Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. Jewish ghetto Lodz - the city of the dead (Poland). See what the "Warsaw ghetto" is in other dictionaries

When my good friend, and part-time investigator in Moscow, walking in the park showed me where, whom and how the maniac Pichuzhkin (Bitsevsky maniac) killed, I was rather uncomfortable. But I wonder, especially since evil is eventually punished. However, what I experienced while walking around the Polish city of Lodz can only be called tin. Imagine a whole army of Bitsevsky maniacs that entered your city with one goal - to kill. Cut you all out like sheep, let rivers of blood flow through these streets. You have no one to rely on, no one will save you, and the living will envy the dead. All these houses have seen suffering and death, and they have been standing for more than 70 years in the form in which their inhabitants left them. There are many versions of why a large part of Poland's third largest city still looks so nightmarish to this day. Many locals say that these apartments have a bad aura, no one wants to live here. The fact remains - in this city in 1939-1944 there was a natural hell, which can only be dreamed of in the most nightmare.

Before the war, Lodz was the most developed and wealthy city in Poland, one of the largest industrial centers of the country, and also the third most important (after Warsaw and Krakow) as a cultural and political center. All this was put to an end in an instant, on September 1, 1939, when the German army attacked Poland and a few days later Wehrmacht soldiers marched into Lodz. Everyone had a bad time, but especially the local Jews, who were about 250 thousand people in Lodz, or about 30% of the city's population. Already on September 18, the Germans took away the entire business owned by Jews, including a large part of the city's manufactories, shops, hotels, tenement houses. From the same day, Jews were forbidden to withdraw their funds from bank accounts. Actually, from that moment it became clear that an unenviable fate awaited the Jews, and some of them left the part of Poland occupied by the Germans and fled; some to that part of Poland that chopped off the Soviet Union (as we remember, the bilateral occupation of Poland was the result of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact), some to the then still free Czechoslovakia.

Those who did not have time to escape within the first month after the arrival of the Germans signed their own death warrant, since on October 28, 1939, Jews were forbidden to appear in the city center and a curfew was introduced. Anyone who was caught on the street after seven in the evening was shot on the spot. Then it went on increasing: in February 1940, the forced eviction of Jews from their apartments and resettlement began in the northern part of the city, where a new area was actively fenced off with stone walls, where all Jews were resettled. Needless to say about the hellish conditions of life in the ghetto: no heating, no water, nothing. Everything was off. Complete lack of sanitation and hunger. Actually, the ghetto was created for this, so that people would not survive the winter. Nevertheless, the ghetto existed for four years before the Germans decided to completely liquidate it and send the surviving Jews to concentration camps. By this time, about a third of the 230 thousand people who lived there, from starvation and disease, died. But it was in the ghetto, behind high walls.

And in other parts of Lodz, among the Poles, life somehow glimmered. People went to work, bought groceries in the store (although by 1943 the Poles had begun to starve), gave birth to children, and could even leave the city. In fact, the city hasn't changed much since then.

But behind the wall, things were very different. Today in Lodz there is not even a hint of a ghetto wall. Only these things in the ground, indicating where the wall passed. You and I are going to a place where, some 70 years ago, there was only one way to get out - in the form of a corpse.

It is noteworthy that this church in the photo was inside the ghetto. Why? In many ways, this shows the attitude of the Germans towards religion in general. Even before the creation of the ghetto, the Germans turned the current church into a police station. The Gestapo was here. But soon they moved the Gestapo to another place (I will show it to you a little later), and here they placed the Jewish police. Yes, yes, the Germans created the Jewish police in the ghetto, the so-called "Judenrat", which was responsible for maintaining order in the ghetto. The Germans preferred not to go inside the perimeter without the need. The Jews themselves kept order, preventing any attempts to raise an uprising, or even simply express dissatisfaction. This is a separate and very sad page in Jewish history, and you can read about it on the Internet, enter "Judenrat" in the search.

This large house on the right had been empty for some time, which was strange, given how terribly crowded the people in the ghetto were. Just imagine: 230 thousand people in an area measuring 3 by 2 kilometers. So, as a result, several thousand (!) Jews brought here from Czechoslovakia settled in this and a couple of neighboring buildings. People huddled 7-10 people in each room -

I wanted to buy some water. I went into this Tesco supermarket and only then read that in this white building, where there was a cinema before the war, the Germans settled Jews brought in from Hamburg. How many people, by eye, can live in this building? You will be surprised, but a lot -

All these miserable houses were packed with people, sleeping everywhere, even in the toilet and in the attic. In winter, it was a matter of survival; at sub-zero temperatures, only staying in a closed room right next to each other could save you from frostbite. All these trees were planted after the war. In cold winters, dying people cut down absolutely all the trees in order to somehow warm themselves, stoking stoves -

Pay attention to this house and street -

Now take a look at the photo from 1940. Since a tram line ran through the ghetto, and Jews were not supposed to use trams, the street was closed for Jews, linking the two parts of the ghetto with several bridges. One of them was right next to this building -

And here is the building that terrified the prisoners of the ghetto. It was called "Red House", or "Kripo". The latter stands for criminal police, actually the Gestapo. All those who were caught trying to escape, illegal trade (an attempt to exchange watches with the Poles for a loaf of bread led to execution), any form of disobedience, got here. I emphasize that the bulk of the Jews killed here got into this building through the Jewish police, the Judenrat, who performed a considerable part of the dirty work for the Germans to control the ghetto -

Another building with a dark history. Until 1941, it was a market, but then the Germans closed it and turned it into a place for mass executions -

Oh, and any employee of the Russian Federal Migration Service will envy the work in this building! This is the Passport and Statistical Office of the Lodz Ghetto. Here they kept records of the living, dead, born, arrived, and left. In the latter case, as you understand, it was only possible to leave for Auschwitz. Imagine how the aunts from the passport offices would like to send us to the gas chambers so that they don’t fool their heads with their passports. And then it was easy to work: a baby was born, they didn’t inform (hoping that the baby would survive and if they didn’t find out about him) - execution! The dream of a passport officer, she would have appropriated your property. What a shame, damn it, times are not the same, officials think. The people in these offices don't change, I'm sure of that -

The Main Directorate of the Jewish Police and the chief commissioner, Leon Rosenblat, also sat here. He was a worthy man, honest, correct. Thousands of people were sent to concentration camps for slaughter, hoping that the property taken from them could be appropriated. It didn't work out. He was sent in 1944 after other Jews -

Here he is, the main Jewish ghetto policeman, on the right -

However, Rosenblatt was far from the main executioner of his own people. The ghetto was led by another person, Chaim Rumkovsky, who at first commanded the Judenrat and only then became the actual "mayor" of the ghetto. Like all leaders of the Judenrats, Rumkowski veered between trying to preserve the Jewish population of the ghetto and following orders from the Nazis. Of course, he did not forget about himself beloved. In Israel, the personality of Rumkovsky is extremely controversial, since he actively collaborated with the Nazis and handed over to them a lot of Jewish underground workers, and in addition, in fact, he took away from the inhabitants of the ghetto and appropriated their housing and property.

Rumkowski believed that the diligent work of the Jews in favor of the occupying authorities would avoid the destruction of the ghetto and in every possible way attracted people to hard labor in exchange for food. In fact, Jews worked in factories that supplied the German army with clothing, footwear, spare parts for tanks, and so on.

In September 1942, when the Nazis ordered that Jewish children be handed over to be sent to a death camp (children and the elderly were killed first, because they could not work), Rumkovsky delivered a campaign speech to the residents of the ghetto with a refrain demanding that the children be given in a good way, threatening to otherwise involve the Gestapo. He is trying to convince people that at the cost of the lives of children it will be possible to save the lives of many other prisoners of the ghetto. It is noteworthy that Rumkowski was eventually sent to Auschwitz along with other prisoners.

A pleasant park, called Piastovsky. Today it is nice to walk here, sit on a bench. It is best to sit here on those benches that are visible in the photo. Sitting on them, you could watch the executions. Right here, from where I photograph, there were gallows and every day the next unfortunate people were pulled up on them. Right here, yes, where an aunt with a girl just passed -

This is the ghetto detention center, where the Jewish police kept the detainees. Actually, rarely anyone managed to get out of this building alive. They write that some managed to pay off. But most of them went from here to the Germans, and then there was only one way - to a concentration camp. And the building is so nothing, strong, out, even people live in it and put a satellite dish to watch a lot of foreign channels -

The ghetto consisted of several hundred similar houses -

There used to be a hospital here, but I don't know what it is now.

Did you notice that the streets are paved? Since then -

This building with amazing graffiti is terrible for gypsies -

The fact is that the Germans allocated this and several other buildings of the ghetto for the gypsies. A stone wall separated the Gypsy part of the ghetto from the Jewish part. About 5,000 gypsies lived here and they were all sent to a concentration camp, where they died -

When I stopped in front of this gloomy building, an elderly uncle suddenly approached me and asked if I was a journalist. I said no, but I'm interested. And he told me that this place is cursed. According to him, in 1941 there was a shop here. Well, you yourself understand what a store in a ghetto is like, where people were dying of hunger. Bread on cards. So, there was always a line, day and night. And once the Germans came here, they chose 20 people from the crowd and shot them right here, in front of the entrance. This is because some Jew managed to escape from the ghetto. So the Germans taught people to discipline and order, so that in the future they would not decide to remain silent if someone was going to run away.

Since then, according to the uncle, numerous shops and offices have opened and closed here. But the place is cursed, nothing functioned here and in the end they decided to just wall it up -

Friends, do you know what kind of pieces of iron on the wall of the building? There are a lot of these on old houses -

Amazingly, the entrances have not changed at all since the war -

I'm not impressionable, but I was uncomfortable. You guessed it right, I climbed into the same accursed building in which people were shot. Here, meanwhile, people live. A couple of apartments are inhabited by homeless people -

And here, in general, it seems that everything has been done to preserve the memory of horrors to the smallest detail. This building housed Polish children whose parents were shot for partisanship. The Germans sent such children here, to the ghetto, and kept the children separate from the Jews, behind a fence. But if you think that children survived, then you are mistaken. Most of them were used to pump out the blood required by the wounded soldiers of the Wehrmacht arriving from the eastern front.

The irony of life and fate is that now in this terrible place where the blood was pumped out of children, there is a hotel for dogs -

Most tourists... although Lodz is far from being a tourist city, and even walking through the gloomy devastation in the former ghetto is of interest to absolute maniacs like me. Well, most tourists are brought here, to a place called "Radegast" on the outskirts of the city. It is generally accepted that this is the most terrible place in Lodz, because this is the name of the railway station, from where the surviving prisoners of the ghetto left on their last journey -

The place is scary, that's for sure. But life in the ghetto is no less terrible, where even before being sent to the crematorium, people died of hunger, disease, executions, and torture. Many went to the concentration camp being so broken that they even felt some kind of liberation in the form of imminent death -

Last call and off we go. On the last journey -

And this is a memorial at the station -

Near the station there is a huge cemetery, by the way, the largest Jewish cemetery in Europe. It contains almost 150,000 graves, most of which were destroyed by the Nazis, but quite a few have survived. I’ll tell you about the cemetery in a separate article, but for now, pay attention to this mausoleum and remember the name - Poznansky. The man's name was Israel Poznansky, and I will also tell about him separately -

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In April-May 1943, an event took place on the territory of the Warsaw ghetto, which still remains practically unknown. This is an uprising that marked the beginning of a chain reaction of uprisings raised by Jews in Poland. Moreover, the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto was the first armed uprising in German-occupied Europe. What was the purpose of this uprising? What did the rebels count on when they opposed the heavily armed SS men? Was there a chance to escape? This will be discussed in the current article.

background

It would be fair to begin the story of this uprising with a short digression into the pre-war history of Poland. In 1918, on the ruins of the Russian, German and Austro-Hungarian empires, after 123 years of non-existence, the Polish state was revived. Interwar Poland, in contrast to modern Poland, was perhaps the most religiously and ethnically diverse state in Europe. The titular nation - the Poles - accounted for about 68% of the population. The remaining 32% were Ukrainians, Jews, Belarusians, Rusyns and other nationalities.

In Poland, as in all of interwar Eastern Europe, the so-called "Jewish question" was especially acute, and this period is replete with numerous excesses associated with attempts to resolve it. Former deputy of the State Duma of the II and III convocations, and later the leader of the Polish National Democratic Party (Endecja, ND) Roman Dmovsky was one of the ideologists of Polish nationalism and anti-Semitism. His party advocated the exclusion of Jews from the political and public life of the country. Fighting groups of Roman Dmovsky's NDP took part in Jewish pogroms, boycott of Jewish shops, as well as anti-Jewish manifestations, often taking the form of a torchlight procession.

Roman Dmovsky

The situation changed in 1926, when, as a result of the May Revolution, Marshal Jozef Pilsudski came to power in Poland, a socialist who, of all national minorities, was the most loyal to the Jews. The position of “Poles of the Jewish faith” (this is the term for Jews introduced during the census) has improved markedly. A new wave of anti-Semitic speeches began after the death of Marshal Pilsudski in 1935.

In fairness, it should be noted that, unlike Nazi Germany, in Poland, crimes committed against Jews were punished to the fullest extent of the law. Jewish pogroms were suppressed by the police, and the perpetrators were brought to justice. In addition, the professors of Warsaw, Lvov, Vilna and other universities, as well as most of the intelligentsia as a whole, sharply criticized anti-Semitic speeches.

At the start of World War II (September 1, 1939), the Jewish population of Poland was 3.5 million. The most "Jewish" city in the country was Warsaw, where about 350 thousand representatives of "Poles of Jewish origin" lived. At the end of September 1939, after a two-week siege, the city was taken by the Germans. On October 5 of the same year, a military parade was held on Pilsudski Square in honor of the victory, which was personally received by the Fuhrer. The Jewish population was in mortal danger.

The beginning of the occupation: the creation of the ghetto

Already in the first months of the occupation, all Jews were required to wear a recognition sign - the Star of David. In Holocaust films, these identification marks almost always take the form of an armband with a blue star. In fact, it didn't always look like this. Such armbands were indeed used in Warsaw, but in other cities of Poland, Jews most often wore breast patches in the shape of a yellow star of David.

An interesting fact is that such armbands were worn by the Poles in the first months of the occupation. This is because at that time Jews were strictly forbidden to enter Germany. Thus, Jews could not be taken to forced labor in the territory of the Reich. That is why, in order to avoid the fate of the "Ostarbeiters", some Poles went to the trick and wore armbands with a star of David or even memorized hotel phrases in Yiddish.

Plan of the Warsaw ghetto

The new owners of occupied Poland, which now received the official name of the General Gubernia, immediately set about creating ghettos in big cities. The largest ghetto was created in Warsaw. In the first months of the occupation, all Jews who were at that time in the capital of Poland and its environs were ordered to register with the new authorities. Later, Jews from all over occupied Europe and from Germany were brought to the Warsaw ghetto. After registering and receiving new, occupying identity cards (Kennkarte), Jews, regardless of their former place of residence, were resettled in the Jewish quarter of Warsaw, located in the city center. In this way, about 100,000 Poles were resettled, who received Jewish apartments in return, and about 130,000 Jews.

Initially, Jews were allowed to roam freely in the city. There were only a few places where Jews were strictly forbidden to appear. It was the so-called "German Quarter", where German military and civilian officials of the highest rank were quartered. Entry to the Poles was also limited - only with special passes. Trams "Nur für Juden" ("Only for Jews") appeared on the streets of Warsaw. Such trams were also designated with a Star of David.

Already at the end of 1939, the Germans created the so-called Judenrat - the Jewish Council, which became the official authority of the Warsaw ghetto. Engineer Adam Chernyakov was appointed head of this council. This body under a different name existed before the war, but had completely different functions. From now on, all orders of the German authorities were issued on behalf of the Judenrat, creating the appearance of non-participation of the Germans themselves in the consistent process of extermination of the Jewish population.

Group photo of Jewish policemen

The department of this body was also the Jewish police (Jüdischer Ordnungdienst), engaged in maintaining order in the ghetto. The first commissioner of the Jewish police was Jozef Sherynsky, a semi-criminal element, a Jew by origin, who changed his faith to Catholicism in his youth and was a consistent anti-Semite until the end of his life. It is worth noting that in the "Aryan" part of Warsaw, there was its own police, which received the name "Pomegranate" (Policja Granatowa) because of the characteristic color of the uniform. Poles served in its ranks.

Restrictions for Jews

From the beginning of 1940, the Germans gradually tightened their repressive measures against the Jews. In January, a decree was issued prohibiting Jews from baking and selling bread in the ghetto. Later, this ban was extended to all food products. All Jewish bank accounts were blocked. The maximum wage for Jews was set at about 250 zlotys (a loaf of bread in the spring of 1940 cost 10 zlotys, and in the summer of 1942 - 40 zlotys).

The ghetto was cordoned off with wooden fences and barbed wire. In the same 1940, Jews were forbidden to leave the ghetto without special permission. The punishment for violating this order was imprisonment. Subsequently, Jews were forbidden to use trains.

Warsaw Ghetto in May 1941

In the autumn of 1940, in order to prevent the penetration of Jews into the "Aryan" part of Warsaw, the Germans decided to enclose the ghetto with a stone wall 3.5 meters high. The same Judenrat, headed by Adam Chernyakov, supervised the construction process.

For the construction of the wall, bricks were used, obtained during the dismantling of residential and outbuildings on the territory of the ghetto. Despite the fact that a large number of buildings in the ghetto were dismantled for this purpose, some of the building materials still had to be purchased from the Germans, moreover, with money collected by the Judenrat from the inhabitants of the ghetto themselves. The construction of the wall, under the watchful supervision of the Polish police and SS soldiers, was carried out by the Jews themselves.

Thus, on the orders (de jure) of the Jews, by the hands of the Jews and with the money of the Jews, a wall was erected, imprisoning 450,000 Jews in four square kilometers. On average, there were 10 tenants per living room in the Warsaw ghetto. Along the entire perimeter of the ghetto there was an entrance gate guarded by the Jewish police and SS men. Any attempt at an unauthorized exit from the ghetto opened fire to kill. The ghetto switched to an autonomous mode of existence. The trap closed. In terrible crowding and unsanitary conditions, people tried to survive.

Despite its tiny size, the ghetto was divided into two parts - small and large. Between them was the street of the Aryan part of Warsaw. Initially, there was to be no communication between the two parts of the ghetto. Subsequently, the Germans allowed the construction of a wooden bridge passing over the wall and connecting these two parts.

It is, then

The social structure of the inhabitants was clearly expressed from the first day of its existence. The elite of the ghetto (if such a concept is at all appropriate) were members of the Judenrat, police officials, and also some wealthy Jews from among the pre-war bourgeoisie. The situation of these population groups was relatively good. Especially for them, colonial goods, white bread, confectionery, kosher meat, fresh vegetables and fruits were brought to the ghetto from the Aryan part, entertainment establishments worked - drinking houses and even houses of patience.

A little later, another category of people joined the elite - the owners of funeral services. This type of activity was in great demand in the Warsaw ghetto, as the death rate at the turn of 1941-42 reached catastrophic proportions. The main cause of death was not starvation, but typhus, which became widespread due to unsanitary conditions. Most of the funerals were financed by the Judenrat, as most of the people locked up in the ghetto simply could not afford to pay for them. In this case, relatives carried the bodies of their dead to the street.

In the early morning, several horse-drawn carriages rode through the still deserted streets at once, collecting the naked bodies of the dead, the clothes from which were taken off either by relatives or bystanders in the hope of selling or exchanging them for food. Often, people passing by these naked bodies covered the unfortunate people with old newspapers. Many people, exhausted from fatigue and hunger, fell dead right in the street, but no one paid attention to them - it became too familiar a picture to touch anyone.

The position of hired workers attached to employers on the Aryan side was also tolerable. Despite the meager salaries, they could legally leave the ghetto. Such people had the opportunity to exchange goods of any value for essentials - food, medicine, hygiene products, etc. The Germans soon realized their omission, which many were mistaken for a kind of indulgence. To prevent the removal of valuables from the ghetto, as well as the penetration of food, the Germans regularly searched several randomly selected workers leaving or returning back to the ghetto. If "contraband" was found, the convicted were shot on the spot.

The workers employed on the territory of the ghetto itself were divided into several categories. The first (highest) category consisted of a few representatives of the "free professions": accountants, barbers, doctors who entered the service of the Germans. Fate smiled at such people for a while. They lived most often in separate apartments, having unlimited access to such goods that were scarce in the ghetto, such as bread, meat and butter.

The second category included several thousand Warsaw Jews employed in factories owned by large German entrepreneurs. The factory of Tobbens and Schulz (Toebbens und Schulz), for example, produced uniforms for the German army. Also on the territory of the ghetto was a factory for the production of brushes with adjoining barracks for workers. They were regularly given food rations, as well as a salary, albeit quite meager. Factory owners tried to avoid staff turnover as much as possible, as this had a detrimental effect on the quality of manufactured products, which made the status of workers relatively stable.

All of the above categories of people had, according to the order of the occupation authorities, the so-called "work cards" (Arbeitskarte). The presence of a permanent work card was a great success, since only its presence could ensure survival in conditions of limited access to essential goods. Unfortunately, most of the ghetto residents did not have cards. These people included hospital staff, employees of orphanages and orphanages (the most famous guardian of one of the orphanages in the Warsaw ghetto was Janusz Korczak, a doctor, publicist, former officer of the tsarist army, a participant in the Russo-Japanese War of 1905), workers of a few manufactured goods stores, street cleaners, etc. These people lived on odd jobs, and their situation was extremely difficult. Work for them served only as a cover. Their real occupation was most often the organization of illegal deliveries of scarce goods to the ghetto.

Janusz Korczak

At the very bottom of the hierarchy of the Warsaw ghetto were the so-called "wild people". This was the name of the Jews hiding from the Germans, who did not have any documents. When such people were found, at best they were handed over to the Gestapo, and at worst, they were shot on the spot.

The famous Pawiak prison (derived from the name of the street - Pawia) was also located on the territory of the ghetto. Not only Jews were brought there, but also Poles. There were ominous rumors about bloody reprisals against the prisoners of this place.

In the period from November 1940 to July 1942, about 100 thousand people died from hunger, disease, and as a result of periodic punitive operations. There was not enough space in the crowded Jewish cemetery even for mass graves. From time to time, scant information about the defeats of the Wehrmacht on the eastern front leaked into the ghetto, which allowed its inhabitants to perk up a little.

Despite the horrendous living conditions, no one seriously thought about organizing armed resistance to the Germans. In addition, the occupation authorities managed to put into practice the old principle - Divide et impere. The ghetto was a very socially divided structure, where everyone tried, first of all, to ensure the survival of themselves and their family members.

Employees of the Judenrat and the Jewish police were the most hated inhabitants of the ghetto. Their privileged position and indirect connection with the occupying authorities played a role in creating public opinion. There was no unanimity among the youth. Pre-war Jewish youth organizations often had mutually exclusive views. Even in the conditions of a world war, none of them wanted to compromise in the name of fighting a common enemy.

Grossaktion - liquidation of the ghetto

Meanwhile, in January 1942, a conference was held in Berlin, where the Germans approved the doctrine of Endloesung - the final solution of the Jewish question, according to which all Jews of occupied Europe were to be destroyed. The liquidation of Polish Jews was recognized as a top priority. Thus, the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto became a matter of time.

The first herald of impending terrible events in the Warsaw ghetto was a series of seemingly spontaneous punitive operations by the Germans. Under the cover of night, the SS entered the ghetto, took people out of their homes and shot them, leaving the bodies to lie at the place of execution. Moreover, the victims of these operations were representatives of the so-called "elite" of the ghetto - wealthy people and members of the Judenrat, until then absolutely confident in their immunity. Now it became clear that none of the ghetto prisoners could feel safe.

On July 22, 1942, SS Commissar German Golfe summoned the chairman of the Judenrat, Adam Chernyakov, to inform him of the start of the operation, codenamed Grossaktion. Golfe demanded that Chernyakov notify the population of the Warsaw ghetto about the beginning "resettlement of the able-bodied population to the east." The minimum daily quota of migrants was to be 10 thousand people, regardless of gender and age. What mattered was the ability to work for the good of Germany.

Members of the Judenrat, police officers (for some time), as well as workers of German factories located on the territory of the ghetto, were excluded from the “resettlement” order. However, Chernyakov refused to sign the proclamation. Most likely, he guessed that it was not about the resettlement, but about the extermination of the Jews. The next day, Chernyakov committed suicide, leaving a suicide note in which he wrote that he could not sign the death warrant for his own people.

Adam Chernyakov

Despite Chernyakov's suicide and his refusal to sign the proclamation prepared by the Germans, the action to liquidate the ghetto began without delay on July 22. On the first day, about 10 thousand people went to the east. The final destination of this "resettlement" was the death camp Treblinka-2, where the unfortunate were waiting for death in gas chambers followed by cremation, but this was known only to the Germans themselves. Subsequently, the daily deportation quota reached 18 thousand people - 3 full trains per day.

The selection and loading of people into the wagons was carried out at a place called the Umschlagplatz (German: Umschlagplatz - “transit point”). The selection was an empty formality, with the help of which the Germans tried to convince the Jews that they were really being taken to forced labor, and not to a death camp. Some people deliberately self-mutilated to avoid deportation.

The fulfillment of the "daily norms" of deportation was the responsibility of the Jewish police of the ghetto. Each police officer was required to bring a certain number of people to the Umschlagplatz daily. In case of non-fulfillment of the daily norm, members of the policeman's own family were subjected to deportation. That is why the order of the Germans was carried out with special zeal.

Initially, the main method was the so-called blockade: the police cordoned off a house or a whole block, broke into apartments, basements and attics, leading everyone they found there to the umschlagplatz. For 3 months of the liquidation action, the Jewish police began to hate more than the Germans themselves. At the end of August, even such coercive measures ceased to produce results - fewer and fewer people were brought to the umschlagplatz.

Umschlagplatz

Then the Germans resorted to another ruse - the issuance of three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of marmalade to all Jews who voluntarily agreed to be deported. This measure proved to be very effective. Hunger has become a real scourge for the inhabitants of the ghetto. That is why the prospect of receiving such a large amount of fresh bread and marmalade after several years of living on the verge of starvation was stronger than the fear of dying in a gas chamber. “If we were taken to death, would they give us so much bread?!” - such an opinion existed at that time.

Meanwhile, information about Treblinka began to seep into the ghetto from the Aryan part of the city. The stationmaster, a Pole, a member of the Home Army, reported that trains with people went in the direction of the camp, but returned empty. Treblinka station was a dead end. There were also no supply trains with food or medicines. In addition, intelligence of the Home Army reported that the territory of the camp was only a few hectares and it was not possible to accommodate more than 200 thousand Jews taken out of the Warsaw ghetto (and not only). The trains, loaded with clothes and shoes, returning from there, finally dispelled all doubts. It became clear that Treblinka was a death camp.

This news did not make the proper impression on the inhabitants of the ghetto. People continued to go to the Umschlagplatz in the hope of getting the coveted 3 kilograms of bread. No one wanted to believe that this was a trap. Grossaktion lasted until 21 September 1942. During this time, the Germans managed to take about 270,000 Warsaw Jews to Treblinka. The population of the ghetto was reduced to about 70 thousand inhabitants.

Memorial in Treblinka

The last train leaving for Treblinka included 2,500 Jewish policemen. Having used them for their own purposes, the Germans decided to get rid of them, leaving about 250 policemen alive, who were supposed to maintain order in the ghetto. A huge number of empty houses appeared - entire extinct neighborhoods. Subsequently, the Germans reduced the area of ​​the ghetto to its small part, in which there were factories, the commandant's office of the Jewish police, the umschlagplatz, and the building of the Judenrat. There was no joy associated with the end of the liquidation action: the inhabitants of the ghetto understood perfectly well that the Germans would definitely return and complete what they had begun.

The birth of the resistance movement in the Warsaw ghetto

Already on July 28, on the sixth day since the beginning of the liquidation, only a semblance of a resistance movement appeared in the ghetto - the Jewish Fighting Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa). It included representatives of several warring youth groups at once: the Anti-Fascist Bloc and the Bund are socialists, Hashomer Hatzair, Dror and Tsukunft are Zionists. Later, members of the Polish Workers' Party (communists), as well as right-wing Zionists from Poalei Sion, joined the Organization.

A parallel structure was created by the right-wing group "Beitar" - the Jewish Military Union (Żydowski Związek Wojskowy). It consisted of former officers and privates of the Polish Army. Being founded back in October 1939, the EBU did not take any active steps until the liquidation of the ghetto began. Unfortunately, there is practically no reliable data about the role of the EBU in the uprising. It is known for certain that a small part of the EMU militants left the ghetto at the end of April 1943. Their further fate remains unknown to this day.

ZOB flag

In October 1942, the command staff of the Jewish Combat Organization took shape. It was headed by 24-year-old Mordechai Anielewicz, who arrived in Warsaw during the liquidation of the ghetto. He was a member of the Zionist group Hashomer Hatzair. In previous years, Anielewicz was actively involved in creating a Jewish resistance movement in the south of occupied Poland. In addition to Anielewicz, the Organization's commanding staff included Marek Edelman of the Bund, Yitzhak "Antek" Zukerman of Dror, Hersh Berlinski of Poalei Zion, and Michal Rosenfeld of the Workers' Party of Poland. Later, Zuckerman's place was taken by Zivia Lyubetkin, a representative of Dror.

The goal of the Organization was to revolt in the ghetto and inflict as much damage on the enemy as possible, as well as to eliminate the most malicious traitors of the Jewish people (we were talking about members of the Judenrat and Jewish police officers in the ghetto). Initially, the Organization included up to two hundred militants, divided into groups of 10 people, led by their own commandant. Each battle group was responsible for a specific section of the ghetto. Thus the Organization was created, but its members were poorly armed and untrained. Few of them had military service behind them, and very few of them took part in hostilities. On November 11, the Jewish Combat Organization was recognized by the Home Army.

Despite the fact that the Germans practically did not show themselves in the ghetto, access to it was still limited, all entrances and exits were carefully guarded. Therefore, delivering weapons to future rebels was a very difficult task. In addition, the command of the Home Army, despite the recognition of the Organization, was very skeptical about the idea of ​​transferring even a small batch of weapons to the Jews, since the uprising in the ghetto was in any case doomed to defeat. Therefore, members of the Organization tried to get weapons on their own.

Mordechai Anielewicz, 1938 photo

For this purpose, Anielewicz created a network of agents on the Aryan side, which included not only Jews, but also Poles. One of the first "scouts" on the Aryan side was Yitzhak Zuckerman. Zuckerman looked flawless - blond hair, non-Semitic blue eyes, a small nose, in a word, his appearance did not fit any of the criteria of a "typical Jew." It was possible to suspect a Jew in him only by his accent - Yitzhak was from Vilna (today's capital of Lithuania is Vilnius), and the accent of the Vilna Jews was easily recognizable at that time.

Here the reader may have a question: “How did the Germans know what the Vilna accent sounds like?”. And here we come to another very unpleasant and practically unknown episode of the war - the extradition of Jews by the Polish blackmailers to the Gestapo. Such people were called schmaltsovniks (Polish “Szmalconicy” - blackmailers). During the war, this type of income was very popular among the marginalized members of Polish society. Groups of blackmailers were constantly on duty around the ghetto, trying to surprise Jews who were illegally getting out of the ghetto. From such people, blackmailers, under pain of extradition to the Gestapo, took away all the money and jewelry.

Those who had nothing to give as ransom were most often killed on the spot or taken to the Gestapo (a reward was due for each hiding Jew extradited to the Gestapo). When the blackmailing movement reached rampant proportions throughout Poland, the Home Army command decided to sentence them to death in the name of "Underground Poland" (Polska Podziemna). Several hundred blackmailers were eliminated.

First promotions

So, Antek Zukerman became the first contact of the Jewish Fighting Organization on the Aryan side. In November 1942, he managed to get 10 pistols from the Home Army for the militants from the ghetto. Anielewicz was furious when he learned that negotiations on the supply of weapons, which lasted several weeks, ended in the delivery of a batch of 10 old pistols without ammunition. Zuckerman himself in his memoirs called this a manifestation of anti-Semitism.

Realizing that the more damage was inflicted on the Germans, the less reason the Home Army would have to refuse new deliveries of weapons, the Jewish Combat Organization decided to act. The first action of the Organization took place on September 21, 1942 - an attempt on the life of the head of the Jewish police, Jozef Sherinsky. Israel Kanal was appointed as the contractor. The assassination attempt was unsuccessful: Sherinsky survived and ordered his guards to be doubled. It became impossible to get close to him again. The victim of the next act of retribution was Sherinsky's deputy, Yakub Leikin. This time, luck smiled on the members of the Organization, and one of the most hated people in the ghetto was liquidated on October 29, 1942.

The next action of Jewish resistance was held in Krakow on 22 December. Antek himself was its participant. A grenade was thrown at a cafe where German officers were resting, as a result of which 10 of them died. This act of terrorism made a great impression on the leadership of the Kraivoy Army. General Grot-Rovetsky agreed to transfer another batch of pistols to the ghetto, and also ordered one of his officers to instruct members of the Jewish Combat Organization in sabotage and subversion. In the ghetto, caches, caches, underground passages between cellars were hastily prepared, attics were connected. Preparations for an armed uprising were in full swing.

Heinrich Himmler

On January 9, 1943, Reichsführer Himmler himself visited the Warsaw ghetto. The commander of the SS forces in Warsaw, Colonel Ferdinand von Summern, told his boss that about 40,000 Jews were working in German factories located in the ghetto. The rest are staying there illegally. Upon learning of this, Himmler ordered that the ghetto be immediately cleared of "wild inhabitants", and that Warsaw be made "free of Jews" (Judenfrei) by April 20, Hitler's birthday.

In the early morning of January 18, 1943, SS soldiers began to concentrate around the ghetto. This was reported to Anielewicz. It became clear that the Germans were preparing another liquidation action. The news of this immediately spread throughout the ghetto. The streets were empty, people hid in pre-prepared shelters. Having entered the territory of the ghetto, the Germans began, completely indiscriminately, regardless of the presence of work cards, to bring all the Jews they had captured to the Umschlagplatz. The panic began.

There was no time to make a decision to start an uprising, and Anielevich decided to take a desperate step. Taking advantage of the general confusion, a group of militants of the Jewish Combat Organization joined the crowd of people going to the cars. And so, at the corner of Nizkaya and Zamenhof streets, unexpectedly for the Germans, the militants opened fire on them with pistols. Immediately several SS men fell dead, bleeding, the rest were so confused that for about a minute they did not react in any way to the shooting at them. Coming to their senses, the SS men opened heavy fire. A real street fight began.

Unfortunately, apart from the effect of surprise, the Jewish fighters did not have any advantages over the Germans. The Jews, led to the Umschlagplatz, began to scatter in different directions, trying to hide from the bullets. The leader of the group of militants, Mordechai Anielevich, snatched a machine gun from one of the Germans and, shooting back, hid in one of the yards on Nyzkaya Street, along with three other militants of the organization.

Leaflet ZOB

After several unsuccessful attempts to smoke Anielewicz's group out of their hiding place, the Germans decide to set fire to the house. All its inhabitants were killed in the fire, but the militants themselves managed to escape. For this reckless step, which cost the lives of hundreds of people, they wanted to recall Anielevich from the post of commander of the Jewish Combat Organization, but they never did.

Clashes with the SS also took place in other parts of the ghetto. The Jews used pistols, knives, homemade hand grenades and even rushed at the Germans with their bare hands. Nobody expected such a turn of events. According to official figures, about 14 SS soldiers died in skirmishes with Jews. Instead of the initially planned 10,000 Jews, the Germans managed to take half that number to Treblinka - about 5,000. About 1,100 more people died in street fighting or in a fire set by the Germans on Low Street.

Nevertheless, the German command decided to interrupt the liquidation action. This was the first moral victory for the Jews in occupied Europe. For the first time since September 1939, the Jews took up arms in an organized manner and repulsed the enemy.

On the eve of the big uprising in the ghetto

Between January 21 and April 19, 1943, the Jewish Combat Organization became the absolute master of the ghetto. Taking advantage of the fact that the Germans no longer carried out unexpected raids and punitive operations, the militants turned to active operations. The primary task of the organization was to obtain as many weapons, ammunition, gunpowder, cases for hand grenades and other things necessary for street fighting as possible.

Already at the end of January, a new batch of weapons from the Home Army was transferred to the ghetto - 50 pistols and 2 rifles. The production of hand grenades was launched, of which a huge number were made. True, half of these grenades misfired in battle. Molotov cocktails, which were also produced in large quantities in the cellars of the ghetto, became another formidable weapon of the rebels.

After the events of January, a large number of new members wanted to join the Organization. Anielevich was ready to accept everyone, but there was a catastrophic lack of weapons. Then the command of the organization decided to carry out several expropriations - to take money for the purchase of weapons from the rich residents of the ghetto. With these methods, the organization managed to extract about 2 million zlotys. The victims of the expropriations were mainly members of the Judenrat and owners of funeral homes.

On the station square of the “Aryan” Warsaw, where the market was located during the years of occupation, one could find sellers ready to sell any weapon. A pistol on the black market cost from 3 to 5 thousand zlotys, a rifle - about 10 thousand. But it was not enough to find a seller and have enough money. It was important not to arouse any suspicions in the seller. As mentioned above, the handing over of Jews by the Poles to the Gestapo was, unfortunately, a very common practice during the war years. Therefore, the representative of the Organization had to "look good" (at that time it meant not to have a pronounced Semitic appearance) and speak Polish without a Jewish accent. One of these agents was the now living Shimon Rataiser, nicknamed "Kazik". Born and raised in Warsaw, Kazik, like Antek, had blond hair and Aryan features, but he also spoke flawless Polish.

jewish bunker

In addition to Kazik and Antek, there was a whole network of agents of the Jewish Combat Organization on the Aryan side. They were engaged not only in the purchase of weapons, but also negotiated with representatives of the Craiova Army and the Ludova Guard (a communist military formation that later became part of the Ludova Army), searched for safe houses for the Jews hiding in the Aryan part.

By April, the Aryan part of Warsaw was covered by a network of agents of the Jewish Combat Organization. Hundreds of visits, passwords that change daily (and sometimes several times a day). Kazik managed to do something completely impossible - to find a trusted person ... in the Gestapo. This contact helped draw many people out of the clutches of the German secret police. It was possible to arrange an uninterrupted delivery of gunpowder and kerosene to the ghetto, which is necessary for the manufacture of hand grenades and Molotov cocktails, and to make several deliveries of dynamite. Having bribed the "grenade policemen", who were ready to look the other way for a small sum, the messengers made their way into the ghetto, bringing the necessary ammunition. At the end of March, the militants rejoiced: a batch of rifles, 2 MP-40 assault rifles, as well as a machine gun and a large number of cartridges were transferred to the ghetto.

Each house turned into a fortress. There were more than six hundred bunkers and shelters in less than four square kilometers of the Warsaw ghetto. Some of these shelters may have existed offline for many months or even years. Large food supplies were collected in them, there was access to drinking water, ventilation and sewerage were carried out, and generators that generated electricity worked. About 80 people could be in such a bunker without interfering with each other. Through the system of underground passages, it was possible to move to different ends of the ghetto, while remaining unnoticed.

And another bunker

The entrances to the brush factory were mined. Observation points and firing points were placed along the proposed routes for the SS forces. In basements and bunkers, new members of the organization were instructed. They were taught how to handle weapons, move silently, throw grenades from different positions and other things necessary for waging a guerrilla war in a large city.

In parallel with the preparations for an armed uprising, an action of retribution against the traitors of the Jewish people took place in the ghetto. The militants of the organization cracked down on the surviving Jewish police officers who showed particular cruelty during the deportation. Their property and weapons were confiscated.

By mid-April 1943, the Jewish Fighting Organization had at its disposal 20 well-equipped battle groups of 10 men each. Also at the disposal of Anielevich and his commandants were about three hundred poorly armed militants, whose role in the uprising was planned to be auxiliary, but in fact turned out to be very important.

Their finest hour was near.

Does Warsaw remember the war? Even after 73 years, this city could not heal the wounds to the end. Warsaw was completely destroyed by the war and rebuilt. Going to Poland, I thought that everything here had long been forgotten and remained only in the memory of deep old people.

It was all the more strange to walk among the burnt ruins of the Jewish ghetto and feel that the war ended only yesterday.

1 We start our walk from the Radisson Blu Sobieski Hotel, located at the old Warsaw Central Station. Now there is a railway museum, and the area itself is located right on the border of the former ghetto, but outside of it. The second Warsaw Radisson stands right in the heart of the Jewish district during the war, when the building of the Judenrat stood in its place.

2 A hearty breakfast is the best start to the day. When I arrived in Warsaw exactly on May 1, I understood that lunch might not be soon: in Poland they also love the May holidays and prefer not to work on these days. The first is Labor Day, the second is Flag Day, the third is Constitution Day.

3 In fact, not everything is so scary, I didn’t stay hungry, but I took fruit with me on the road. But if you are here on a Sunday or Christmas Eve, be prepared that the hotel may be the only place where you can eat.
4 I don't know why I haven't been to Warsaw until now. But every year the city changes. Not like or, of course, but there would be something to compare with.

5 In some places it is very similar to large American cities; in Europe, this can be seen perhaps only in Frankfurt.

6 All these trendy pieces of glass did not come out of nowhere. In old European cities, there is simply nowhere to build such a thing in the city center.

7 People continued to live in the houses of the former ghetto for another fifty years after the war, Poland simply did not have the money to immediately rebuild the housing stock and build new modern houses for everyone. All these years, houses have been renovated, entire districts have been demolished, panel high-rise buildings have been erected, now real estate has grown in price, offices and "elite" houses are being built. In the neighborhood with the terrible shabby ghosts of the past.

8 These rotten teeth are the very houses of the Warsaw ghetto where Jews from all over Warsaw were herded. It was from here that they left for Auschwitz and Treblinka. It’s even creepy to look at, but someone had to live in these apartments after everything that happened.

9 The old yard-well is somehow even nice, in the yard there is a tall old linden. But she, of course, appeared here after the war.

10 Don't let the whole windows fool you - these houses are dead, empty and abandoned. A few years ago, they say, it was easy to climb inside, now all the lower floors are immured with high quality, for some reason new double-glazed windows were inserted into the upper ones. For what? The area is not subject to restoration, everything is being demolished gradually.

11 I never managed to get inside the buildings: fences, barn locks, brickwork...although there is no guard. But there are many passers-by.

12 A woman in a bathrobe smokes on her open balcony. Her apartment has a "chic" view of the old red brick wall. This the same wall. What does a woman think when she goes out on the balcony several times a day to smoke a cigarette?

13 I'd like to ask the locals, especially the elderly, what it's like to live here, after everything they've been through in the forties. But he didn't, too personally.

14 The remains of the wall have become a memorial, tourists from all over the world constantly come here. In general, most of the sights of Warsaw are somehow connected with the war. You may not like it, but you can't run away from history. Some bricks are missing. They were taken by Holocaust museums from all over the world. They even took it to Australia.
15 Today, the wall blocks off a residential area, surrounded by modern (and not poor) houses. For a while, an opening appeared in the wall to make it easier for residents to walk around the area. Later it was walled up again. Deaf corner has become a favorite place for drunks. It is quiet here in the evenings, and tourists and all the hype are on the other side.

16 I saw a lot of people drinking in the street. It was early in the morning on the first of May. But let's not focus on it.
17 Bullet holes

19 Look under your feet and see where the wall went.

20 Look up to understand, the ghetto has not disappeared anywhere. It's still here. It gapes with empty eye sockets of windows that have seen inhuman suffering.

21 Few of the Jews who lived in these apartments managed to escape a terrible death in a concentration camp. Since 1942, every day (!) 6 thousand people were expelled from here and sent in cattle cars to the east, to Treblinka or south, to Auschwitz.

22 By 1940, 440,000 people had been resettled here, almost 40% of the entire population of Warsaw, despite the fact that the ghetto occupied only 4.5% of the city's territory. By 1942, only 50-60 thousand people remained in the ghetto, the rest were destroyed.

23 Until the 21st century, people lived in the apartments of the Warsaw ghetto. And only now all this is finally fading into the past.

24 Another year, two at most, and only history and a few memorials will remain of the ghetto. And in place of low brick houses, new, large and glass ones will grow.

26 And all of Warsaw will be fashionable, modern and beautiful.

27 You walk along the green street like this, look at the work of an architect, involuntarily lower your eyes and see the rails. But there is no tram here!

28 Here's another reminder of the past. The paving stones and the remains of the tracks still lie where they were laid before the war. Here, to the left and to the right, were the high brick walls of the ghetto, and the trams rang and went past without stopping. Jews were forbidden to use transport and leave the ghetto, and inside - only on foot.

29 Are you bored, boy? Nothing, you will grow up and you will know and understand everything.

30 The Warsaw Ghetto was cut by tram tracks, and the two parts were connected by a wooden footbridge. It has not been preserved, but there is now a memorial in its place, which is illuminated in the evening.

Perhaps the same place. Between the walls - free people, Jews in bandages are walking along the bridge.

31 Post-war architecture.

32 Hala Mirowska Old Market. You will be during working hours - I advise you to look, it is authentic there.
33 The Nozhik synagogue miraculously survived, the only pre-war synagogue that has been preserved in Warsaw. The Germans closed it and set up a stable. During the Warsaw Uprising, the synagogue building was significantly damaged due to street fighting, but was not completely destroyed. After World War II, the synagogue was renovated with funds from Jewish survivors.

35 Inside are excellent and inexpensive Jewish-themed souvenirs, kosher foods, and Judaic items.

36 Yuri, a kind and friendly store owner.

37 Jews in present-day Warsaw are not in danger. But the building, just in case, was surrounded by concrete blocks. Although in the 90s they tried to set it on fire several times.

38 Around the synagogue are interesting and well-made posters that tell about Jewish traditions in a simple and understandable language (there is a translation into English).

39 Prozna Street is said to be the only surviving street. Trust me, this information is out of date. 4 houses remained from the entire street, three of them were restored, and the one on the left is hung with a false facade, although earlier photographs of its residents from the ghetto times hung in the windows of the abandoned house.

40 This is how the house looks from the other side, but reconstruction. already started. It won't be taken down. They will probably make expensive apartments.

45 At the entrance to the park is the tomb of the unknown soldier. Memorial to Polish soldiers who died in all battles and battles, starting with the First World War. To remember, thanks to whom the fountains beat today.

46 And this is the Old Town, the popular postcard part of Warsaw.

47 A touristy area with restaurants, soap bubbles and cotton candy.

48 Picture of the day, you can't say otherwise.

49 The dressed-up organ-grinder also works as a fashion model. Pay three zlotys and take pictures.

50 Such areas always give off something fake, sparkle with fake. In Warsaw, it is really fake, because the city was destroyed, and everything we see today is a remake. Everything was rebuilt from old photographs. But a walk around the quarter will give you an idea of ​​what Poland was like before, long before the Second World War.

51 The real old Warsaw is Prague. This is the name of the area, which I will talk about in one of the following posts. Tourists don't go there, it's too dirty and ambiguous. But along the way you can meet a German bunker built in 1944, built during the Warsaw Uprising on the corner of a military hospital and still remaining near the fence of the city hospital.

52 It seems to me that the Poles reflect on the war no less than the Russians. They make films, ask questions, and first of all to themselves.

53 Although the question of who is worse - Hitler or Stalin, will remain unanswered. At least for the Poles.

54 In general, spring Warsaw is a great place. A cozy, incredibly green city on the banks of the Vistula, and I would be happy to return here. To see her from the other side.

Tomorrow at 10 am I will publish a new report from Poland. Perhaps one of the most serious in this blog. Come!

Oh, one more minute! All my travels are insured for

WARSAW GHETTO WARSAW GHETTO

WARSAW GHETTO (1940-1943), a walled protected area in the center of Warsaw (a predominantly Jewish area before World War II (cm. THE SECOND WORLD WAR)), created by the Nazi regime to isolate more than 500 thousand of the local Jewish population, as well as driven from the occupied Polish lands.
After the occupation of Poland
Immediately after the occupation of Poland by the Germans in September 1939, the situation of the Jews deteriorated sharply. They were forbidden to work in government institutions, use libraries, visit theaters and concert halls, send their children to "Aryan" schools, engage in trade and handicrafts, and use transport. In addition, all persons of Jewish nationality were required to wear special identification marks. The official explanation for the Nazi propaganda of the creation of the ghetto was the alleged wide participation of Jews in the partisan struggle and their opposition to the just principle of distribution of material wealth established by National Socialism. In addition, the Jewish population was accused of spreading infectious diseases.
The militant anti-Semitism of the Nazis fell on fertile ground, the mood of malice and hatred towards the Jews on the part of the Poles, skillfully fueled by the occupation regime, aggravated the situation of the Jewish population (reprisals, denunciations, robberies became commonplace).
Creation of a ghetto. The ABC of Survival
First, in March 1940, a “quarantine zone” was created, from which more than 100 thousand non-Jews were evicted, and Jews (five times the previous population of this place) took their place from other regions of Warsaw and western Poland. In October 1940, an order was issued to create a ghetto, unauthorized exit from which was initially punishable by nine months in prison (later, “violators” were shot on the spot). The ghetto was surrounded by a high brick wall, the continuation of which was barbed wire stretched a meter high. The ghetto was extremely overcrowded (on average, there were 13 or more people per room), hunger reigned (the food ration was 184 calories per day, 12 times less than that of a German), diseases (typhus, dysentery, tuberculosis, in 1941 150 people were buried daily).
Nevertheless, life in the ghetto did not stop: schools, theaters, restaurants functioned, and the “Jewish Newspaper” was published. Thanks to the ingenuity and enterprise of the population of the ghetto, illegal factories began to operate there, which launched the production of a huge number of consumer goods (fabrics, clothing, haberdashery, dishes, small hardware, etc.). In order for factories to produce products, raw materials were needed, which could only be obtained outside the wall of the ghetto. Under these conditions, the smuggling of raw materials (at the same time they began to import products) and the smuggling of goods, the volume of which reached 10 million zlotys per month, developed extremely.
Liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto
At the end of 1941, the most reactionary wing of the Nazi regime decided to create "extermination camps" for the final solution of the Jewish question. In the spring, the construction of camps began, which were equipped with capacious gas chambers. In July 1942, Himmler visited Poland (cm. Heinrich Himmler) ordered the mass liquidation of the Jewish population and the confiscation of its property. The operation under the guise of resettlement began on July 22, 1942. Every day, 4 trains (5-6 thousand people) were sent to the Treblinka concentration camp (cm. TREBLINKA). Those who refused to go were shot on the spot. Children were treated especially cruelly, they did not even try to send them to a concentration camp, they were destroyed right in the ghetto (more than 90 thousand children were killed in total). In August, the orphanage was evacuated, together with its director Janusz Korczak (cm. KORCHAK Janusz). Later he shared the fate of his pupils at Treblinka.
The Germans constantly spread rumors about cowardice and lack of self-esteem among the Jews, for some reason. Here is what was said in the message of the anti-fascist organizations to the Warsaw ghetto in those days: "The fear of the Jews of the Germans has become greater than their fear of death." Some lost their human appearance, for the sake of saving their own lives, they informed on those who did not want to obey the order to evacuate, and helped draw up lists for the destruction of their fellow tribesmen. But the most active part behaved courageously.
On the eve of the uprising
When hopes of survival were dashed, spontaneous resistance began to arise. The Anti-Fascist Bloc, which has been active since 1941 (leaders E. and L. Fondaminsky, Yu. Levartovsky, and others), which did not have wide support there in the early days of the existence of the ghetto, and an underground archive, youth organizations (leaders - I. Zuckerman, M. Tenenbaum) tried to organize a rebuff to the invaders. It was not easy, because conciliatory moods were widespread among the population of the ghetto: they say that repressions are on the wane, the world community will not allow it, only “non-working elements” are destroyed, etc. In the autumn of 1942, the evacuation process began to curtail: by October more than 300 thousand people, 10 thousand died during the “action”, more than 35 thousand received permission to stay, 25 thousand managed to escape from the ghetto, the same number hid inside it. These remaining daredevils were destined to play a decisive role during the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto in 1943.
Armed resistance
During October-November 1942, a common body of resistance was created - the "Jewish Committee of the Peoples" (Jewish National Committee), the armed groups merged into a single Jewish combat organization ("Jewish organization of the battles"), commanded by M. Anielevich. These organizations sharply became more active in late 1942 - early 1943, when a turning point took place on the fronts of World War II in favor of the anti-fascist coalition. In January 1943, a new “action” began to completely liquidate the Warsaw ghetto. Leaflets appeared in the ghetto calling for resistance. The armed rebuff, despite the fact that there were very few cartridges, came as a complete surprise to the Germans. A real uprising broke out. The inhabitants of the ghetto rushed at them with grenades, bottles, lay in wait with axes and crowbars. In the ghetto, underground shelters (bunkers) were built en masse, within a few months a whole underground city grew up, in which the resistance fighters perfectly oriented, tunnels were dug to pass to the "Aryan" side.
The events in the ghetto could not help touching the Polish part of Warsaw; attacks on the Germans, arson, and strikes became more frequent. Under these conditions, they needed to quickly end the ghetto. The operation to liquidate it, entrusted to Lieutenant General Y. Shtroop, began on April 19. Two dozen groups of ghetto defenders (totaling about 700 fighters) were opposed by 3,000 heavily armed people (of which 2,000 were SS men). Mines were laid on the territory of the ghetto, barricades were erected. The Germans who entered the northern part were soon driven out by the rebels, which came as a complete surprise to the SS. But the forces were unequal. The next day, April 20, the assault resumed, in response, the rebels were forced to leave the ghetto through underground passages, behind the wall of which many of them were immediately shot or handed over to residents of nearby houses. But still, some managed to escape and later join one of the Polish partisan detachments. The rebels defended themselves selflessly, there was not a single case of voluntary surrender (a 16-year-old girl, dousing herself with gasoline, rushed from the window of a multi-storey building onto a German tank). Fires broke out throughout the ghetto. Some of the remaining families were thrown out of the burning houses, and many were burned alive.
Others tried to hide in underground sewers. Stroop ordered to clog sewer pipes in order to flood the dungeon, but the inhabitants of the dungeon destroyed the lintels, then gas was launched. Later, the SS men who descended into the sewers found a huge number of corpses there.
The results of the uprising
The operation to liquidate the ghetto dragged on, from April 25 the Germans began to systematically burn down the ghetto quarter after quarter, because in the houses already cleared of insurgents, unsurrendered inhabitants of the ghetto suddenly reappeared. It seemed that the resistance was broken, but it lasted until 13 May. On May 16, the “big action” ended, the last houses in the ghetto were destroyed, and it ceased to exist. Clashes with disparate groups also occurred in June and July.
According to German estimates, during the uprising (April 19 - May 16), about 13 thousand people died in the Warsaw ghetto (including 5-6 thousand died from fires and explosions inside houses, over 56 thousand were captured and sent to the camp). Despite the colossal casualties (almost all the participants in the rebellion died), the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto was, in essence, the first spontaneous and at the same time organized action of the Jews against the Holocaust. In post-war Warsaw, a monument was erected to the victims of the Jewish people, April 19 is the day of remembrance for those who died during the uprising.

encyclopedic Dictionary. 2009 .

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The name "Warsaw Uprising" may refer to the following events that took place in the Polish city of Warsaw: the Warsaw Uprising of 1794, an episode of the Kosciuszko Uprising; Warsaw Uprising of 1830, see Polish Uprising (1830); Uprising in ... ... Wikipedia

Armed uprising of prisoners of the Warsaw ghetto against the Nazi invaders. Started April 19th. It was prepared by a militant Jewish organization created on the initiative of the Polish Workers' Party (See Polish Workers' Party) during ... ... Great Soviet Encyclopedia

Ghettos existed in Europe even before the Nazis came. But before the war, the ghetto was just an area densely populated by Jews. At the same time, many representatives of other nationalities lived in such ghettos and, of course, life in the ghetto did not impose any restrictions.

For the first time after the capture of Poland, the Germans only experimented, artificially creating small ghettos in individual cities for a long time. Although most of the valuables were confiscated from the Jews and subjected to the discriminatory legislation of the Reich, at first they were allowed to live as before.

The situation began to change as the war flared up. In the autumn of 1940, a year after the capture of Poland, a ghetto was created in Warsaw. This happened under the guise of an epidemic. They say that contagious diseases are raging in the Jewish quarters, so Poles and people of other nationalities began to be forcibly evicted from the areas of the future ghetto. In their place began to bring Jews who lived in other parts of the city and its environs.

At first, the ghetto was open, that is, it was allowed to leave it for a while. But within a few weeks it was closed. The area where the Jews lived was surrounded by a three-meter-high brick wall, as well as barbed wire. In some places, checkpoints with armed guards were set up.

It was possible to leave the ghetto only for the most important official need, for which it was necessary to obtain a special pass.

By locking the Jews in the ghetto, the Germans were able to control them and freely transport them to the camps. The compactness of their residence greatly facilitated their deportation and made it difficult to escape.

The Warsaw Ghetto, thanks to several relocations, quickly became the largest in Europe. At its peak, its population reached almost half a million people.

Life in the ghetto

Within the ghetto, power belonged to the Judenrat, an organ of local resistance. The head of the Warsaw ghetto was Adam Chernyakov, a prominent pre-war figure who had once been a Polish senator. To be at the head of the Judenrat is an unenviable fate. On the one hand, many residents of the ghetto hated them and considered them traitors, on the other hand, the life and existence of the ghetto depended solely on the relations between the Judenrat and the German administration, and the heads of some ghettoes managed to develop such violent activity that the Germans delayed the destruction of the ghetto for a while, like this was in Lodz, where Chaim Rumkowski managed to delay the destruction of the ghetto until August 1944.

But it was the Judenrats, at the request of the Germans, who organized the sending of the inhabitants of the ghetto to concentration camps, it was in the Judenrats that lists for deportation were drawn up. Chernyakov, having received an order to organize the deportation to the camps of most of the inhabitants of the ghetto, tried to defend at least the children. When this failed, he took poison.

But even more Judenrats hated the "service of order" - the so-called. Jewish police. At first, it numbered about two and a half thousand people, they took people mainly educated or who had experience in the police before the war. However, the situation changed very quickly, as the police began to be involved not only in maintaining public order, but also in rounding up those who were hiding from deportation to camps. All decent people did not want to participate in this and, under various pretexts, left the police, despite the increased ration for service.

Instead of them, they began to recruit those who were walking. And there were mostly unprincipled people, which only strengthened the hatred of the police.

At the same time, sometimes the police turned out to have agents associated with the underground, who, on the contrary, warned about raids and even helped to hide from them. In addition, the unscrupulousness of the police had a positive side. For a bribe, they turned a blind eye to smuggling, which was in the hands of all the inhabitants of the ghetto.

smugglers

All sorts of workshops and small factories were created in the ghetto, producing various goods - from haberdashery trinkets to German uniforms, and working for the German market practically for free. In return, the Germans sold small amounts of food to the Judenrats for distribution. The scheme did not work well, there were many children, old people and sick, obviously disabled people in the ghetto, and the Germans gave very little food. Even those who worked in German factories worked practically for free, their daily earnings were at best enough for a piece of bread.

If it were not for the smugglers, the inhabitants of etto very soon would die of hunger. Undoubtedly, these people only cared about their personal benefit, but ultimately the ghetto lived thanks to their illegal activities. They took valuables and goods produced in workshops out of the ghetto, and brought food bought from Polish peasants in city markets to the ghetto.

Basically, smuggling was supervised by criminal elements. The small smugglers mostly threw bags over the walls, but the biggest bigwigs simply paid huge bribes to the police and security guards at the checkpoint and smuggled whole wagonloads of food through the main entrance.

Fabulous sums passed through their hands. Many of them lived much better than before the war. The smugglers caroused in restaurants with women, sometimes gourmet delicacies were served on the table, alcohol flowed like a river.

The smugglers lived well, but not for long. The Germans very quickly realized that smuggling was thriving in the ghetto, and they undertook to fight this with their favorite method - executions. Ordinary policemen and security guards could still be bribed, but when German operations to combat banditry were announced, the smugglers were simply shot on the spot without trial.

But neither round-ups nor criminal showdowns reduced the flow of those wishing to try their hand at this illegal craft.

There was another category of smugglers. These were the Poles who had access to the ghetto. In this part of the city there were several factories where Poles worked as well. These workers were allowed to visit the ghetto, while there were no strict searches, and the Poles often brought food - they exchanged some valuables from the inhabitants of the ghetto for it, which they managed to keep during searches and confiscations.

First deportation

After the Germans got stuck in a war with the USSR, the Nazi leadership decided that the labor of the Jewish population was exploited insignificantly. It was decided to begin the destruction of the ghetto. The healthy and able-bodied population was taken to labor camps, and the elderly and the disabled were taken to death camps.

Rumors about the upcoming deportation circulated in the Warsaw ghetto from the beginning of 1942, but the Germans denied them. In order not to be unfounded, they even allowed the Judenrat to open several new schools and orphanages.

But in the summer of 1942, the Germans announced the "unloading" of the ghetto, in which it was planned to leave no more than 50 thousand people. Only employees of German enterprises, police and Judenrat employees and their families, as well as doctors, remained in the ghetto. All the rest were announced that they would be taken out for construction work.

Upon learning of this, the head of the Judenrat Chernyakov committed suicide, not wanting to participate in the massacre of his own people. The new leadership at first included only the poor, the homeless and the disabled on the lists for deportation, but the Germans were not inclined to compromise and demanded unquestioning obedience to their orders.

By the fall of 1942, the plan was fulfilled. About 50 thousand inhabitants remained in the ghetto. Several thousand people were able to hide from deportations.

Underground

The deportation could not but lead to the emergence of an organized underground. Quite a few activists from various pre-war organizations ended up in the ghetto: there were communists, right and left Zionists, and socialists. While the Germans at least did not touch the inhabitants, it was still possible to wait for a turning point in the war and hope for liberation. But now something had to be done, because it became clear that the Germans would not make any compromises.

The minority offered to raise an uprising and break out of the ghetto or die in battle. The other part insisted on the agitation of the deportees so that they would resist the police and go into hiding. Most believed that the uprising was a good idea, but it would destroy everyone, so you should not doom the population to death, but rather ask Western countries for help by contacting the Polish government in exile.

After the deportation, everyone decided to act independently. The Jewish Fighting Organization was created. It was mostly made up of those who adhered to left-wing beliefs. The rightists joined the Jewish Military Union, which united Jews who had served in the Polish army before the war. Both organizations began to establish contacts with the Polish underground.

The main problem faced by the underground is weapons. He had to be asked from the Polish underground, but they themselves were in great need of it, weapons and ammunition were dropped by British or Soviet aircraft. In addition, they simply did not believe that the inhabitants of the ghetto were ready to resist, and were afraid that the transferred weapons would go to the black market.

Rise of the doomed

A few days before the uprising, the underground became aware that the Germans were preparing another mass deportation and, most likely, the ghetto would be completely destroyed. Now there was nowhere to retreat, and the underground decided to raise an uprising. Everyone understood that there was no chance of winning.

On the eve of the uprising, a military alliance met with a military alliance. The members of the military alliance first began to persuade, and then demanded that the members of the military alliance join them and the rebels had a single command. The argument was so heated that it came to a fight. But in the end, everyone calmed down and agreed that each organization would take a certain defense zone for itself.

On the morning of April 19, 1943, the liquidation of the ghetto began. German units of the SS, SD and police were also involved in it. The underground workers were ready and equipped firing points in advance, in some places they installed home-made mines and took up positions.

They let the Germans moving in close columns into the narrow streets and opened fire on them. The Germans, who did not expect resistance, suddenly found themselves under crossfire and fled.

Initially, the operation was led by von Zammern, but he was confused by the resistance. Himmler, in extremely unprintable terms over the phone, demanded that von Sammern be removed from command and that resistance be crushed immediately. The operation was led by Jurgen Stroop.

The Germans returned, having increased their numbers and much better armed. Their tactic was to push the rebels back with a powerful pressure and take a foothold in the ghetto, from which they would later conduct further operations. Thanks to their overwhelming superiority in firepower, they were able to force the rebels to retreat from their fortified positions.

The Germans feared that the Poles would support the rebels, so the Latvians guarding the perimeter of the ghetto were replaced by German SS men.

The rebels prepared in advance and equipped many underground bunkers in the ghetto. They knew the area well and actively used the sewers, which allowed them to organize ambushes in unexpected places.

It was planned to destroy the ghetto in three days, but a week had already passed, and the Germans were still not in control of the situation. Stroop switches to scorched earth tactics and the Germans begin to burn one house after another.

But this tactic was not successful either. Day after day passed, and the resistance continued.

Stroop changed tactics again. Noticing that the rebels were moving from position to position at night, he organized, on the advice of Shpilker, the so-called. partisan patrols. Unlike standard army patrols, these patrols were as camouflaged as possible (the boots were wrapped in rags to move silently, and their faces were smeared with black paint), and their purpose was to track down the rebels in order to find the location of their warehouses and bunkers. Periodically, this tactic has been successful.

Only on May 8 did the Germans manage to achieve a turning point. On this day, after a fierce battle, they captured a bunker, which turned out to be the headquarters of the rebels (Anielevich's bunker). It contained the leaders of the uprising, who either died in a shootout or committed suicide. Only a small part managed to leave the bunker.

The Jewish Quarter in Warsaw no longer exists.

Since the capture of the Anielewicz bunker, the uprising has declined. The rebels were bled dry, and the Germans controlled most of the ghetto, which by that time had turned into ruins.

The surviving rebels began to leave the ghetto through the sewer system and several specially dug tunnels. They went out in small groups to disperse in Warsaw, because they were too conspicuous after three weeks of fighting.

All surviving civilians who had hidden in shelters and were discovered by the Germans were sent to Treblinka.

About 13 thousand people died during the suppression of the uprising. Much more were shot by the Germans when taken prisoner. But the largest part died in the fire or suffocated from the smoke. Marek Edelman later said that the rebels were defeated not by the Germans, but by fire.

According to Stroop, who led the suppression of the uprising, the Germans lost only 16 people killed and about 100 wounded. Many researchers question this figure as being too low.

After the suppression of the uprising, Stroop sent a report to Berlin entitled "The Jewish Quarter in Warsaw no longer exists." The report was accompanied by numerous photographs that were taken for "grateful posterity".

Subsequent fate

Almost all of the high-ranking participants in the suppression of the uprising either died or were prosecuted after the war. Ferdinand von Sammern, who led the eviction of the ghetto and was removed from his post after the flight of soldiers on the first day of the uprising, was transferred to Croatia, where he commanded the police forces. In September 1944, he died in a skirmish with Tito's partisans.

Ludwig Gann, the commander of the security police in Warsaw, who took an active part in the suppression of the uprising, escaped persecution in the first years after the war and worked as a lawyer in Germany. In the 1960s, he was arrested several times and each time released. Only on the fifth attempt in 1975 he was sentenced to life imprisonment, but in 1983 he was released for health reasons and soon died of cancer.

Jurgen Stroop, who was directly in charge of the destruction of the ghetto, went on to a promotion and became the highest leader of the SS and police in Greece, and then in the Rhine. After the war, he was sentenced to death by the Americans for executions in Greece, after which he was transferred to Poland. A Polish court for crimes in Warsaw also sentenced him to death. Stroop was hanged in Mokotów Prison in March 1952.