In 1939 the Warsaw Ghetto was established. It was established in a sixteen by sixteen area of the city. The Ghetto was divided into two sections, the Small Ghetto at the southern end and the Large Ghetto on the North. The Germans stormed the city in a three weeks siege. The Poles put up a good fight for those three weeks, but the Germans had more people, fire power, and means to take over Warsaw.

In the Warsaw Ghetto the conditions were nearly unbearable. Buildings and apartments were run down by rats and bugs. Hunger is what many people suffered from. Many Germans picked on the Jews for the fun of it. They would take there things, and they would cut there hair, and even beat them. The Ghettos purpose was to contain the Jews before they were sent to death or concentration camps and to keep them away from regular society.

Adam Czerniako chairman of the Warsaw Jewish Council, was ordered to deliver 6,000 Jews per day, seven days a week, to the Umschlagplatz for deportation to Treblinka by Eastern border of Poland. A day later the number was increased to 7,000 per day. Rather then helping the Germans, he committed suicide on July 22, 1942 the very day the Jews were assembled and ready for deportation.

During 1942 300,000 Ghetto residents died, some in the Ghetto died of disease, or starvation. Most of the Jews were sent to death camps or concentration camps.  

By April of 1943, there were only 60,000 Jews left in the Ghetto, spared from the death camps. On April 14 1943 the Jews attacked nearly unarmed with little ammo and sparse training. The Jews attacked because they received reports about massive killing at the extermination or death camps and news about of a plan to deport the last of the Jewish people living in the Ghetto in the near furture. There were about 60,000 people including some 750 armed fighters who had but a few guns witch they built themselves. They had refused to obey the powerful SS as demanded. Gestapo and Wehrmacht sent troops into the Ghetto to put a stop to the uprising of these desperate people with unrelenting force. The head of the SS, Heinrich Himmler, ordered the whole entire Warsaw Ghetto to be blew up. On May 16th, 1943 the revolt was put down, the district was almost completely destroyed. 7,000 people got shot by the SS, about 50,000 remaining Jews were deported to the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination of death camps.

` The life of the Ghetto people

Mordecai Anielewicz, 1919-1943

"The last wish of my life has been fulfilled. Jewish self-defense has become a fact. Jewish resistance and revenge have become actualities. I am happy to have been one of the first Jewish fighters in the Ghetto."

The Zionist ha-Shomer ha-Tsa'ir movement was lead by the Warsaw native Mordecai Anielewicz. He was a full time underground activist by January 1940. When word began to spread a little after June of 1941 about the mass killing being carried out by the Nazis, Anielewicz concentrated on the creation of a self-defense organization in the Ghetto. 1942, after the mass deportation. Anielewicz took over and reorganized the ZOB (Jewish Fighting Organization), and in November 1942 he was appointed the commander.

During the first days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Anielewicz, twenty-three years old, was in command, When the streets fighting ended, he and his staff and a large force of fighters retreated to a bunker at 18 Mila Street. The bunker fell on May 8, 1943, and Mordecai Anielewicz was killed.

 Andrew Foxhoven,

7th grade Rossville Jr. High,

Spring 2001

Bibliography