The fall of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

With particular indignation, he emphasized: "This whole game probably won't last long. You can see what you can expect from the Jews when they get their hands on weapons." This perception of reality indicates that the Nazi authorities neither expected Jewish resistance on such a scale nor over such a long period. This also points to underlying factors: shame and fear. Helmuth von Moltke, present in Warsaw on May 4th , claimed that the Jews—in his opinion, incapable of any resistance—fought solely thanks to the support of "Russian paratroopers, German deserters, and Polish communists." This "balance of power" was said to be the source of the ongoing fighting.

The Germans adopted a tactic—literally—of "scorched earth." Jürgen Stroop , who commanded the "Great Ghetto Action," reported in early May: "The only and best method of destroying Jews is therefore still to set fires." The Jewish front line, under the influence of the German tactic of burning down building after building, collapsed. Dozens of isolated bunkers and solitary houses were fighting. In reports to higher authorities, Stroop emphasized that "Jewish resistance was still strong": "They withdrew mostly at night to favorable positions, into hard-to-reach ruins. We could not use the method of setting fires against these points of refuge and attack, because the previous fires had burned everything there that could be burned. The new insurgent 'fortresses' were difficult to breach."

The Polish underground assessed the situation in the Warsaw Ghetto very differently. At the end of April, the Home Army Press Agency, in its article "The Warsaw Ghetto Fights," included the following comment: "German embarrassment must be deepened by the fact that the proud, arrogant 'conquerors of the world,' who so easily find it inflicting torment on the defenseless, are waging a formal, prolonged battle with a group of despised pariahs, bringing cannons and tanks against them with pitiable clumsiness... This protracted war on the Warsaw Ghetto, ironically called the 'third front,' naturally evokes reflections that ridicule and discredit German talents for governing and warfare."

Regardless of Stroop's explanation for the failures of the "Great Ghetto Action," or how the Poles assessed this "action," the overarching goal of the German operations was undoubtedly reaching the most important location: the Jewish Combat Organization's command bunker. It was not until May 7th that the Germans located its location at 18 Miła Street. That day, in his "Report," the SS commander announced that the "forced opening" of the "party leadership" bunker (as he referred to the ŻOB command) would take place the following day: May 8th, 1943. This was a prelude to a single drama, the acts of which unfolded simultaneously. On that day, everyone—Germans and Jews—was to play the roles assigned to them by Nazi ideology.

For Stroop, that day was a fulfilling moment. From the beginning of the "liquidation of the Jewish quarter," he demonstrated his awareness of the tasks he was tasked with: deporting the remaining Jews in the ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp, and, if necessary, murdering them "on the spot." This is evidenced by the hateful language he used daily, reporting on the fighting in the ghetto in April and May 1943, as well as the language he used to explain his "reasons" on death row in Mokotów prison six years later. He at least partially justified his previous failures: "The fighting was both long and hard. The ŻOB members defended themselves furiously, and my soldiers felt uneasy in direct combat." The capture of the most important shelter—the Jewish headquarters—was only a partial success, the "executioner of the Warsaw Ghetto" explaining: "The people I would have liked to have interrogated were dead."

For Władka Meed, that day was special. She was a ŻOB liaison with the Polish underground. She was last present in the ghetto on the eve of the uprising. During it, she stayed on the Aryan side. She provided aid to escapees from the ghetto hell. On that May Day, she met with friends who, like herself, were in hiding: "For the first time, so many people met not to conspire. The atmosphere was initially heavy. Over time, the young people relaxed and began to talk. The alcohol they drank helped." She read a letter written to friends (perhaps fictitious) overseas: "About how we live in occupied Warsaw, about our struggle and strong will to survive." Everyone managed to briefly escape the omnipresent evil and experience some warmth and joy. However, the meeting, she admitted years later, "was laced with sadness to the very end." She survived that day and the decades that followed.

For Mordechai Anielewicz , like for most of those who happened to be in the ghetto that day, in the bunker at 18 Miła Street, it was a tragic day. The Germans surrounded the ŻOB command bunker. They lacked the courage for a direct confrontation. They ordered the Jews inside to leave. Civilians surrendered, but ghetto fighters remained. In response, the Germans threw gas grenades into five discovered entrance hatches. To die with honor, to demonstrate courage, the ŻOB commander and his comrades took their own lives. There was dignity in tragedy. They departed with it, too.

Luck was on Cywia Lubetkin's side that day. She was also in the ghetto. Just a dozen or so hours earlier, she had been at 18 Miła Street. In the early morning hours, she reached the bunker at 22 Franciszkańska Street. Perhaps a premonition of impending disaster compelled her to return to the command bunker. Chaim Frymer , a subordinate in the service hierarchy , prevented her from making a risky, even suicidal, expedition during the day. That's why she was lucky to survive... Only when darkness fell over the ghetto did a group of fighters head for Miła Street. Cywia Lubetkin recalled the site of the bunker: "Everything around looks different. The ruins are scattered, and there's no guard at the entrance. Fear gripped everyone's hearts, as there was no trace of any of the six entrances." In the neighboring yard, he and his companions saw the shadows of silhouettes lying motionless: "They were comrades—covered in mud and blood, weakened and trembling, they looked like ghosts. Someone lay unconscious, another barely breathing." Their strong will and determination allowed them to live—if only for a moment—longer. They made it through the sixth passage, undiscovered by the Germans. Luck, too, was with them.

From that evening on, for little more than forty hours, the fates of the survivors from Miła 18 (fourteen people, including Tosia Altman , Jehuda Węgrower , Tuwia Borzykowski , Mordechai Growas , Izrael Kanał , Menachem Bejgelman , Michał Rozenfeld ) and those who came to their aid (including Symcha Rotem , Marek Edelman , Zygmunt Frydrych , Tadek Szejngut , Rysiek Maselman ) intertwined. A rescue operation was launched. The hours in the underground tunnels lasted endlessly. Finally, on May 10, this part of the drama came to an end. "In broad daylight, with almost no security," Marek Edelman recounted, "the manhole cover opens, and one by one, before the astonished crowd, the Jews emerge from the black pit, weapons in hand." A truck was waiting for them on the Aryan side, and it immediately transported the survivors—a group of thirty people—outside Warsaw, to the forest near Łomianki. They arrived.

From then on, however, the paths of the rescued and the rescuers began to diverge. Jehuda Węgrower died on May 10th, immediately after arrival, likely from gas poisoning. The wounded Tosia Altman returned to Warsaw a few days later. She hid with other ghetto fighters in the Praga district. Soon, she, like her comrades, fell victim to a fire and died in agony. Tuwia Borzykowski survived not only the uprisings (in the ghetto and in Warsaw) but also the war. In the late 1940s, he emigrated to Israel. Pnina Grynszpan Frymer and Michał Rozenfeld operated independently of each other in the GL partisan group near Warsaw. While Frymer survived the war and emigrated from Poland in 1945 (eventually settling in Israel), Rozenfeld, along with twelve of his comrades-in-arms, was killed in September 1943, having been handed over to the Germans by a Pole. In the summer of that year, Mordechai Grovas (who had executed Jakub Lejkin in October 1942) and his ten-man partisan unit were murdered by Poles from the National Armed Forces. Israel Kanal , hoping to emigrate, fell victim to the Hotel Polski: initially sent to Bergen-Belsen, he perished in Auschwitz at the end of 1943.

Menachem Bigelman and Szlomo Szuster's group made it to the Aryan side. They failed to exit the sewer. They were too late. The exit was surrounded by Germans. A skirmish ensued. They were all killed. Rysiek Maselman was on his way to pick them up. After 10 a.m. in the morning, he escorted the first group of fighters to Łomianki. That day, he returned to Warsaw to take over the second group. He was unsuccessful. He died on the way to retrieve the fighters. In the center of Warsaw, at Bankowy Square, he fought with the Germans and was shot. Zygmunt Frydrych (in the summer of 1942, he followed a death transport to return and report from Treblinka) remained in the forest near Łomianki. Betrayed by a Polish peasant, he perished on May 15th along with a group of fighters. Tadek Szejngut co-organized aid for the fighters on May 10th. He died a few months later in Warsaw during a skirmish with the Germans. Some of those who helped – like Symcha Rotem and Marek Edelman – survived. For decades, they were symbols of sacrifice and courage.

Did the events of May 8-10, 1943, mean that the uprising of Warsaw Jews was coming to an end? Any answer to this question will be rather arbitrary. After capturing the shelter at 18 Miła Street, Stroop concluded his report of May 8 with the assurance: "The undersigned is determined to continue this great action until the last Jew is destroyed." Two days later, Heinrich Himmler (one of the most important figures in the Third Reich, including the head of the SS, directly responsible for the Holocaust) issued an instruction ordering his command to dispatch even greater forces to suppress resistance in the ghetto: "The pacification of Warsaw depends on the suppression of the ghetto uprising," he explained. On May 10th, the governor of the Warsaw district of the General Government, Ludwig Fischer , addressed a proclamation to Poles intended to persuade them to participate in the fight against "Jewish communism": "No ethical considerations should be an obstacle to the destruction of Bolshevism. Whoever notifies the authorities of the location of a communist agent or Jew is only fulfilling a self-evident duty to themselves and their loved ones." Such statements from the Nazi side can be taken as evidence that the uprising – despite plans – had not been suppressed. Or was still ongoing. This fact was confirmed on May 10th by reports from the Home Army delegation to London ("The heroic struggle of the Warsaw Ghetto still has a few pockets of resistance"), as well as by the underground National Democrat magazine "Nowy Dzień" ("Jewish resistance is not yet broken").

This could indicate that the uprising was still ongoing. However, this was not the case. Even when German reports included phrases such as: "Jewish units are crawling out of the ground and attacking the Germans unexpectedly," clashes occurred sporadically. The Jews no longer attacked. They defended themselves against the Germans with their last remaining forces. In practice, for the following days (May 11-16), combined German forces (SS, Wehrmacht, ethnic units), supported by the Polish Blue Police, regularly searched the rubble, murdered Jews ("bandits and subhumans"), and razed the remains of the ghetto buildings to the ground. On the evening of May 15, the cemetery chapel, morgue, and adjacent buildings were destroyed. The following day, the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street was blown up. This was intended to symbolically conclude the liquidation of the "Jewish district" in Warsaw. Stroop described this "allegory of triumph over Jewry" as follows: "What a beautiful sight it was. From a painterly and theatrical point of view, a fantastic image. The sapper officer handed me an electrical device that triggered the detonation of explosives. In the glow of the burning buildings stood my brave officers and soldiers, tired and grimy. I prolonged the wait. Finally, I shouted: 'Heil Hitler!' and pressed the button."

So, did the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising finally end on that day? Probably so. Although German reports in the following weeks repeatedly reported attacks and murders by militant groups, as well as attacks on German convoys leading prisoners from Pawiak to execution among the ghetto ruins. But in practice, it was no longer about casualties, but solely about losses and profits. German ones. In his last report, prepared on May 24, 1943, Stroop wrote about war trophies from the uprising and the insurgents: captured weapons, clothing, and currency. And the ghetto ruins: "What wasn't blown up remained only as burnt-out walls. The ruins could be used in countless quantities for bricks and scrap metal." The final closure of the Warsaw Ghetto issue was to take place by the following June, 1944. Himmler's order stated that "the urban area of ​​the former ghetto must be completely leveled, every cellar and every gutter must be buried. After this work is completed, a top layer of earth will be laid and a new foundation will be laid over the entire area."

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, from April 19 to May 16, 1943, ended multiple times simultaneously. As many fighters and civilians as there were in the ghetto—children, women, and men—and as many of these individuals perished, either fighting or as defenseless civilian victims, so many times did the successive pieces of the uprising puzzle come to an end. In this uprising, Jews perished as a mass and as individuals, as Polish citizens and Polish Jews. People perished.

Dr. Paweł Wieczorek. Edited by Anna Kilian