Parliament pays tribute to WWII Jewish Ghetto insurgents

MPs stand in tribute to the participants of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: photo - PAP/Bartlomiej Zborowski

MPs adopted a resolution that described the insurgency as “a heroic armed attempt to counter the [Nazi] plans for the the final liquidation of the ghetto,” as cited by the Polish Press Agency (PAP).

“It was the first armed rebellion to be held in a city in German-occupied Europe,” the resolution stressed.

The Nazis had established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, and the action was soon followed in other cities and towns across occupied Poland.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was launched on 19 April 1943, following waves of deportations to death camps, and growing intelligence from escapees of the fate that awaited Jews.

“The Jewish insurgents took up arms in defence of human dignity,” the resolution proclaimed.

“The battle was a protest against the indifference of the world to the destruction, as well as an expression of heroic rebellion.”

The resolution also acknowledged some help given to the Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) by the Polish underground.

A number of the very few surviving insurgents, including Marek Edelman (later a Solidarity trade union activist), went on to fight in the 1944 Warsaw Rising against the Nazis.

Poland's Institute of National Remembrance (IPN) presented the original 75-page German report on Wednesday on the liquidation of the ghetto, at the institution's Warsaw headquarters.

The document, written by Jurgen Stroop, who commanded the action, is famed for the triumphant brag that “the Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no more.” (nh)

Be sure to tune in to a special edition of our News from Poland magazine on Friday, 14.00 CET, where we devote the whole programme to the 70th anniversary of the Jewish Ghetto Uprising and the official opening of Warsaw's Museum of the History of Polish Jews