April 19, 1943
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Begins
Historical context
On this day, April 19, 1943, the first night of Passover, Jewish fighters in the Warsaw ghetto opened fire as German forces entered for the final deportation.
Archive record
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- Date
- April 19, 1943
- Verified sources
- 1
- Archive threads
- 5
On this day, the first night of Passover, German SS and police entered the Warsaw ghetto to finish the deportation of the Jews still there. Fighters of the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) and the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) opened fire. The Germans had already deported about 265,000 Warsaw Jews to Treblinka in the summer of 1942 and killed tens of thousands in the ghetto.
A January 1943 clash had already interrupted a later deportation. The April rising lasted weeks. German forces burned the ghetto block by block. On 16 May, Jürgen Stroop reported the Great Synagogue destroyed. This article dates the opening, not the May end or the later murder of deportees at Trawniki, Poniatowa, and Majdanek.
Research trail
Sources and further reading
- Warsaw Ghetto Uprising · United States Holocaust Memorial Museum · Holocaust Encyclopedia View source
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