Many people heard about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943; however, it was not the first such struggle as the Jewish combatants put up armed resistance against Germans even earlier – in January 1943.

Having conquered Poland (together with the Soviet Union), the Germans began persecuting the inhabitants. The blade of their terror was aimed at the Jews. One form of their persecution was the creation of many ghettos – closed neighborhoods in the entire territory of occupied Poland. The largest ghetto in Europe was located in Warsaw.

The German occupiers established the Warsaw ghetto in 1940 where 400,000 crowded Jews lived in dire conditions of constant hunger, plague, German terror and death. In July 1942, the Germans began the deportation of Jews from the ghetto to the death camp in Treblinka, where almost 270,000 people died.

Himmler was furious that the Jews were still alive

After the deportation, there were 60-70 thousand people left. The closed district was deserted and its area was being reduced. It became clear to the Jewish fighters that Germans were planning further displacements and, finally, a complete liquidation of the ghetto.

At the beginning of January 1943, the personal inspection of the Reichsführer-SS and the head of the German police, Heinrich Himmler, showed that 45,000 Jews still lived in the ghetto with 8 thousand staying there illegally. It made him furious as he couldn’t bear the fact that so many Jews were still alive. As a result, another deportation from the ghetto was planned.

Jewish combatants surprised the German army

On January 18, 1943, German SS and police squads were concentrated in the ghetto. Initially, the Germans wanted to deport people without documents and who were unable to work. It turned out that it was impossible because the inhabitants of the ghetto hid and did not respond to the summons, which was also a form of resistance.

The situation surprised members of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union. However, they remembered the earlier deportation when there was no armed resistance. Therefore, despite the lack of preparation, they used weapons against the Germans. The beginning of the military action was led by Mordechaj Anielewicz. The Germans were completely surprised and lost control of the situation – they shouted: “The Jews are shooting at us!”.

On January 20, however, the German army took control of the situation. They lost about a dozen soldiers. Several hundred Jewish fighters and about 1,200 civilians died and 5 thousand people were deported from the ghetto. The deportations ceased on January 21.

The Home Army on Jewish Resistance: Heroic Stance

The resistance of Jews against the Germans in the Warsaw ghetto was noticed by Poles and the Polish underground resistance. The Home Army – the largest underground organization fighting against the Germans in Europe described it in its “Information Bulletin”: “The heroic stance of those who did not lose their sense of honor in the saddest moments of Jewish history awakens respect and left a dignified mark in the history of Polish Jews.”