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Culture Documents
Dalton Bagley
13 April 2011
The summer of 1942 marked the start of the rebellion. The United States
Holocaust Memorial Museum suggests that between the months of July and
September, the German authorities murdered over 300,00 Jews from the
Warsaw Ghetto. Only 35,000 Jews were granted permission to stay in the
Ghetto, and about 20,000 Jews were in hiding in the Ghetto at that time. With
deportation breathing down the backs of 55,000 Jews, the resistance took shape
Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB) and the Jewish Military Union (Zydowski Zwiazek
entered the Warsaw Ghetto to begin a round up that what would be the start of
the final extractment of all the Jewish inhabitants in the Ghetto. As the patrol
proceeded down Mila Street a barrage of shots rang out, killing the patrol's
as the young men of ZOB ran to collect the weapons of the fallen Germans. For
the next 29 days the ZOB and its allies fought Nazi forces in the first Jewish
Resistance of World War II. Radzilowski says, “The outnumbered and poorly
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armed Jewish resistance were finally overwhelmed, but their actions became an
example of heroism in the face of unspeakable evil. Many of the Jewish fighters,
including most of the leaders of the ZOB, died at their posts rather than
surrender. In the end Jewish losses were 6,000 combat dead along with 55
fighters from the Polish Home Army. Although the Germans officially listed only
According to Moshe Arens, the intense fighting in the ghetto between the
Jewish resistance fighters and the German army units, who were assisted by
Ukrainian and Latvian militias and Polish policemen, lasted for about a month.
Jewish fighters continued to hide in the many underground bunkers that had
been built in the ghetto and small fighting continued for several weeks thereafter.
The commander of the German assault on the ghetto was Gen. Juergen Stroop.
General Stroop "declared victory" over the Jews on the evening of May 16, and
After the resistance had been eliminated and all the Jews were evacuated, the
German army used flamethrowers to burn down most of the buildings. The rest
was dynamited; which turned the once massive Warsaw Ghetto into a pile of
rubble. Although the ghetto once housed more than half a million Jews, only a
small margin of the resistance fighters survived (Aren). Those who fought in the
remembered as such.
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Jack Eisner was only 15 years old when he fought the Germans in the
1994, he led a group of survivors to meet with Pope John Paul II, part of the
rapprochement between the Roman Catholic Church and Jews that had allowed
the Vatican and Israel to establish diplomatic relations the year before. ''As a
young boy growing up in prewar Warsaw, I feared crossing the sidewalk next to a
church,'' Mr. Eisner said to the pope, ''Now, some 50 years later, the unthinkable
is happening.'' (Martin).
everyday you walked out in the morning, you see somebody is laying dead,
covered with newspapers or with any kind of blanket they found, and you
found...those people used to carry the dead people in little wagons, used to bring
them down to the cemetery and bury them in mass graves. And every day
thousands and thousands died just from malnutrition because the Germans didn't
give anything for the people in the ghetto to eat. There was no such thing. You
can't walk in and buy anything, or getting any rations. It's your hard luck. If you
don't have it, you die, and that's what it was.” In 1943, Abraham and his father
were deported to Majdanek, where Abraham's father died. Abraham later was
liberated Abraham as the Germans evacuated prisoners. Lewents said his major
reason for rebelling was to try and to protect his family, and though he could not
save a single member, he is still a hero, and his family should be proud
(USHMM).
wall on Bonifraterska Street with explosives and weapons under their coats, his
Jozef Wilk
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friend "Mlodek" tripped and his pistol accidentally dropped to the pavement. A
policeman spotted the pistol and opened fire. Chaos erupted. German units
opened fire on the unit before it could reach the wall. Jozef and "Mlodek" were
killed. Their retreating unit detonated the explosives, blowing up Jozef's and
"Mlodek's" bodies to make them unrecognizable. Jozef was only 18. Jozef Wilk
sacrificed his life to rebel against the German army. Jozef Wilk died a hero
(USHMM).
Yitzhak Zuckerman was another hero of the Warsaw uprising. After the
get easier or weaker with the years; on the contrary, it gets sharper.” Zuckerman
is a brave man for taking his past head on. Zuckerman’s story is said to be
repetitious and emotional and when he moves his words no eye remains dry.
According to Zuckerman on when he talks about his gruesome past, “I’m not the
one who determines the timing and it burst out of me it’s a part of me.”
have the role of confirming the heroism: ‘‘So you were part of the uprising in
Warsaw,’ he said, ‘we heard about it here. It was a gallant and courageous
battle. Even the SS men are still talking about the Warsaw rebels.’’ The Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising was a bloody and courageous battle. According to the USHMM,
“It is estimated that 18,000 insurgents were killed and another 6,000 were
seriously wounded. A further 150,000 civilians were also killed during the
uprising.” (USHMM). The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising has only gained more respect
as time passes. As Markus Meckl states, “In the decades after the war the
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising gained a central place in the collective memory of the
the Warsaw Ghetto in the year 1943 taught us a bitter lesson concerning the
use, and we did use, the example of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising like a salesman
who could sell easily because he had a very effective promotional item.” (Meckl).
The outcome of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising may not be the outcome intended
by those involved in the resistance, but those who resisted are heroes.
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Works Cited
Martin, Douglas. "Jack Eisner, 77, Holocaust Chronicler, Dies." The New York
Times 30 Aug. 2003. Web. 16 Apr. 2011.
Meckl, Markus. "The Memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising." European Legacy
13.7 (2008): 815-824. Academic Search Elite. EBSCO. Web. 6 Apr. 2011.