912 days of the Warsaw Ghetto

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• published: 07 Apr 2013
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The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. Frank ordered Jews in Warsaw and its suburbs rounded up and herded into the Ghetto. At this time, the population in the Ghetto was estimated to be 400,000 people, about 30% of the population of Warsaw; however, the size of the Ghetto was about 2.4% of the size of Warsaw. The construction of the ghetto wall started on April 1, 1940, but the Germans closed the Warsaw Ghetto to the outside world on November 16 that year. The wall was typically 3 m (9.8 ft) high and topped with barbed wire. Escapees could be shot on sight. The borders of the ghetto changed many times through the next years. The ghetto was divided by Chłodna Street, which due to its importance (Warsaw's major street leading to the east) was excluded from it. The area south of Chłodna was known as "Small Ghetto", while the area north of this street -- "Large Ghetto". Those two parts were connected by Żelazna Street (special gate was built at its intersection with Chłodna Street). In January 1942 a wooden footbridge, which after the war became one of the symbols of the Holocaust, was built there to ease pedestrian traffic. The first commissioner of the Warsaw ghetto was his chief organizer SA-Standartenführer Waldemar Schön. He was succeeded in May 1941 by Heinz Auerswald. On January 18, 1943, after almost four months without any deportations, the Germans suddenly entered the Warsaw ghetto intent upon a further deportation. Within hours, some 600 Jews were shot and 5,000 others rounded up. The Germans expected no resistance, but preparations to resist had been going on since the previous autumn. The first instances of Jewish armed resistance began that day. The Jewish fighters had some success: the expulsion stopped after four days and the ŻOB and ŻZW resistance organizations took control of the Ghetto, building shelters and fighting posts and operating against Jewish collaborators. The final battle started on the eve of Passover of April 19, 1943, when a Nazi force consisting of several thousand troops entered the ghetto. After initial setbacks, the Germans under the field command of Jürgen Stroop systematically burned and blew up the ghetto buildings, block by block, rounding up or murdering anybody they could capture. Significant resistance ended on April 28, and the Nazi operation officially ended in mid-May, symbolically culminating with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw on May 16. According to the official report, at least 56,065 people were killed on the spot or deported to German Nazi concentration and death camps, most of them to Treblinka.