The Warsaw Uprisings, 1943–1944

Rare Photographs from Wartime Archives

Ian Baxter

• Publisher: Pen and Sword Military
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9781526799920
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World War II
• Index: History

By 1942 the Nazi leadership had decided that the Jewish ghettos across occupied Poland should be liquidated, with Warsaw’s being the largest, processed in phases. In response the left-wing Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) and right-wing Jewish Military Union (ZZW) formed and began training, preparing defences and smuggling in arms and explosives. The first Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began in April 1943. Although this was quelled at devastating cost to the Jewish community, resistance continued until the summer of 1944. By this time the Red Army was closing on the city and with liberation apparently imminent the 40, 000 resistance fighters of the Polish Home Army launched a second uprising. For sixty-three days the insurgents battled their oppressors on the streets, in ruined buildings and cellars. Rather than come to their aid the Russians waited and watched the inevitable slaughter. This gallant but tragic struggle is brought to life in this book by the superb collection of photographs drawn from the album compiled for none other than Heinrich Himmler entitled Warschauer Aufstand 1944.

Chapter One

Prelude

Following the German invasion of Poland in September 1939 the Nazi government quickly began incorporating large areas of Poland into the Reich. They cleared the Poles and Jews out and replaced them with German settlers. The unincorporated areas, comprising the provinces of Lublin and parts of Warsaw and Krakow, were known as the ‘General Government’. They became the dumping ground for those deemed enemies of the state. It was here that the first deportations of Poles and Jews were sent in their thousands.

By early 1940 the Germans realised that simultaneously moving Poles, Jews and ethnic Germans had become an administrative nightmare, and it was agreed that the Jews would be forced to live in ghettos. Hundreds of ghettos were built to confine and segregate them. In smaller towns the ghettos often served as temporary holding areas, to use Jews for slave labour and later move them to larger ghettos.

The largest ghetto built was the Warsaw Ghetto, officially known by the Germans as the ‘Jüdischer Wohnbezirk in Warschau’ (Jewish Residential District in Warsaw).

On 1 April 1940, District Governor Ludwig Fischer ordered the construction of the ghetto wall. Built primarily by the Jews themselves, it was to completely encircle the ghetto.

On 2 October, Fischer issued the ‘Regulations for Restrictions on Residence in the General Government of 13 September 1940’. It read:

1. A Jewish quarter is to be formed in the city of Warsaw, in which the Jews living in the city of Warsaw, or still to move there, must take up residence. The quarter will be set off from the rest of the city by the following streets: [here follows a list of streets and sections of streets].

2. Poles residing in the Jewish quarter must move their domicile into the other part of the city by 31 October 1940. Apartments will be provided by the Housing Office of the Polish City Hall. Poles who have not given up their apartments in the Jewish quarter by the above date will be forcibly moved. In the event of a forcible removal they will be permitted to take only luggage, bed-linen, and articles of sentimental value. Poles are not permitted to move into the German quarter.

3. Jews living outside the Jewish quarter must move into the Jewish area of residence by 31 October 1940. They may take only refugee luggage and bed-linen. Apartments will be allocated by the Jewish Elder.

4. The Appointed Mayor of the Polish City Hall and the Jewish Elder are responsible for the orderly move of the Jews to the Jewish quarter, and the punctual move of the Poles away from the Jewish quarter, in accordance with a plan yet to be worked out, which will provide for the evacuation by stages of the individual police districts.

5. The Representative of the District Governor of the city of Warsaw will give the necessary detailed instructions to the Jewish Elder for the establishing and permanent closure of the Jewish quarter.

6. The Representative of the District Governor of the city of Warsaw will issue regulations for the execution of this Decree.

7. Any person contravening this Decree, or the Regulations for its execution, will be punished in accordance with the existing laws on punishment.

Head of the Warsaw District, Dr. Fischer (Governor)

By 16 October 1940 the ghetto was officially in operation and imprisoned around 400,000 Jews.

As the ghetto became more established, the German authorities began various business enterprises, often for the war effort, using ghetto inhabitants for labour. Work was a welcome relief, as conditions inside the ghetto were soon appalling.

The Germans did nothing to alleviate hunger and disease. Epidemics became a feature of life along with starvation diets – 76,000 deaths recorded before July 1942.

At the Wannsee conference in January 1942, senior Nazi officials and SS leaders agreed that the ghettos should be ‘liquidated’. This meant the Jews being deported from the ghettos and sent to the various labour and murder camps that were being built such as Auschwitz-Birkenau, Chełmno, Treblinka, Belzec and Sobibor.

The clearing of the Warsaw ghetto and transportation to the death camps was an immense undertaking. The first phase, called Grossaktion Warschau, was set in motion on 22 July 1942. The destination was TII, known to the SS as Treblinka.

In charge of the shipments was SS-Hauptsturmführer Hermann Höfle. He issued the following order to the Jewish Council in Warsaw:

1. All Jewish persons irrespective of age or sex who live in Warsaw will be resettled in the east.

2. The following are excluded from the resettlement:

(a) All Jewish persons who are employed by the German authorities or by German agencies and can provide proof of it.

(b) All Jewish persons who belong to the Jewish Council and are employees of the Jewish Council.

(c) All Jewish persons who are employed by German firms and can provide proof of it.

(d) All Jews capable of work who have not hitherto been employed. They are to be placed in barracks in the ghetto.

(e) All Jewish persons who are members of the personnel of the Jewish hospitals. Similarly, the members of the Jewis...