The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the German authorities within the new General Government territory of occupied Poland. At its height, as many as 460,000 Jews were imprisoned there, in an area of 3.4 km2 (1.3 sq mi), with an average of 9.2 persons per room, barely subsisting on meager food rations. From the Warsaw Ghetto, Jews were deported to Nazi concentration camps and mass-killing centers. In the summer of 1942, at least 254,000 ghetto residents were sent to the Treblinka extermination camp during Großaktion Warschau under the guise of "resettlement in the East" over the course of the summer. The ghetto was demolished by the Germans in May 1943 after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the prisoners of the ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas, combined with 92,000 victims of starvation and related diseases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the casualties of the final destruction of the ghetto.
During World War II, some individuals and groups helped Jews and others escape the Holocaust conducted by Nazi Germany.
Righteous Among the Nations is an honourific used by the State of Israel to describe all of the non-Jews who, for purely altruistic reasons, risked their lives in order to save Jews from being exterminated by Nazi Germany during the Holocaust. The term originates from the concept of ger toshav, a legal term used to refer to non-Jewish observers of the Seven Laws of Noah.
During World War II in Poland, education often took place underground. Secretly conducted education prepared scholars and workers for the postwar reconstruction of Poland and countered German and Soviet threats to eradicate Polish culture.
The Holocaust in Poland was the ghettoization, robbery, deportation, and murder of Jews in occupied Poland, organized by Nazi Germany. Three million Polish Jews were murdered, primarily at the Chelmno, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, and Auschwitz II–Birkenau extermination camps, representing half of all Jews murdered during the Europe-wide Holocaust.
Jan Żabiński and his wife Antonina Żabińska (1908–1971) were a Polish couple from Warsaw, recognized by Yad Vashem as Righteous Among the Nations for their heroic rescue of Jews during the Holocaust in Poland. Jan Żabiński was a zoologist and zootechnician by profession, a scientist, and organizer and director of the renowned Warsaw Zoo before and during World War II. He became director of the Zoo before the outbreak of war but during the occupation of Poland also held a prestigious function of the Superintendent of the city's public parks in 1939–1945. A street in Warsaw is named after him.
The Grossaktion Warsaw was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July. During the Grossaktion, Jews were terrorized in daily round-ups, marched through the ghetto, and assembled at the Umschlagplatz station square for what was called in the Nazi euphemistic jargon "resettlement to the East". From there, they were sent aboard overcrowded Holocaust trains to the extermination camp in Treblinka.
Polish Jews were the primary victims of the Nazi Germany-organized Holocaust in Poland. Throughout the German occupation of Poland, Jews were rescued from the Holocaust by Polish people, at risk to their lives and the lives of their families. According to Yad Vashem, Israel's official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, Poles were, by nationality, the most numerous persons identified as rescuing Jews during the Holocaust. By January 2022, 7,232 people in Poland have been recognized by the State of Israel as Righteous among the Nations.
The Częstochowa Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany for the purpose of persecution and exploitation of local Jews in the city of Częstochowa during the German occupation of Poland. The approximate number of people confined to the ghetto was around 40,000 at the beginning and in late 1942 at its peak, immediately before mass deportations, 48,000. Most ghetto inmates were delivered by the Holocaust trains to Treblinka extermination camp, where they were murdered. In June 1943, the remaining ghetto inhabitants launched the Częstochowa Ghetto uprising, which was extinguished by the SS after a few days of fighting.
The Będzin Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany for the Polish Jews in the town of Będzin in occupied south-western Poland. The formation of the 'Jewish Quarter' was pronounced by the German authorities in July 1940. Over 20,000 local Jews from Będzin, along with additional 10,000 Jews expelled from neighbouring communities, were forced to subsist there until the end of the ghetto history during the Holocaust. Most of the able-bodied poor were forced to work in German military factories before being transported aboard Holocaust trains to the nearby concentration camp at Auschwitz where they were exterminated. The last major deportation of the ghetto inmates by the German SS – men, women and children – between 1 and 3 August 1943 was marked by the ghetto uprising by members of the Jewish Combat Organization.
Louis-Christophe Zaleski-Zamenhof was a Polish-born French civil and marine engineer, specializing in the design of structural steel and concrete construction. He was a grandson of the Polish Jewish L. L. Zamenhof, the inventor of the international auxiliary language Esperanto. From the 1960s until his death, Zaleski-Zamenhof lived in France.
Godlewski, Godlevsky, Hodlevskyi, or Hadleŭski is a surname with variants in multiple languages. Its Belarusian and Ukrainian forms are generally transcribed beginning with an 'h' but may also appear with a 'g'.
Samuel Willenberg, nom de guerreIgo, was a Polish Holocaust survivor, artist, and writer. He was a Sonderkommando at the Treblinka extermination camp and participated in the unit's planned revolt in August 1943. While 300 escaped, about 79 were known to survive the war. Willenberg reached Warsaw where, before war's end, he took part in the Warsaw Uprising. At his death, Willenberg was the last survivor of the August 1943 Treblinka prisoners' revolt.
Grzybowski Square is a triangular square in the Śródmieście (downtown) district of Warsaw, Poland, between Twarda, Bagno, Grzybowska and Królewska streets.
The Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary is a Roman Catholic church located at 80 Solidarności Avenue in Warsaw.
During the Holocaust, the Catholic Church played a role in the rescue of hundreds of thousands of Jews from being murdered by the Nazis. Members of the Church, through lobbying of Axis officials, provision of false documents, and the hiding of people in monasteries, convents, schools, among families and the institutions of the Vatican itself, saved hundreds of thousands of Jews. The Israeli diplomat and historian Pinchas Lapide estimated the figure at between 700,000 and 860,000, although the figure is contested.
Sigmund A. Rolat or Zygmunt Rolat is a philanthropist, art collector and businessman. He is a founding donor of Polin, The Museum of the History of Polish Jews and a key supporter of numerous charitable endeavors.
Józef Władysław Walaszczyk was a Polish leatherworker and businessman who was declared Righteous Among the Nations in 2002 for sheltering Jews during the Holocaust. He has been described as a "second Schindler" or "Polish Schindler".
Marceli Godlewski was a Polish priest who saved Jews during the Holocaust by hiding them, assisting in escapes, and issuing fake baptismal certificates. From 1915 until 1945, Fr. Monsignor Godlewski was a priest in Warsaw's All Saints parish, which became part of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940. In this position, he was actively involved in helping Jews during the German occupation of Poland, for which he was posthumously awarded the medal of the Righteous Among the Nations in 2009. He was also a prelate, social activist, National Democrat politician and member of the Polish National Committee (1914–1917).
