During the Holocaust, Nazis made Ghettos to hold Jews in one place. The Jews were usually held in Ghettos when they were waiting to be deported, and sent to a concentration camp. At the camps the Jews were put through hard physical labor, or sentenced to death.
One of the Ghettos that were created was called the Warsaw Ghetto. Between July 22 and September 12, 1942 Germans deported or killed around 300,000 Jews. During this time, on an island in Bermuda, American and British citizens met to make a plan for what their countries could do to help the Jews.
The Germans only let 35,000 Jews remain in the ghetto afterwards. Apart from the 35,000 Jews allowed to stay living in the ghetto, more than 20,000 Jews stayed in hiding. On July 28, 1942, the Jews that stayed in hiding in the Warsaw Ghetto created a self-defense unit called the Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ZOB) and a Jewish Military Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy, ZZW) to get ready for an uprising because of the massive deportations of Jews that took place not too long before then. The German’s intended to get rid of all of the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto by deporting or killing them. When they started, the Jews were ready to attack. The evacuation of the Warsaw Ghetto started on April 19, 1943; the eve of passover. On the first day of the uprising, the Jews forced the Germans outside of the ghetto walls with their weaponry. By the third day of the uprising, the Germans decided to burn down the Ghetto in attempt to force the Jews out of hiding. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising went on for almost a month. By the end of the uprising, the Germans had won. 7,000 Jews, and 300 Germans were estimated to have died during the uprising. The Germans symbolized their victory by burning down the Jews “Great Synagogue” on May 16, 1943. When the uprising finally ended, the Germans murdered all of the Jews that were deported from the Warsaw Ghetto. This event took place in November 1943. The Germans named the event “Operation Harvest Festival.”
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was the first civic uprising that took place in German-occupied Europe. This event was important because the uprising lead to other uprisings against the Germans. It showed that the Jews weren't afraid of the Germans and would fight for their lives. Though many more uprisings took place after, the Warsaw Ghetto was always the largest, symbolically most important Jewish uprising.
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10005188):
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