1943

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising begins as Jewish fighters resist the final liquidation

German troops entered streets that looked abandoned because tens of thousands of people were already concealed beneath them. By evening the assault force had been driven back.

Before dawn on 19 April 1943

Before dawn on 19 April 1943, German SS, police and auxiliary forces — including 350 Trawniki-trained auxiliaries — sealed the Warsaw ghetto, then entered intending to liquidate it and deport the surviving inhabitants.

ŻOB had advance warning and had told residents to go into prepared bunkers and hiding places. Nearly all of them had, which is why the streets were deserted when the Germans arrived.

That mass refusal to report for deportation was itself a form of resistance, in a ghetto where only several hundred people had firearms.

Two organizations, two sectors

ŻOB fighters, commanded by Mordechai Anielewicz, attacked around the Nalewki–Gęsia–Zamenhofa–Miła intersections. ŻZW fighters defended positions around Muranowski Square, under a separate command structure.

They fought with pistols, grenades and incendiary bottles from buildings and rooftops, and forced the first German assault force to withdraw. About 700 Jewish fighters took part over the course of the uprising.

ŻZW's records and most of its leadership were destroyed, so its strength and the details of the Muranowski Square fighting are less securely documented than ŻOB's.

A roundup becomes a month of arson

After the first assault failed, Jürgen Stroop assumed operational control and the Germans began burning and demolishing the ghetto block by block rather than completing the liquidation in days.

Stroop's own records list no German deaths and 24 wounded for 19 April, and 16 killed with 85 wounded for the whole operation. His claimed total of 56,065 Jews 'caught' mixes people seized, people killed on the spot, estimated deaths in fires and explosions, and deportees — perpetrator accounting, not a casualty count.

Stroop proclaimed the operation complete on 16 May, but Jews remained in the ruins and sporadic resistance continued.

Sources

Researched 24 Aug 2026 8 sources not yet audited Date corrected

How this was checked

Researched from the web into a fact sheet and rewritten from that sheet. This article has not yet had an independent model audit. How the pipeline works →

Date corrected. The research places this at 1943-04-19.

What the sources leave uncertain

The April 19 start date is secure. May 16 was Stroop’s officially proclaimed end, symbolized by his destruction of the Great Synagogue, but isolated Jews remained in the ruins and sporadic resistance continued afterward.
ŻZW’s records and most of its leadership were destroyed, so its strength, command structure, and some details of the Muranowski Square fighting are less securely documented than ŻOB’s history.
Stroop’s totals are perpetrator-generated figures. They are indispensable primary evidence but should be identified as German claims rather than neutral casualty counts.