Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ends as German forces crush Jewish resistance and blow up Great Synagogue 80 years ago this hour #OnThisDay #OTD (May 16 1943)


Video: 'Drowning Germans, Burning Jews - War Against Humanity 061 - May 22, 1943' (May 16, 1943, at 1:17)

(Sunday, May 16, 1943, 8:15 p.m. Central European Summer Time (CEST); during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, part of The Holocaust during World War II) — The nearly month-long Warsaw Ghetto Uprising — the act of Jewish resistance in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany’s final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to Majdanek and Treblinka death camps — came to an end tonight as German forces crushed the Jewish resistance and blew up the Great Synagogue.


Video: 'The Warsaw Ghetto | DW Documentary'

The uprising started on April 19, 1943, when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who ordered the burning of the ghetto, block by block, officially ending tonight when he personally pushed a detonator button to demolish the Great Synagogue of Warsaw.


Video: 'Warsaw Ghettograd - The 1943 Uprising (Episode 1)'

Sporadic resistance continued and the last skirmish took place on June 5, 1943, between Germans and a holdout group of armed Jews without connections to the resistance organizations.


Video: 'Warsaw Ghettograd - The 1943 Uprising (Episode 2)'

13,000 Jews were killed in the ghetto during the uprising (some 6,000 among them were burnt alive or died from smoke inhalation). Of the remaining 50,000 residents, almost all were captured and shipped to the death camps of Majdanek and Treblinka.


Video: 'Warsaw Ghettograd - The 1943 Uprising (Episode 3)'

German casualties were probably fewer than 150, with Stroop reporting 110 casualties [16 killed + 1 dead/93 wounded].


Video: 'There was no hope. Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 19th April 1943'

The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II.

Video: 'The World at War: Genocide: 1941-1945 (20 of 26)' (Warsaw Ghetto Uprising at 41:11)

The Jews knew they couldn’t win and that their survival was unlikely.


Video: 'Warsaw ghetto archival footage - Warszawskie getto'

Marek Edelman, the only surviving ZOB commander, said their inspiration to fight was “not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths.”


Video: 'The Warsaw Ghetto'

According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the uprising was “one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people.”