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N0KFQ > TODAY 16.05.15 16:00l 55 Lines 2539 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 55940_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - May 16
Path: IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 150516/1500Z 55940@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
1943
Warsaw Ghetto uprising ends
In Poland, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising comes to an end as Nazi
soldiers gain control of Warsaw's Jewish ghetto, blowing up the
last remaining synagogue and beginning the mass deportation of
the ghetto's remaining dwellers to the Treblinka extermination
camp.
Shortly after the German occupation of Poland began, the Nazis
forced the city's Jewish citizens into a "ghetto" surrounded by
barbed wire and armed SS guards. The Warsaw Ghetto had an area of
only 840 acres but soon held almost 500,000 Jews in deplorable
conditions. Disease and starvation killed thousands every month,
and beginning in July 1942, 6,000 Jews a day were transferred to
the Treblinka concentration camp. Although the Nazis assured the
remaining Jews that their relatives and friends were being sent
to work camps, word soon reached the ghetto that deportation to
the camp meant extermination. An underground resistance group was
established in the ghetto-the Jewish Combat Organization
(ZOB)-and limited arms were acquired at great cost.
On January 18, 1943, when the Nazis entered the ghetto to prepare
a group for transfer, a ZOB unit ambushed them. Fighting lasted
for several days, and a number of Germans soldiers were killed
before they withdrew. On April 19, Nazi leader Heinrich Himmler
announced that the ghetto was to be cleared out in honor of
Hitler's birthday the following day, and more than 1,000 SS
soldiers entered the confines with tanks and heavy artillery.
Although many of the ghetto's remaining 60,000 Jewish dwellers
attempted to hide themselves in secret bunkers, more than 1,000
ZOB members met the Germans with gunfire and homemade bombs.
Suffering moderate casualties, the Germans initially withdrew but
soon returned, and on April 24 they launched an all-out attack
against the Warsaw Jews. Thousands were slaughtered as the
Germans systematically moved down the ghetto, blowing up
buildings one by one. The ZOB took to the sewers to continue the
fight, but on May 8 their command bunker fell to the Germans, and
their resistant leaders committed suicide. By May 16, the ghetto
was firmly under Nazi control, and mass deportation of the last
Warsaw Jews to Treblinka began.
During the uprising, some 300 hundred German soldiers were killed
to the thousands of Warsaw Jews who perished. Virtually all the
former ghetto residents who survived to reach Treblinka were dead
by the end of the war.
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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