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Today, Wednesday, Warsaw is hosting ceremonies to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. This historic event is a powerful reminder of the courage of the Jewish resistance fighters who fought against Nazi forces during World War II.
On April 19, 1943, hundreds of brave Jewish fighters stood up to Nazi Germany’s military forces in a desperate attempt to save Jews from being sent to death camps. Despite the odds being stacked against them, the uprising was a defiant act of courage and defiance.
This morning, Israeli President Isaac Herzog, German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, and Polish President Andrzej Duda gathered in Warsaw to commemorate the 76th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. At 12 pm, sirens sounded across the city in solidarity with those who rose up against the Nazis during World War II.
“The presidential couples of Poland, Germany and Israel are taking part in a ceremony to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,”
the Chancellery of the President of Poland wrote on Twitter.
An uprising that cost the lives of an estimated 13,000 Jews raged in the Warsaw Ghetto for nearly a month before being quelled by Nazi forces. Following the defeat of the Jewish fighters, the Nazis completed the liquidation of the ghetto, sending some 50,000 people to death camps.
Once home to 450,000 Jews, Warsaw’s ghetto was the largest in Nazi-occupied Europe. Tragically, most of these people were killed in death camps or perished due to starvation or disease within the ghetto itself.