The armed uprising in the Warsaw ghetto began on 19 April 1943 (14 Nissan 5703). It fell on the eve of Passover, the commemoration of the liberation of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. During the uprising, the remaining Jews in the ghetto defended themselves against the Nazis’ violent liquidation of the ghetto and the impending mass deportation. Before the outbreak of the Second World War and the German invasion of Poland, the Jewish population of Warsaw numbered around 400,000. By October 1940, almost 450,000 Jews had been forced into inhumane conditions in 3.07 km2 of the ghetto, established on 1 April 1940. Even before the mass deportations began in the summer of 1942, almost 100,000 Jews had died of illness and starvation.
The uprising was largely organised by the ŻOB (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa or ‘Jewish Combat Organisation’), a coalition of various Jewish socialist and Zionist youth organisations founded in 1942. These included the Bund, Ha-Shomer Ha-Tzair, Ha-Bonim Dror, Beitar, and Bnei Akiva, formed in part as a response to the systematic mass deportations to the Treblinka extermination camp, around 80 kilometres from Warsaw. At the time of the uprising, only around 56,000 Jews were still living in the Warsaw ghetto.
The uprising lasted for almost four weeks. After the initial successes of the resistance fighters against Waffen-SS, SS auxiliary troops, and police forces, the leading SS commander finally ordered the systematic burning and demolition of buildings and neighbourhoods within the ghetto. The uprising was finally put down on 16 May 1943 with the symbolic destruction of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw by the SS.
13,000 Jews were murdered during the uprising, with almost half of them perishing in the smoke and flames. The surviving 40,000 Jews were shot or deported to the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising served as a model for the Polish resistance. Some survivors of the uprising, including Yitzchak ‘Antek’ Zuckerman (1915-1981), the deputy commander of the ŻOB, founded the Kibbutz Lochamei Ha-Geta’ot (‘Ghetto Fighters’) north of Acre in 1949.
Originally, 14 Nissan was to be chosen as the date for Yom ha-Shoah or Yom ha-Zikaron le-Shoah ve-ha-Gevurah, the day of remembrance for the victims of the Shoah in Israel, in memory of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. However, the date was moved to 27 Nissan due to its direct connection to Passover. Nevertheless, the memory of the uprising plays an important role during the storytelling of the Passover Seder in many Jewish families and communities.
