Today, we commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, in which a group of brave Jews stood up against the German Nazi oppressors who occupied Poland in World War II.
It is our duty and honor to remember the heroism of the fighters who took up arms and defended themselves, often with homemade weapons, from the German soldiers attempting to exterminate the remaining Jewish population of the Ghetto. When it was formed in 1940, just a few square blocks became home to more than 400,000 men, women, and children, who were kept under starvation conditions, in some cases for years.
By the start of the uprising, on April 19, 1943, the vast majority of those who had been imprisoned together were dead, either because of conditions in the ghetto itself, or because of deportations to killing centers. It was the last stand of brave people even as the Ghetto was being liquidated.
It was the first armed revolt in occupied Europe held in an urban area, and showed the undying defiance of Polish Jews; even in their last moments they fought for their dignity.
The best-known images from the uprising are of heroes, such as Mordechai Anielevich fighting in the last stronghold of Mila 18, or Pawel Frenkel of the Beitar movement, who placed two flags—Polish and Jewish—on the top of Muranowski Square. As much as the Germans wanted to take them down, they flew proudly for many days.
The defiance of the Warsaw Ghetto fighters will be long remembered, but their story is only a small part of the struggle for life in this hell architected by the Nazis. It is also our duty to remember the larger story of Jewish life in the Ghetto, with its more quotidian heroes. Thanks to the extraordinary efforts of Emanuel Ringelblum, it is possible to see a vivid picture of how people lived, not just how they died.
The stories gathered by Ringelblum encompassed many areas of daily life: the care and education of children; the smuggling that brought in extra food to the starving population; the provision of health services; the care of orphans, and much else. Each effort had its own leaders, all people of valor.
Ringelblum was a true visionary; a historian and social activist who created something that transcended his short life. (He was just 38 years old when he was incarcerated in the Warsaw Ghetto along with his wife and young son.) His idea, simple but remarkable, was to create a secret archive of life in the Ghetto that would live beyond himself and those trapped with him. To aid in the effort, he initially recruited a few of his friends. Soon, his researchers and correspondents grew to a group of around 70 people.
Together, they documented everyday life, but also German atrocities against the Jews in Poland.
They gathered 35,000 pages of documents, reports of the underground press, resolutions of the Ghetto's rabbinate, and seemingly ordinary bits of paper—like a candy wrapper or an invitation to a cultural event. Ringelblum collected personal documents, passes, diaries, wall posters, photographs, reports, interviews, transcripts of Allied radio communications, statistics, and so much more.
The material shows the close contact between Jewish groups and the Polish underground. These righteous men and women helped Jewish children, provided forged documentation, and passed along reports of the dire situation to the Polish government in exile in London.
The Polish resistance helped the famous courier Jan Karski visit the Ghetto and escape to report the horrific scenes he had witnessed to the British government, and even to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in person.
But the world was not ready to comprehend—or care—about the German commission of atrocities that was official government doctrine. The world was unheeding of the fact that the Nazis were murdering Jews (as well as the Roma/Sinti and other stigmatized groups) on an industrial scale at camps such as Treblinka, Sobibor, Maidanek, Belzec, Auschwitz/Birkenau. The Nazis had already killed more than one million Jews by bullets across Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, modern Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia.
Ringelblum and his team—with the liquidation of the Ghetto underway and the uprising on the horizon—buried this precious archive in three parts. A trove of tin boxes went first into a bunker beneath a school building at 68 Nowlipki Street. Later, two milk cans joined them. A third installment was buried in a separate location, but never found. by miracle was discovered in the ruins of Warsaw getto, near Nowolipki street, after the war. It became known as the Oneg Shabbat Archive, or the "Ringelblum Archive." It has become a primary source of learning about the Holocaust.
The Archive doesn't just serve the academic community. The original documents can be seen today at the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, as part of the permanent exhibition. The Institute itself is in the library former Great Synagogue of Warsaw. The synagogue itself was destroyed by the Nazis on May 16, 1943, as a sign that resistance in the Warsaw ghetto had been quashed. Photos of the destruction were sent directly to German leader Adolf Hitler.
Traces of the fire from the explosion are visible on the floor of the main hall of the Institute until this day. The scar is a daily reminder of the martyrdom of the Jewish people and their heritage in Poland.
Monika Krawczyk is director of the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw, Poland.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
Uncommon Knowledge
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
To read how Newsweek uses AI as a newsroom tool, Click here.
