On October 2, 1940, Ludwig Fischer, Governor of the Warsaw District, signed a decree on the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw. The decree was announced through street megaphones on October 12, during the holy day of Yom Kippur (Day of Atonement.

The Governor’s official decree was preceded by a series of repressions against the Jewish population, under way since the German Army occupied the city in September 1939. On October 7, 1939 the Jewish kehilla was transformed into the Judenrat (the Jewish Council), which consisted of 24 members and was headed by Adam Czerniakow, the kehilla’s chairman. The occupier began to concentrate Jews in the assigned city quarters.

Already in November 1939 the north-western quarter, inhabited predominantly by the Jews, was being surrounded by a barbed wire fence with signboards warning: “Plague zone, no entry for soldiers”. The fence was introduced under the instruction of the SS Obergruppenführer Reinhard Heydrich. Already towards the end of the first month of the war Heydrich issued a command to concentrate all members of Jewish communities in larger towns connected by railway lines, and subsequently to separate them from the “Aryan” population. According to the official line of argument Jews were being isolated in order to protect Poles, among other things from those who spread contagious diseases, especially typhoid fever, which was allegedly rife amongst the Jewish population. It was part of a broader spectrum of the Nazi propaganda, which rested on a widespread anti-Semitic campaign, in order to give legitimacy to the new administration’s attitude towards Jews[1.1]

Already in the first weeks of the Nazi occupation decrees were issued on blocking Jewish bank accounts and savings (October 1939) and banning ritual slaughter; compulsory labour for people aged between 14 and 60 years was introduced. From December 1, 1939 all people of Jewish origin were obliged to wear armbands with the Star of David on their right arm. Restrictions of liberties increased month by month. The occupant forbade collective prayers, synagogues were closed. Jews were banned from travelling by rail, entering parks or restaurants. German soldiers frequently assaulted citizens of Jewish origin. Robberies, beatings, cutting off beards and earlocks in public became commonplace. In February 1940 Jews were banned from using trams; special food vouchers (yellow, with the Star of David) were introduced, to be filled solely in the Jewish shops[1.2].

On Easter Good Friday, March 22, 1940 anti-Jewish riots broke out and lasted for 8 days. Jews were assaulted in the streets, Jewish shops were demolished, goods were confiscated, flats belonging to the Jews were broken into. The perpetrators were Polish hooligans organized in gangs. The majority of the assaults were filmed and photographed by the Germans, and most likely provoked by them. Neither the Germans, nor Polish police intervened. First attempts at assaults on Jews in the occupied Warsaw were noted as early as December 1939, right after the obligatory armbands had been introduced[1.3].

On April 1, 1940 the Judenrat was forced to commence construction of a wall around the area “threatened by the epidemics”. Construction was completed in June of that year. The whole area of the Ghetto was surrounded by a brick wall 3 metres high and topped with barbed wire. The cost of construction was imposed on the Jewish Council. Existing buildings often constituted a section of the ghetto wall.

The Warsaw Ghetto was officially sealed on November 16, 1940. Initially it covered the area of 307 hectares, bordering on the following streets: Wielka, Bagno, Grzybowski Square, Rynkowa, Zimna, Elektoralna, Bankowy Square, Tłomackie, Przejazd, The Krasińskis’ Garden, Nowolipki, Świętojerska, Freta, Sapieżyńska, Konwiktorska, Stawki, Okopowa, Zegarmistrzowska, Żelazna and Sienna. Mirów Market, The Court buildings on Leszno Street[1.4] and a section of Chłodna Street were excluded from the Ghetto.

The decree on the establishment of the Ghetto meant that thousands of people were forced to leave their homes, sell them hastily and purchase new ones. 138 thousands Jews and 113 thousands Poles were forced to migrate. Majority of the selling operations were not profitable. Many people could not afford a new lodging.

The Warsaw Jewish Quarter was the largest ghetto established by the Nazis within the borders of occupied Poland. The Quarter covered 2% of the city area, but housed 30% of its population[1.5]. In the months following the Ghetto establishment its area was gradually shrinking. In December 1941 the area west of Żelazna Street, between Leszno and Grzybowska Streets was excluded from the Ghetto. As a result, the Jewish Quarter was divided into two sections, the so-called “Small Ghetto” and “Large Ghetto”. In January 1942 both sections were connected by a wooden footbridge.

The administration of the Ghetto was handed over to the Judenrat. It was a marionette institution, fully subordinate to the German administration and following its orders. The Judenrat comprised following departments: Presidential, General, Budgetary-Financial, Administrative, Public Health, Benefits and Social Welfare, Economic, Craft Services, Labour, Procurement, Postal, Real Estate, Policing and Cemetery. The Judenrat officials were not particularly respected by the Ghetto residents. Adam Czerniakow, the head of the Judenrat (the Eldest), was a prewar social activist, member of the Senate and Counsellor of the Jewish Community in Warsaw. Following his suicide in July 1942, his post was taken over by Marek Lichtenbaum.

The Jewish Police Service (Jüdischer Ordnungsdienst), commonly referred to as the Jewish Police, was formed to help keep law and order in the Ghetto. Józef Andrzej Szeryński (real name: Szynkman), a baptized Jew who had been a State Police officer before the outbreak of the war, became the Chief of the Jewish Police. As a result of a corrupted, mafia-like recruitment system majority of the Jewish Police members came from more affluent sector of the Jewish population. The organization was soon deeply resented by the Ghetto residents, due to its loyalty towards the occupant as well as ruthlessness of many of its members. There was also a number of the Ghetto precincts of the so-called Blue Police[1.6]. It was financed by Polish local governments, but subordinate to the local Commandants of the German Police, Ordnungspolizei. It was established on December 17, 1939 following a decree by the General Governor Hans Frank. Prewar policemen were recruited under death threats as members of the Blue Police.

Initially 400 thousand people of Jewish origin were packed into the “Jewish quarter” by the Nazis. By March 1941 the number increased to 460 thousand. Density of the population reached 120 thousand people per square kilometre. One room often housed 10 people. Apart from the indigenous Warsaw residents, the Ghetto was inhabited by the Jewish population of numerous nearby towns: Błonie, Góra Kalwaria, Grodzisk Mazowiecki, Jeziorna, Karczew, Piaseczno, Pruszków, Skierniewice and Wiązowna among them. Majority of the incomers had no prospects of employment. It is estimated that in autumn of 1941 65% of the Ghetto population was deprived of their basic needs. Many people tried to make ends meet by selling every possible object that presented any value: clothes, books, family keepsakes. Beggars emerged in the streets.

It was strictly forbidden to leave the Ghetto. Death penalty awaited those Poles who would attempt to help Jews[1.7]. Soon many of the Ghetto residents began to suffer from starvation, diseases and difficult sanitary conditions.

“The Jewish Warsaw is deteriorating. It is a cemetery, skeletons of the dead are strolling down the streets. (…) Sidewalks are immensely crowded. (…) Wherever you look, you see people limping, crippled, blind, missing an arm or a leg”[1.8].

In the spring of 1941 the number of round-ups in the Ghetto increased, as did the number of people sent to forced labour camps in Drewnica, Łęki Sosnowe, Narty and Skierniewice. Conditions in the camps were extremely difficult. Labourers were forced to engage in roadworks, construction work, drainage and farm work. They were often treated with cruelty and forced to perform beyond human capabilities. The slightest offence was punished by death. Slave labour was also prevalent within the Ghetto walls, in the so-called shops – workshops of various kinds. The employees of the shops had to do piecework for 11 hours per day whilst being paid minimal salary, often not enough to afford a loaf of bread.

Life in the Ghetto was deteriorating daily. Average food ration per day was about 180 calories. Prices of food soared and exceeded prices for similar products on the Aryan side. More and more people were suffering from starvation.

“There are houses inhabited by the Jewish poor, like the one on Wołyńska Street, where the whole families are dying. Sometimes the last remaining family member passes away and lies there until the neighbours begin to smell the reek of a dead body. (…) In some of the houses on Wołyńska Street rats would eat up corpses that were lying there for a number of days. In the building at 7 Wołyńska Street ten flats have been vacated. All occupants passed away. Passing away of all families within one day became quite commonplace” (entry from the end of August 1941)[1.9].

Harsh sanitary conditions together with extreme overcrowding and lack of proper medical care quickly led to the outburst of typhus and typhoid fever. This was in line with Fischer’s plan, according to which “Jews will die of starvation and poverty, and the only Jewish issue remaining will be a cemetery.” As a result of starvation and disease mortality in the Ghetto increase tenfold. In January 1938 454 Jews died in Warsaw whereas in January 1942 the number of deaths increased to 5123. Up until July 1942 an estimated 100 thousand people died in the Warsaw Ghetto. People often died in the streets and the sidewalks were paved with corpses. Dead bodies collected from the streets were then buried in enormous mass graves at the Jewish cemetery on Okopowa Street in the Wola quarter.

“The dead are buried at night, between 1 am and 5 am, with no shrouds, covered with white paper (which is later removed), in mass graves. Initially the corpses were put in separate graves, one next to the other, nowadays they are all put together. There is no more space to bury the dead. (…) The cemetery is frequently visited by various groups of ramblers (soldiers, civilians), most of whom show no compassion towards the Jews (…). The shed filled up with tens of dead bodies is an object of special interest. I was there today. It is pure macabre. Loads of corpses lying there, covered with black paper, with shreds of clothing, like in a slaughterhouse. The dead bodies look like skeletons, all you see is bones under the thin layer of skin (entry from June 20, 1941)[1.10].

The tragic situation of the people tightly packed in the Ghetto was worsened still by the Nazi terror. Daily executions, assaults, robbery were commonplace. Some streets, for example Karmelicka or Wołyńska, were called death gorges, due to the high number of killings from the hands of the Nazis. The guards from Pawiak prison used to shoot for sport at people they spotted on balconies or in windows of the surrounding buildings. For the Nazi Germans human life presented no value whatsoever.

Among the almost half-million large community of the Warsaw Ghetto there were substantial differences in material status. Initially the fate of the more affluent residents was markedly different from that of the poverty-stricken ones. There was a group which, due to contacts, artfulness and wealth, led a relatively comfortable life in the Ghetto. However, it soon transpired that the German plan of the extermination of European Jews did not provide for any exceptions.

Despite the enormous threat some of the people residing in the Ghetto decided to engage in conspiratorial activities. In March 1942 the Anti-Fascist Block was formed, initiated by leftist activists: Józef Lewartowski, Mordechaj Anielewicz, Josef Kaplan, Szachno Sagan, Józef Sak, Icchak Cukierman and Cywia Lubetkin. This unit was a seedbed for the Jewish Fighting Organization (Yiddish: Yidishe Kamf Organizatsye) which was established few months later. In the autumn of 1942 the Jewish Military Union was established, armed resistance unit formed by Zionists-Revisionists from the Zionist Organization, New Zionist Organization and Betar, presided over by Leon Rodal and Paweł Frenkel. The Union’s headquarters was at 7 Muranowska Street. The first armed attack organized by the Jewish fighters was against Józef Szeryński, head of the Jewish Policing Service. On 25 August 1942 he was shot by Izrael Kanał from the Akiva group. News about the death sentence imposed on him spread through the Ghetto. On 29 October 1942 Szeryński’s assistant, Jakub Lejkin, was shot dead on Gęsia Street and a month later the Jewish Fighting Organization fighters shot dead Izrael First, head of the Economic Department of the Jewish Council.

“We have to persevere, so that we can punish those who tortured our brothers and sisters, our children and parents to death. We will avenge all those who fell victim from the murderous hands whilst fighting for freedom and human dignity” (fragments from the Bund’s proclamation)[1.11].

Another form of conspiratorial activity was organizing the underground archive of the Ghetto. From dr Emanuel Ringelblum’s initiative members of the conspiratorial group Oneg Shabbat wrote down a chronicle of daily events, collected documents, prints and testimonials. The purpose of their activity was to document the extermination process of the Jewish population. The reports of the group members were sent to the authorities of the Polish Underground, Polish Government-in-Exile and to the Allies.

Various political organizations were involved in conspiratorial activity in the Ghetto. The activity focused on, among other things, providing material help to residents of the Ghetto, for example organizing soup kitchen (the Bund) but also organizing cultural and academic meetings, during which current topics like the situation on the warfront were discussed. The secret school system was also introduced. Conspiratorial press printing played crucial role in fighting the occupant. From May 1940 till mid-July 1942 over 50 titles were printed using hectographic method. The papers discussed situation of the Jews in the Nazi occupied areas, state of affairs at the warfront and a new order which would prevail in the world after the end of the war[1.12].

At the beginning of 1942 the Nazis began the Reinhard Aktion, or “the final solution to the Jewish question” in the General Government. In the spring transports of Jews from Germany, Czech and Moravia Protectorate and the eastern section of the Warsaw district started pouring into Warsaw. The Romani population was also brought in. On the night of April 17, 1942 Germans murdered 53 people in the Ghetto, thus embarking on a long series of assassinations. A few hundreds of people were taken to work at constructing the extermination camp Treblinka II. In May 1942 a new wall was erected near the sidetracks on Stawki Street.

The Gross-Aktion Warschau, the great liquidation action started on July 22, 1942, on the eve of the 9th day of the Jewish month Av (Tisha be-Av). During the day the Ghetto wall was covered with following announcements:

1.      Following the German administration orders all Jews residing in Warsaw, regardless of their sex or age, will be resettled to the East.
2.      People excluded from the resettlement:

a.      All Jews employed by the Administration or by German enterprises, who can present an adequate proof of such employment,
b.      All Jews who are members of the Jewish Council or employed by it on the day of the announcement of the above proclamation,
c.      All Jews employed by companies belonging to the Third Reich, who can present an adequate proof of such employment,
d.      All Jews capable of labour, so far not engaged in the employment process; those should be garrisoned in the Jewish quarter,
e.      All Jews belonging to the Jewish Policing Service,
f.      All Jews who are members of Jewish hospitals’ personnel, as well as those belonging to Jewish disinfection columns,
g.      All Jews who are close family members of those listed in a.-f. Solely wives and children are considered close family members.
h.      All Jews who are patients of one of the Jewish hospitals on the day of resettlement and do not qualify to be released. Inability to be released must be confirmed by a medical doctor assigned by the Jewish Council.

3.      Each resettled Jew has a right to take up to 15kg of belongings as hand luggage. Luggage exceeding 15 kg will be confiscated. All valuables such as money, jewellery, gold etc. may be taken. Food supplies for 3 days are recommended.

4.      Resettlement will begin on July 22, 1942 at 11 am.

5.      Penalties:

a.      Every Jew not falling into categories listed under 2, points a. and c., and thus far not eligible to the above, who will leave the Jewish quarter from the moment the resettlement action commences, will be shot dead.
b.      Every Jew who will try to circumvent or impede the resettlement action in any way, will be shot dead.
c.      Every Jew who will help in circumvention or impediment of the resettlement action will be shot dead.
d.      All Jews encountered in Warsaw after the resettlement action had been completed, who do not fall into categories listed under 2, points a. to h., will be shot dead.

On July 22 Germans loaded the Jews who were staying in the refugee centres, some inmates from “Gęsiówka” and beggars onto the carriages. 6250 people in total were transported to the Nazi extermination camp Treblinka II. On the following day Adam Czerniaków, head of the Jewish Council, committed suicide. He left a note for his wife: “They want me to kill the children of my nation with my own bare hands. There is nothing else left for me to do but die.”

“I cannot condemn innocent children to death. I decided to part with this life. Do not look at it as an act of cowardice or an escape. I am helpless, my heart is broken with grief and compassion for I cannot take this any longer. My deed will reveal the truth to you, and perhaps lead you on the right path of action. I am fully aware that my legacy is burdensome” (July 23, 1942)[1.13].

In the following days the specified houses were surrounded by German soldiers and by the Jewish Policing Service. The residents were gathered in courtyards, where perfunctory selections were performed.

“A relentless manhunt is taking place around us all day long. (…) On Nowolipie Street (…) Jewish policemen, ordered by an SSman, took an elderly woman downstairs, together with a chair – she must have been paralysed or crippled. The German ordered them to put her in the street, he then stood a metre away from her, and looking her straight in the eye, slowly pull out a gun and, amidst the dead silence, pulled the trigger[1.14]

“A German gendarme in the Aryan quarter caught a Jewish mother with a baby in her arms, who managed to escape from the Ghetto. He shot the mother dead, threw the baby on the ground, trampled on it and then opened the sewer’s trapdoor and through the still-alive baby in there. All this happened on July 24, 1942 on Okopowa Street, near the Jewish cemetery”[1.15].

People were formed into columns and forced to proceed to the reloading point, the so-called Umschlagplatz on Stawki Street, where they waited until the appropriate number of people was assembled. Sometimes they waited for a few days, getting weaker and weaker from the lack of food and drink. In addition, the guards were extraordinarily brutal towards the assembled people, beat them up or even murdered for the slightest of offences. The elderly and the crippled were separated from their families and taken to the Jewish cemetery, where they were shot dead over a mass grave. According to the report from, most likely, the archive of the Information and Propaganda Bureau of the Main Headquarters of the Home Army, each day Germans murdered roughly between 60 and 100 people brought from the Umschlagplatz to the cemetery[1.16].

When the appropriate number of people was assembled in the Umschlagplatz, the Germans, helped by the Jewish Police, brutally forced them to enter the freight cars. Each car was packed with 100-120 people, beaten up with rifle butts. Floors of freight cars were sprinkled with quicklime, which burnt people’s feet and suffocated them. Corpses of those shot dead during loading the car were scattered on the railway ramps. Trains, watched over by armed guards, set off to Treblinka via Wołomin, Tłuszcz and Małkinia.

There were people who tried to escape the transports. Despite the crush, sometimes they managed to break a wooden panel of the freight car and jump. Many of those died while jumping, having hit the rails or a roadside pole, others were shot dead by the transport guards. The few who managed to escape sought refuge in the woodland or in nearby villages.

The journey lasted several days. The last stop was the Nazi extermination camp Treblinka II, where people were murdered in gas chambers. Each day the Nazis sent off thousands of people from the Umschlagplatz to death. The “Aktion” lasted uninterruptedly until September 24, 1942.

According to the German sources 253 742 Jews were sent away during 46 days of the “Aktion”. According to the Jewish sources, the Ghetto population decreased by over 300 thousand (including 10.300 deceased or murdered in the Ghetto, 11.580 deported to the Dulag), circa 8 thousand escaped to the Aryan side[1.17].

Houses forlorn or moribund, streets full of barbed wire barriers, fences separating one residential block from another, but above all poignant lack of people, who only two months ago filled up the Ghetto’s main arteries, hurrying to their daily activities, selling and buying, working – desolation not known even at a time of black death or plague – this is an image of the Jewish Quarter in Warsaw in September 1942. Snippets of people sneaking along the walls, pavement splattered with blood, smoke from smouldering street fires which are slowly dying away, sharp reek of burning – all of these form the image of a city of death, where before the dreadful July 22, within 10km of the wall surrounding the Ghetto, 370 thousand people were vegetating” (fragments from Jan Karski’s report entitled: “Likwidacja żydowskiej Warszawy”[1.18].

According to Ludwig Fischer’s notes, there were 35 thousand Jews left in the Warsaw Ghetto after the resettlement Aktion. In August 1942 the so-called Little Ghetto was liquidated. Those who managed to escape deportations remained in the Ghetto. They were mostly young and single people who lost their families and for whom belonging to whatever organization filled the void of what they had lost. The majority of Ghetto residents were overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness and detachment. Some of them knew a true meaning of the slogan: “Resettlement to the East”, but not everybody chose to believe it. The Germans introduced curfew. The only gate leading to the Ghetto was at the corner of Gęsia and Zamenhoffa/Dzika Streets. Residents of the Ghetto were used as labour force in factories called shops (amongst them a factory belonging to Walter Toebbens). Employment at one of the shop gave hope for survival and avoiding the resettlement. At that period conspiratorial press ceased to be printed in the Ghetto, except for one title – the Bund’s “Oyf der Vakh” (“On Guard”).

The idea of an armed resistance against the German occupant, of not allowing to be taken alive to the Umschlagplatz, was born out of fear, terror and prevailing belief that the end is near. On July 28, 1942 the Jewish Fighting Organization was formed. It consisted of members of youth movements: HaShomer Hatzair, Dror and Akivah. On October 15, 1942 further organizations joined the Organization: The Jewish Labour Bund, Gordonia, Poaley-Zion Right, Ha-Noar ha-Zioni and the Polish Workers’ Party (PPR). The leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization were: Mordechai Anielewicz (commendant, Hashomer Hatzair), Hersh Berliński (Poaley-Zion Left), Johanan Morgenstern (Poaley-Zion Right), Icchak Cukierman (nickname: Antek, Dror), Berek Sznajdmil (Bund, soon replaced by Marek Edelman) and most probably Michał Rosenfeld (Polish Workers Party; Polish: Polska Partia Robotnicza, PPR). Arye Wilner (nickname Jurek, Hashomer Hatzair) was the liaison officer with the Polish Underground. Towards the end of October 1942 The Jewish National Committee, which became the political administration of the Jewish fighting Organization, was formed by the Zionists and the Socialists (with the exception of Bund). Its main purpose was to prepare the Jewish community to fight and resist. It was in close contact with the Provisional Committee to Aid Jews (ŻEGOTA) and the Home Army. Bund agreed to cooperate with The Jewish National Committee via conjoint Coordination Commission of the Jewish National Committee and the Bund, which represented the Jewry to the Polish Underground[1.19].

On 2 December 1942 the existing Jewish organizations restructured into an extended Jewish Fighting Organization. It included 22 armed divisions (14 of Zionist persuasion) consisting of “soldiers” aged between 19 and 25 years. Members of the Jewish Fighting Organization were very active in attaining information about the situation outside the Ghetto walls, and in other cities and towns, through their emissaries and liaison officers between the Ghetto and the “Aryan” world. The underground structures of the Ghetto were being rebuilt and reinforced, and material resources were sought to purchase arms requisite for putting up a fight. Bunkers were being built. Thanks to the Polish Underground and its courier, Jan Karski, the Oneg Shabbat report entitled “Liquidation of the Jewish Warsaw” was sent to the West; alas, none of the Western administrations credited the report.

The other conspiratorial cell active in the Ghetto was the Jewish Military Organization, known under the name of the Jewish Military Union. It consisted mainly of the members of the Zionist-Revisionist Union and Betar. The headquarters of the Jewish Military Union were located at 7 Muranowska Street. Members of the Union produced as well as smuggled arms into the Ghetto through a specially constructed tunnel[1.20].

On Monday, 19 April 1943 at dawn the German forces (circa 2 thousand people, under colonel Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg’s command) entered the deserted Ghetto via gate on Nalewki Street, with intent of a final liquidation. The forces encountered resistance from the Ghetto residents – few hundreds of poorly armed members of the Jewish Fighting Organization and the Jewish Military Union. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began – the last chapter in the history of the Warsaw Ghetto.