Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

1943: As the Germans began a second deportation of Jews to the Treblinka death camp, Jewish resistance groups began an armed insurgency in the Warsaw Ghetto. Fighters from the Jewish Military League and the Jewish Combat Organization led the fight. They managed to halt the deportation, and engaged in an intense insurgency for several months until overwhelming Nazi opposition finally defeated the uprising in May.

The fighters were poorly armed, and were mainly equipped with pistols, ineffective beyond short range, and just a few rifles. Some external support was provided by the Polish Home Guard, and the Polish Communist People's Guard, who tried to smuggle in weapons, supplies and ammunition. Limited ammunition meant the insurgents had to rely on the use of improvised explosive devices and incendiary bombs.

Though the Jewish groups took heavy casualties and lost most of their leaders, they continued to fight. Several hundred fighters, perhaps as many as a thousand, had to persevere against an eventual German commitment of over 2000 well-armed troops. In the end, the Germans resorted to the use of flamethrowers to burn down houses as they moved systematically from block to block. By May 16, the insurgency was suppressed. Many of the survivors were executed and the rest were sent to the death camps.

The woman pictured above on the right is Malka Zdrojewicz. She was sent to the Majdanek concentration camp, but managed to survive. In 1967 she recounted her experience:

We went to a neutral place in the ghetto area and climbed down into the underground sewers. Through them, we girls used to carry arms into the ghetto; we hid them in our boots. During the ghetto uprising, we hurled Molotov cocktails at the Germans.

After the suppression of the uprising, we went into hiding, taking refuge in an underground shelter where a large quantity of arms was piled up. But the Germans detected us and forced us out. I happened to be there with Rachela and Bluma Wyszogrodzka (and that is how they took our picture) …

Rachela and I, together with the others, were driven to the Umschlagplatz. They later took us to Majdanek from there.