and-white flags proudly carried by Israeli students in the cold winds of Auschwitz and Majdanek. On the other hand, I was red with shame in the face of the behavior...

Poland's Jewish leaders envision modern skyscraper in historic Warsaw Ghetto By Vanessa Gera ASSOCIATED PRESS 7:55 a.m. November 1, 2007 WARSAW, Poland – Poland's Jewish leaders have unveiled plans for a glass skyscraper in a neighborhood that was the heart of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II. The building – projected to rise 680 feet high – would tower over the elegant Nozyk synagogue, Warsaw's only remaining synagogue, dramatically altering the look of the historic neighborhood. The skyscraper would include a new house of prayer, a kosher restaurant and vast commercial space, giving Warsaw's growing Jewish community a place...

Poland honours woman who saved Jewish childrenDeclared national heroine Harry De Quetteville, National Post Published: Thursday, March 15, 2007 POZNAN, Poland - For most Jewish children imprisoned behind the walls of the Warsaw ghetto, the only exit led to concentration camps and the gas chambers. However, thousands did find salvation in the form of Irena Sendler, who smuggled them out in workmen's bags or through the sewers, before taking them to safety and hiding them with friendly families around the city. Yesterday Ms. Sendler, now 97, was honoured as a national heroine by the Polish parliament for saving 2,500...

Pope offends Poland's Jews Correspondents in Warsaw May 27, 2006 THE Pope has upset the Jewish community in Poland by not stopping to pay tribute to the victims of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising against the Nazis. The heavily guarded Popemobile sped from Warsaw airport towards the Old Town district and the former ghetto area but barely slowed when it passed the memorial to the Jewish fighters. Chief Rabbi of Warsaw Michael Schudrich, the Israeli ambassador and a handful of Jewish dignitaries were left standing as Benedict XVI flashed past with a wave. Church officials said there had been no space...

Polish Jewish Museum A Tough Sell Here Some philanthropists dismissive of historical institution on site of Warsaw Ghetto. Steve Lipman - Staff Writer Victor Markowicz, a Siberian-born philanthropist who grew up in Poland and later moved to the United States, spends much of his time these days asking fellow Jewish philanthropists in the U.S. to contribute to a Jewish museum to be built in Warsaw in the next few years. Markowicz’s friends, in turn, ask him something: “Why in Warsaw? Why in Poland?” Many American Jews — born here or in the Old Country — support the idea of a...

Wednesday, April 19, 2006 Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, 19 April 1943 63 years ago today was the eve of Passover and the 50,000 - 60,000 (out of more than half a million who had been forced into the narrow streets of this confined space) suriving Jews living in the Warsaw Ghetto were slated to be finally and completely annihilated. When the SS troops entered the ghetto to renew the deportations to the death camps, however, they met with unexpected resistance. Fewer than 500 young fighters, girls and boys --the youngest aged 12 but most in their late teens and...

Poland marks 63rd anniversary of WWII Warsaw ghetto uprising Canadian Press Radek Sikorski and religious leaders of Poland's Jewish community, flanked by Jewish Second World War veterans, laid flowers and prayed Tuesday to mark the 63rd anniversary of the doomed Warsaw ghetto uprising. Several dozen officials and local residents also lit candles and said the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, at the monument to the heroes of the ghetto struggle during observances held on the eve of the anniversary. On April 19, 1943, hundreds of young Jewish fighters took up arms in the first major act of armed...

Jewish history museum rises from old Warsaw Ghetto By Haggain Hitron, Haaretz Correspondent It will be the most important Jewish history museum in Europe, and it will be located in the most sensitive spot: The museum for the history of Polish Jewry will be built where the Warsaw Ghetto used to stand. Three weeks ago, the project director, Jerzy Halbersztadt, sent the master plan for the museum to a group of historians. The recipients undertook, in writing, not to share it with anyone. On Thursday, they all gathered at Tel Aviv University: Halbersztadt and his aides from Warsaw, the museum's...

Jewish death squad recalls revenge on Nazis Friday, December 23, 2005 Posted at 8:25 PM EST Associated Press Jerusalem — A group of elderly Jews came forward Friday with accounts of a death squad they formed after the Second World War to take revenge on Nazis, recounting a brazen operation in which they poisoned hundreds of SS officers. In a broadcast on Israel Channel Two TV, the survivors — some of whom fought in the Warsaw Ghetto uprising — recounted hunting down former SS officers at night. Disguised as British or U.S. officers, they dragged the men out of their...

Back To The Future Posted 12/21/2005 By Steven Plaut Archeologists in Poland have just discovered an amazing document, uncovered from beneath rubble left over in what was once the Warsaw Ghetto: A Letter and Call to Sanity for the Warsaw Ghetto zealots, from the Peace Now chapter of Warsaw, April 23, 1943. Dear Deluded Brethren, A few days ago some zealots from certain messianic settler organizations operating in Warsaw launched a series of acts of unprovoked violence against the legitimate German peace partners directing peace-seeking activities here in Warsaw. A number of German soldiers and officers have been viciously murdered,...