Photo Coverage | Memorial Plaques at Stawki and Niska Streets

„These plaques are new landmarks on the Warsaw memorial trail” – WGM director Albert Stankowski said at the ceremony of unveiling the plaques.

The first plaque was placed on the fence of the bulding at Stawki St. 5/7 (former Stawki 21) where, during the Warsaw Ghetto existence, there was a so-called refugee hub for Jewish refugees from cities and towns in Poland. Starting from May 1942, the building was housed the headquarters of SS unit charged with overseeing deportations to the Treblinka death camp and camps in the Lublin District in 1942-1943. Jews who were to be deported were gathered on the pavements and on the roadway of today’s Stawki Street where Umschlagplatz (‘loading area’) was marked out. There, they waited to be loaded onto trains. Some 300,000 Jews were deported from Warsaw. Most of them didn’t survive the war.

The second plaque was placed on the historic fence at Niska street which used to stay behind the building housing the SS station since May 1942.

The southern side of Niska St was incorporated into the ghetto in the autumn of 1940.  There are photographs of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, suppressed by the SS under Jurgen Stroop, that were taken through the fence. They show the buildings at 23 and 25 Niska St which were destroyed during the uprising. There is a school at the site today. The Jewish residents of these houses perished in the flames or committed suicide by jumping from the upper floors.

Bullet marks dating back to World War II are still visible on the fence.