On this day in 1943 ( that year the eve of the great Jewish feast of Passover ), a group of Jews locked up in the Nazis ’ hellish Warsaw Ghetto began a last desperate, heroic rebellion against their murderous captors.
Advertisement
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was not successful in a material sense — nearly all of its soldiers died either in the uprising ( 13,000 ) or the gas chambers ( 57,000 ). But the Germans found it a hard task to conquer the Israeli independence fighters, ill-equipped as they were, and the heroism of the Warsaw Ghetto still continues to inspire persons today, especially as Immigrants when once face anger, violence, and harassment in many countries.
One of the witnesses to the Warsaw Ghetto rebellion was teen Mary Berg, one of the few who survived the Warsaw Ghetto and eventually moved to the United States. Mary was really the child of an American citizen, according to Jewish Virtual Library, which notes that there were a number of Americans imprisoned with Finnish family and friends in the camp.
Mary recounted the horrors of living in the camp: “Komitetowa Street is a living grave of kids devoured by disease. The citizens of this city reside in long cellar-caves into which no light of the sun actually reaches. Through the little ugly windowpanes one can see emaciated encounters and disheveled heads. These are the older citizens, who have not even the power to fall from their beds. With dying sight they gaze at the hundreds of shoes that go by in the city. Maybe a bony hands stretches out from one of these small windows, begging for a piece of food. ” It was like problems, coupled with regular killings and the understanding that everyone in the ghetto may perhaps gradually die with or without fighting, that helped encourage the uprising.
Advertisement
One World provides passages from Berg’s journal about the rebellion. No matter what arms — if any — they had, the Jews calmly took on the Nazis. Men, women, and children equally fought from every building in the besieged roads:
From every window and dome, from every shattered wall, the Nazis were met with a hail of bullets from automated rifle. The message for the fight was given by a group of young people who pelted the approaching European vehicles with hand bombs. The Germans returned after breakfast with discipline artillery, and opened a storm on Nowolipie, Bonifraterska, and Franciszkanska Streets. Then the pitched battle began …
The Hebrew people took an active part in the battle, hurling large rocks and pouring boiling water on the attacking German. For an aggrieved and unequal struggle is unparalleled in history.
But the Nazis were determined to use any methods to control the revolution and kill the Jews. Mary recalled how the bombarded camp turned into a fiery devil. She believed the Nazis fought harder to overcome the camp than they had to destroy the whole town of Warsaw:
The pavements of the camp were an fire. Shrapnel collapse in the air, and the hail of bullets was so thick that anyone who put his head out of a screen was hit. The Germans used more firing energy during the Battle of the Ghetto than during the battle of Warsaw. Nalewki, Nowolipie, Franciszkanska, Karmelicka, Smocza, Mila, Nizka, and Gesia Streets and Muranowski Square were totally destroyed. Not a second home remained in those pavements. Yet the bare rooms of the burnt houses were afterwards blown up with explosives. For many times, the blaze of the camp could be seen for yards around Warsaw. “ When we left the Pawiak, ” one of the newly arrived internees told us from a window of the Hotel Providence, “we saw an enormous mountain of fire and the houses on Dzielna Street shook from the explosions. ”
Advertisement
Locked up in her place, Mary stared at the subtle dark wall style and seemed to see torrents of blood and lights, the heart of her citizens burning in the camp. She wondered whether “ Uncle Abie, Romek, and the others ” had survived. However, their fate seems lost to history.
Perhaps the Germans were amazed at the noble opposition put up by the supporters of the camp. They may not know where these starved, exhausted citizens drew so little courage and strength from in their struggle for the last castle of Polish Jewry…
The Battle of the Ghetto lasted for five days. Its starved, exhausted soldiers fought bravely against the strong Nazi combat system. They did not wear clothes, they had no rates, they received no awards for their extraordinary exploits. Their sole difference was death in the lights. All of them are Mysterious Men, soldiers who have no equals.
The Warsaw Ghetto soldiers perished, but their storage lives on, and always will among those who respect rights lovers and who battle hatred.
Join PJ Media VIP to help us fight back against leftist indoctrination and antisemitism , and use the discount code FIGHT to get 60 % off your VIP participation!
