Ghetto uprising

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Ghetto uprisings
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Top: members of the United Partisan Organization (FPO) in the Vilna Ghetto, one of the first armed resistance organizations established in the Nazi ghettos during World War II.
Bottom: captured Jews during Warsaw Ghetto Uprising led by the Germans for deportation to death camps. Picture taken at Nowolipie street, near the intersection with Smocza
Location German-occupied Europe
Date 1941–43, World War II
Incident type Armed revolt

The ghetto uprisings during World War II were a series of armed revolts against the regime of Nazi Germany between 1941 and 1943 in the newly established Jewish ghettos across Nazi-occupied Europe. Following the German and Soviet invasion of Poland in September 1939, Polish Jews were targeted from the outset. Within months inside occupied Poland, the Germans created hundreds of ghettos in which they forced the Jews to live. The new ghettos were part of the German official policy of removing Jews from public life with the aim of economic exploitation. [1] The combination of excess numbers of inmates, unsanitary conditions and lack of food resulted in a high death rate among them. [2] In most cities the Jewish underground resistance movements developed almost instantly, although ghettoization had severely limited their access to resources. [3]

World War II 1939–1945 global war

World War II, also known as the Second World War, was a global war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. The vast majority of the world's countries—including all the great powers—eventually formed two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis. A state of total war emerged, directly involving more than 100 million people from over 30 countries. The major participants threw their entire economic, industrial, and scientific capabilities behind the war effort, blurring the distinction between civilian and military resources. World War II was the deadliest conflict in human history, marked by 50 to 85 million fatalities, most of whom were civilians in the Soviet Union and China. It included massacres, the genocide of the Holocaust, strategic bombing, premeditated death from starvation and disease, and the only use of nuclear weapons in war.

Nazi Germany The German state from 1933 to 1945, under the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler

Nazi Germany is the common English name for Germany between 1933 and 1945, when Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party (NSDAP) controlled the country through a dictatorship. Under Hitler's rule, Germany was transformed into a totalitarian state that controlled nearly all aspects of life via the Gleichschaltung legal process. The official name of the state was Deutsches Reich until 1943 and Großdeutsches Reich from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany is also known as the Third Reich, meaning "Third Realm" or "Third Empire", the first two being the Holy Roman Empire (800–1806) and the German Empire (1871–1918). The Nazi regime ended after the Allies defeated Germany in May 1945, ending World War II in Europe.

Invasion of Poland invasion of Poland by Germany, the Soviet Union, and a small Slovak contingent

The Invasion of Poland, known in Poland as the September Campaign or the 1939 Defensive War, and in Germany as the Poland Campaign (Polenfeldzug), was an invasion of Poland by Germany that marked the beginning of World War II. The German invasion began on 1 September 1939, one week after the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact between Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September following the Molotov–Tōgō agreement that terminated the Soviet and Japanese Battles of Khalkhin Gol in the east on 16 September. The campaign ended on 6 October with Germany and the Soviet Union dividing and annexing the whole of Poland under the terms of the German–Soviet Frontier Treaty.

Contents

The ghetto fighters took up arms during the most deadly phase of the Holocaust known as Operation Reinhard (launched in 1942), against the Nazi plans to deport all prisoners – men, women and children – to camps, with the aim of their mass extermination. [3]

The Holocaust Genocide of the European Jews by Nazi Germany and other groups

The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was a genocide during World War II in which Nazi Germany, aided by local collaborators, systematically murdered some six million European Jews—around two-thirds of the Jewish population of Europe—between 1941 and 1945. Jews were targeted for extermination as part of a larger event during the Holocaust era, in which Germany and its collaborators persecuted and murdered other groups, including Slavs, the Roma, the "incurably sick", political and religious dissenters such as communists and Jehovah's Witnesses, and gay men. Taking into account all the victims of Nazi persecution, the death toll rises to over 17 million.

Operation Reinhard Code name for the creation of German extermination camps in Poland in World War II

Operation Reinhard or Operation Reinhardt was the codename of the secretive World War II German plan to exterminate Poland's Jews in the General Government district of German-occupied Poland. This deadliest phase of the Holocaust was marked by the introduction of extermination camps.

Extermination camp Nazi death camps established during World War II to primarily kill Jews

Nazi Germany built extermination camps during the Holocaust in World War II, to systematically kill millions of Jews, Slavs, Poles, Roma, Soviet POWs, political opponents and others whom the Nazis considered "Untermenschen" ("subhumans"). The victims of death camps were primarily killed by gassing, either in permanent installations constructed for this specific purpose, or by means of gas vans. Some Nazi camps, such as Auschwitz and Majdanek, served a dual purpose before the end of the war in 1945: extermination by poison gas, but also through extreme work under starvation conditions.

History

Armed resistance was offered in over 100 locations on either side of Polish-Soviet border of 1939, overwhelmingly in eastern Poland. [4] [5] Some of these uprisings were more massive and organized, while others were small and spontaneous. The best known and the biggest of all Jewish uprisings during the Holocaust took place in the Warsaw Ghetto between 19 April and 16 May 1943, [6] and in Białystok in August. In the course of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 56,065 Jews were either killed on the spot or captured and transported aboard Holocaust trains to extermination camps before the Ghetto was razed to the ground. [7] [8] At the Białystok Ghetto, following deportations in which 10,000 Jews were led to the Holocaust trains and another 2,000 were murdered locally, the ghetto underground staged an uprising resulting in a blockade of the ghetto which lasted for a full month. [9] There were other such struggles leading to the wholesale burning of the ghettos such as in Kołomyja (now Kolomyia, Ukraine), [10] and mass shootings of women and children as in Mizocz. [11] [12]

Soviet invasion of Poland

The Soviet invasion of Poland was a military operation by the Soviet Union without a formal declaration of war. On 17 September 1939, the Soviet Union invaded Poland from the east, sixteen days after Germany invaded Poland from the west. Subsequent military operations lasted for the following 20 days and ended on 6 October 1939 with the two-way division and annexation of the entire territory of the Second Polish Republic by Germany and the Soviet Union. The Soviet invasion of Poland was secretly approved by Germany following the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on 23 August 1939.

Warsaw Ghetto Ghetto in Nazi occupied Poland

The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all the Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Europe during World War II. It was established by the German authorities in November 1940; within the new General Government territory of German-occupied Poland. There were over 400,000 Jews imprisoned there, at 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 Uprisings which had temporarily halted the deportations. The total death toll among the Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto is estimated to be at least 300,000 killed by bullet or gas, combined with 92,000 victims of rampant hunger and hunger-related diseases, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the casualties of the final destruction of the Ghetto.

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Jewish insurgency against Nazi Germany in German-occupied Poland during World War II

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Majdanek and Treblinka concentration camps. After the Grossaktion Warsaw of summer 1942, in which more than a quarter of a million Jews were deported from the ghetto to Treblinka and murdered, the remaining Jews began to build bunkers and smuggle weapons and explosives into the ghetto. The left-wing Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) and right-wing Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) formed and began to train. However, only the ŻZW received logistical support from the similarly right-leaning Polish Home Army. A small resistance effort to another roundup in January 1943 was partially successful and spurred the Polish groups to support the Jews in earnest.

Selected ghetto uprisings during the Holocaust

The uprisings erupted in 5 major cities, 45 provincial towns, 5 major concentration and extermination camps, as well as in at least 18 forced labor camps. [13] Notable ghetto uprisings included: [14]

Mizocz Ghetto

The Mizocz Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up in occupied Poland by Nazi Germany for the forcible separation and mistreatment of Polish Jews. Before the Nazi-Soviet invasion of 1939 the town of Mizocz was located in the Zdołbunów county of the Wołyń Voivodeship in the Second Polish Republic. Mizocz is situated some 18 miles (29 km) east of Dubno, which was the County seat.

Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto

The Mińsk Mazowiecki Ghetto or the Mińsk Ghetto was a World War II ghetto set up by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland. Some 7,000 Polish Jews were imprisoned there from all neighbouring settlements for the purpose of persecution and exploitation. Two years later, beginning 21 August 1942 during the most deadly phase of the Holocaust in occupied Poland, they were rounded up – men, women and children – and deported to Treblinka extermination camp aboard Holocaust trains. In the process of Ghetto liquidation, some 1,300 Jews were summarily executed by the SS in the streets of Mińsk Mazowiecki.

To some extent the final liquidation of other Ghettos was also met with armed struggle:

Kraków Ghetto ghetto

The Kraków Ghetto was one of five major, metropolitan Jewish Ghettos created by Nazi Germany in the new General Government territory during the German occupation of Poland in World War II. It was established for the purpose of exploitation, terror, and persecution of local Polish Jews, as well as the staging area for separating the "able workers" from those who would later be deemed unworthy of life. The Ghetto was liquidated between June 1942 and March 1943, with most of its inhabitants sent to their deaths at Bełżec extermination camp as well as Płaszów slave-labor camp, and Auschwitz concentration camp, 60 kilometres (37 mi) rail distance.

Łódź Ghetto Second-largest ghetto in German-occupied Europe during World War II

The Litzmannstadt Ghetto was a World War II ghetto established by the Nazi German authorities for Polish Jews and Roma following the 1939 invasion of Poland. It was the second-largest ghetto in all of German-occupied Europe after the Warsaw Ghetto. Situated in the city of Łódź, and originally intended as a preliminary step upon a more extensive plan of creating the Judenfrei province of Warthegau, the ghetto was transformed into a major industrial centre, manufacturing much needed war supplies for Nazi Germany and especially for the German Army. The number of people incarcerated in it was augmented further by the Jews deported from the Reich territories.

Lwów Ghetto

The Lwów Ghetto was a World War II Jewish ghetto established and operated by Nazi Germany in the city of Lwów in the territory of Nazi-administered General Government in German-occupied Poland.

See also

Notes

  1. ↑ Wolf Gruner (2006), Jewish Forced Labor Under the Nazis: Economic Needs and Racial Aims, 1938-1944, Cambridge University Press, pp. 249–250, ISBN   0521838754, By the end of 1940, the forced-labor program in the General Government had registered over 700,000 Jewish men and women who were working for the German economy in ghetto businesses and as labor for projects outside the ghetto; there would be more.
  2. ↑ Marek Edelman. "The Ghetto Fights". The Warsaw Ghetto: The 45th Anniversary of the Uprising. Literature of the Holocaust, at the University of Pennsylvania. Retrieved 2 October 2013.
  3. 1 2 "Resistance in Ghettos". Jewish Uprisings in Ghettos and Camps, 1941–1944. Holocaust Encyclopedia. June 10, 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
  4. ↑ Shmuel Krakowski (2010), Armed Resistance, YIVO
  5. ↑ "Jewish Resistance". United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2011. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2014– via Internet Archive.
  6. ↑ "April–May 1943, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". Timeline of Events. United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
  7. ↑ "World War II: Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". Originally published by World War II magazine. 12 June 2006. Retrieved 4 September 2014. See also: Stroop Report for supplementary data.
  8. ↑ Marcin Wilczek (19 April 2011). "A Somber Anniversary". ZSSEDU. Retrieved 4 September 2014.
  9. ↑ Sara Bender (2008). The Jews of Bialystok During World War II and the Holocaust. The End of the Ghetto. UPNE. pp. 253–263. ISBN   1584657294 – via Google Books preview.
  10. ↑ "Warsaw Ghetto Uprising". Holocaust Encyclopedia. Holocaust Memorial Museum, Washington DC. 2012. Archived from the original on October 28, 2012. Retrieved 9 January 2014.
  11. ↑ Eve Nussbaum Soumerai, Carol D. Schulz, Daily Life During the Holocaust], p. 124. ISBN   0313353093.
  12. ↑ Photographs of the Mizocz shootings in the USHMM collection (No. 17876, 17877, 17878, 17879). Retrieved 26 October 2015.
  13. ↑ United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, Resistance during the Holocaust (PDF), The Miles Lerman Center for the Study of Jewish Resistance, p. 6 of 56 in current document.
  14. ↑ "Map of the Jewish uprisings in World War II" (PDF file, direct download 169 KB). Yad Vashem. 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2014.

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References

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