Byrner
04-15-2008, 02:57 PM
Poland is holding events to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising.
Polish President Lech Kaczynski with 100 guests gathered at a large square on the site of the ghetto, where thousands of Jews died.
Beside the monument to the ghetto fighters, Mr Kaczynski said the world must remain vigilant to ensure such horrors were not repeated.
The uprising was the largest act of Jewish resistance in the Holocaust.
For nearly a month in 1943, several hundred Jews, armed with pistols and home-made bombs, resisted German attempts to eradicate the ghetto.
Peres attending
By that time, the Nazis had sent 300,000 Jewish residents of the ghetto to the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp.
We are finding more and more Poles who want to work with us in preserving these cemeteries and synagogues and Jewish memory
The first clashes occurred at the start of 1943 as residents took up arms to prevent more Jews being sent to the camp.
The full-scale uprising began in April in response to Nazi plans to wipe out the 60,000 remaining inhabitants.
Thousands of Jews died in the fighting as Nazi troops resorted to explosives to destroy the ghetto the German occupiers had created in 1940.
Warsaw Ghetto uprising in detail..
1943: Germans crush Jewish uprising
All resistance in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw has ended after 28 days of fighting.
In his operational report, the local SS commander, Brigadier Juergen Stroop, said the uprising began on 19 April when SS, police and Wehrmacht units using tanks and other armoured vehicles entered the ghetto to take Jews to the railway station for transportation to concentration camps.
They were repelled by Jews using homemade explosives, rifles, small arms and "in one case a light machine-gun".
He said his troops were involved in pitched battles day and night with groups of about 20 or 30 Jews - both men and women.
"On April 23 Himmler issued his order to complete the combing out of the Warsaw ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy the entire Jewish residential area by setting every block on fire."
The last battle ended with the destruction of the Great Synagogue today.
People's War memories »
They used to board up the windows of the trams so you couldn't see how the Jews were being treated.
Jewish leaders had sent their own reports of the situation during the fighting.
On 28 April the Central Committee of Jewish Labour and the Jewish National Committee in Poland sent a desperate message to the National Council of Poland in London.
It said the SS and German Army have laid siege to the ghetto, attacking the 40,000 remaining Jews with artillery, flame-throwers, high explosive and incendiary bombs.
They have also planted mines in buildings known to harbouring Jewish fighters, while German guards block large drain pipes that have served as escape routes.
"The ghetto is burning," read the message, "and smoke covers the whole city of Warsaw.
"Men, women and children who are not burnt alive are murdered en masse." It said the Jews managed to kill or wound about 1,000 of the enemy and burned down factories and warehouses.
There was an appeal for an immediate response from the Allies. "It is imperative that the powerful retaliation of the United Nations shall fall upon the bloodthirsty enemy immediately and not in some distant future, in a way which will make it quite clear what the retaliation is for."
A second message sent on 11 May said the resistance was nearly over.
In Context..
The Nazis created the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1940 and about 500,000 people were crammed into an area not bigger than one square mile (2·6 sq km).
Its inhabitants were systematically transported to Treblinka and those who fought in the legendary Jewish uprising would rather have died with dignity than be taken to the death camps.
About 50 of the 1,000 fighters escaped through the sewers and some fought in the second Warsaw uprising by the Polish Home Army in August 1944.
About 40,000 Jews were massacred in reprisal for the uprising. When Soviet troops liberated Warsaw on 17 January 1945 only about 200 Jews remained and the old city had been virtually destroyed.
Stroop's copy of the operational report entitled "The Jewish quarter in Warsaw no longer exists" came to light during the Nuremberg war crimes trial in 1945.
Stroop himself was sentenced to death by a US military tribunal and sent to Poland to be executed in 1951.
The annual commemoration of the uprising is normally held on 19 April but has been brought forward to avoid clashing with the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli President Shimon Peres is among prominent figures attending.
He began a four-day visit to Poland on Monday with a visit to the Treblinka site in the north-east of the country.
Compensation
A candle-lighting ceremony is also taking place at the site of the bunker where the leader of the uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz, and 80 followers killed themselves as Nazi forces suppressed the uprising.
The commemoration will close with the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead, and a multi-faith service.
Jewish residents fought for nearly a month
The BBC's Adam Easton says Poland's Jewish community - numbering more than three million - used to be the largest in Europe, but was almost completely wiped out in the Holocaust.
But the Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich says there is growing interest in the country's Jewish past.
"In Poland anti-Semitism is no greater than the unacceptable level of France or England," he said.
"In addition, we are finding more and more Poles who want to work with us in preserving these cemeteries and synagogues and Jewish memory.
"There are more Jewish festivals in Poland today than I believe any other country in the world".
The Polish government also plans to compensate people whose property was stolen by the Nazis and the subsequent communist administrations.
News Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7347856.stm
Polish President Lech Kaczynski with 100 guests gathered at a large square on the site of the ghetto, where thousands of Jews died.
Beside the monument to the ghetto fighters, Mr Kaczynski said the world must remain vigilant to ensure such horrors were not repeated.
The uprising was the largest act of Jewish resistance in the Holocaust.
For nearly a month in 1943, several hundred Jews, armed with pistols and home-made bombs, resisted German attempts to eradicate the ghetto.
Peres attending
By that time, the Nazis had sent 300,000 Jewish residents of the ghetto to the gas chambers at the Treblinka death camp.
We are finding more and more Poles who want to work with us in preserving these cemeteries and synagogues and Jewish memory
The first clashes occurred at the start of 1943 as residents took up arms to prevent more Jews being sent to the camp.
The full-scale uprising began in April in response to Nazi plans to wipe out the 60,000 remaining inhabitants.
Thousands of Jews died in the fighting as Nazi troops resorted to explosives to destroy the ghetto the German occupiers had created in 1940.
Warsaw Ghetto uprising in detail..
1943: Germans crush Jewish uprising
All resistance in the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw has ended after 28 days of fighting.
In his operational report, the local SS commander, Brigadier Juergen Stroop, said the uprising began on 19 April when SS, police and Wehrmacht units using tanks and other armoured vehicles entered the ghetto to take Jews to the railway station for transportation to concentration camps.
They were repelled by Jews using homemade explosives, rifles, small arms and "in one case a light machine-gun".
He said his troops were involved in pitched battles day and night with groups of about 20 or 30 Jews - both men and women.
"On April 23 Himmler issued his order to complete the combing out of the Warsaw ghetto with the greatest severity and relentless tenacity. I therefore decided to destroy the entire Jewish residential area by setting every block on fire."
The last battle ended with the destruction of the Great Synagogue today.
People's War memories »
They used to board up the windows of the trams so you couldn't see how the Jews were being treated.
Jewish leaders had sent their own reports of the situation during the fighting.
On 28 April the Central Committee of Jewish Labour and the Jewish National Committee in Poland sent a desperate message to the National Council of Poland in London.
It said the SS and German Army have laid siege to the ghetto, attacking the 40,000 remaining Jews with artillery, flame-throwers, high explosive and incendiary bombs.
They have also planted mines in buildings known to harbouring Jewish fighters, while German guards block large drain pipes that have served as escape routes.
"The ghetto is burning," read the message, "and smoke covers the whole city of Warsaw.
"Men, women and children who are not burnt alive are murdered en masse." It said the Jews managed to kill or wound about 1,000 of the enemy and burned down factories and warehouses.
There was an appeal for an immediate response from the Allies. "It is imperative that the powerful retaliation of the United Nations shall fall upon the bloodthirsty enemy immediately and not in some distant future, in a way which will make it quite clear what the retaliation is for."
A second message sent on 11 May said the resistance was nearly over.
In Context..
The Nazis created the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw in 1940 and about 500,000 people were crammed into an area not bigger than one square mile (2·6 sq km).
Its inhabitants were systematically transported to Treblinka and those who fought in the legendary Jewish uprising would rather have died with dignity than be taken to the death camps.
About 50 of the 1,000 fighters escaped through the sewers and some fought in the second Warsaw uprising by the Polish Home Army in August 1944.
About 40,000 Jews were massacred in reprisal for the uprising. When Soviet troops liberated Warsaw on 17 January 1945 only about 200 Jews remained and the old city had been virtually destroyed.
Stroop's copy of the operational report entitled "The Jewish quarter in Warsaw no longer exists" came to light during the Nuremberg war crimes trial in 1945.
Stroop himself was sentenced to death by a US military tribunal and sent to Poland to be executed in 1951.
The annual commemoration of the uprising is normally held on 19 April but has been brought forward to avoid clashing with the Jewish Sabbath.
Israeli President Shimon Peres is among prominent figures attending.
He began a four-day visit to Poland on Monday with a visit to the Treblinka site in the north-east of the country.
Compensation
A candle-lighting ceremony is also taking place at the site of the bunker where the leader of the uprising, Mordechai Anielewicz, and 80 followers killed themselves as Nazi forces suppressed the uprising.
The commemoration will close with the Kaddish, or Jewish prayer for the dead, and a multi-faith service.
Jewish residents fought for nearly a month
The BBC's Adam Easton says Poland's Jewish community - numbering more than three million - used to be the largest in Europe, but was almost completely wiped out in the Holocaust.
But the Polish Chief Rabbi Michael Schudrich says there is growing interest in the country's Jewish past.
"In Poland anti-Semitism is no greater than the unacceptable level of France or England," he said.
"In addition, we are finding more and more Poles who want to work with us in preserving these cemeteries and synagogues and Jewish memory.
"There are more Jewish festivals in Poland today than I believe any other country in the world".
The Polish government also plans to compensate people whose property was stolen by the Nazis and the subsequent communist administrations.
News Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7347856.stm