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.
The Blue Police, was the police during the Second World War in the General Government, semicolonial entity on a territory of German-occupied Poland. Its official German name was Polnische Polizei im Generalgouvernement.
Szmalcownik ; in English, also sometimes spelled shmaltsovnik) is a pejorative Polish slang expression that originated during the Holocaust in Poland in World War II and refers to a person who blackmailed Jews who were in hiding, or who blackmailed Poles who aided Jews, during the German occupation. By stripping Jews of their financial resources, blackmailers added substantially to the danger that Jews and their rescuers faced and increased their chances of being caught and killed.
Gunnar Svante Paulsson is a Swedish-born Canadian historian, university lecturer, and author who has taught in Britain, Canada, Germany, and Italy. He specializes in history of The Holocaust and has been described as "an expert on that period". He is best known for his 2002 book, Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940-1945.
Alexander Donat, also Aleksander Donat in Polish, was a Holocaust survivor imprisoned at the Lodz Ghetto and several Nazi concentration camps during the occupation of Poland by Nazi Germany in World War II. After the war, Donat, a chemist by training and journalist by profession, emigrated with his family to the United States, settling in New York City. As an eye witness to the Holocaust in Poland, he went on to write about his wartime experiences, collect documents, and publish the narratives of others.
Maria Ajzensztadt was a Polish singer, who was murdered in the Holocaust.
POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word Polin in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a legend about the arrival of the first Jews to Poland. Construction of the museum in designated land in Muranów, Warsaw's prewar Jewish quarter, began in 2009, following an international architectural competition won by Finnish architects Rainer Mahlamäki and Ilmari Lahdelma.
Zagłada Żydów. Studia i Materiały is a Polish academic journal published yearly by a group of historians and researchers from the Polish Center for Holocaust Research created in 2003 in Warsaw. It is an annual devoted to the topics connected with the broadly understood Holocaust research. The target audience could include academics dealing with the Holocaust, but also college and university students, as well as broader public interested in this topic. Each volume forms individual and self-contained monograph. Authors of the articles represent various generations and scholarly approaches. The common characteristic is their frequent reevaluation of primary and secondary sources as well as the popular perception of truth. Important part of the journal consists of book reviews.
The Polish Center for Holocaust Research is an academic and research center at the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw, Poland. The center's director is historian Barbara Engelking.
Luba Bielicka Blum was a Polish socialist activist of the Bund, and a nurse in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Henryka Łazowertówna ; alsoHenryka Lazowert, or incorrectly Lazawert, was a Polish lyric poet. While in general deeply personal in nature and of great emotive intensity, her poetry is not devoid of social concerns and patriotic overtones. She is considered one of the eminent Polish authors of Jewish descent.
The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes is a monument in Warsaw, Poland, commemorating the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943 during the Second World War. It is located in the area which was formerly a part of the Warsaw Ghetto, at the spot where the first armed clash of the uprising took place.
Zofiówka Sanatorium is a defunct mental health facility in the town of Otwock in Poland, built at the beginning of the 20th century. In the Second Polish Republic, the sanatorium complex was expanded with more buildings and staff. Zofiówka initially had 95 beds, but this number had increased to 275 by 1935. The Jewish history of Zofiówka came to its end in the course of the Holocaust following the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany.
Władysław Szlengel was a Polish poet, lyricist, journalist, and stage actor of Jewish decent.
Jan Zbigniew Grabowski is a Polish-Canadian professor of history at the University of Ottawa, specializing in Jewish–Polish relations in German-occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust in Poland.
Hunt for the Jews: Betrayal and Murder in German-Occupied Poland is a 2013 book about the Holocaust in Poland by Jan Grabowski. The 2013 English edition followed a 2011 Polish-language edition and was in turn followed by a 2016 Hebrew edition.
Jacek Leociak is a Polish literary scholar and historian as well as author. He is a professor of humanities and an employee of the Institute of Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences and the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw.
Night Without End: The Fate of Jews in German-Occupied Poland, co-edited by historian Jan Grabowski and sociologist Barbara Engelking, is a two-volume study published in Polish in 2018 by the Polish Center for Holocaust Research in Warsaw, Poland. The book covers, in case-study analyses, the history of Jews during the Holocaust in nine rural areas of the German-administered General Government. An English-language version was published by Indiana University Press in September 2022.
Such a Beautiful Sunny Day: Jews Seeking Refuge in the Polish Countryside, 1942–1945 is a 2016 book by Polish historian Barbara Engelking. It was first published in Polish in 2012 as Jest taki piękny, słoneczny dzień: Losy Żydów szukających ratunku na wsi polskiej 1942–1945. It focuses on the subject matter of The Holocaust in Poland.
The Warsaw Ghetto: A Guide to the Perished City is a 2009 book by Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak. It was first published in Polish in 2001 as Getto warszawskie. Przewodnik po nieistniejącym mieście. The book focuses on the Warsaw Ghetto.
