On May 20, 1943, the Germans shot approximately 550 people in the ruins of the Warsaw Ghetto. It was the largest execution in the period following the liquidation of the ghetto and before the Warsaw Uprising. Most of the victims were prisoners from the Gestapo prison in Pawiak.
The executions were carried out mainly at Dzielna 25 and 27, Nowolipki 29 and Zamenhofa 19. The Nazis forced Jewish prisoners of the KL Warschau camp to burn the bodies of the victims.
"We know neither the full list of victims, nor the names of the murderers, nor many other circumstances of this crime. (...) The execution lasted several hours, carried out in the morning and early afternoon, and the victims' bodies were burned," said Dr. Paweł Kosiński, a historian from the Institute of National Remembrance's Historical Research Office, in a commentary for the Polish Press Agency (PAP) . It is known that the victims of the crime included Home Army officers, political activists, officials, scientists, and artists.
The first executions of Pawiak prisoners took place in early May 1943, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After the uprising's collapse, the Germans increasingly began using the ghetto ruins to conduct mass executions of Polish prisoners.
The news of the mass murder of prisoners quickly spread throughout Warsaw – apparently it was then that the words "We will avenge Pawiak" began to appear on the city walls, painted by members of the Grey Ranks and other underground organizations.
The last execution in the ruins of the ghetto most likely took place on August 13, 1944: the Germans shot 40 people, including Antoni Kocjan , a Polish engineer and collaborator with the Home Army.
