80th Anniversary of the Start of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Eighty years have passed since the day beleaguered, starving, desperate, isolated, and doomed Jewish inmates in the hell of the Warsaw Ghetto, which was established on October 12, 1940, chose to fight their German oppressors. They fought for their dignity as Jews and out of the extremity of their suffering. And they fought alone, almost entirely unaided and all but forgotten by the world.

Nearly half a million Jews were crowded into the Warsaw Ghetto. Tens of thousands died of malnutrition, overcrowding, cold, diseases, and shootings. Over 350,000 Jews were deported to the Treblinka Killing Center. On April 19, 1943, when the Germans returned to destroy the ghetto, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began. Members of the Jewish resistance fought heroically against the Germans keeping them at bay for 3 weeks. Almost all the Jewish resistance fighters, as well as most of the remaining Jews in the ghetto, were murdered.

The stark heroism and bravery of these men and women is unsurpassed in history. It is a marker of Jewish strength, courage and pride and will inspire generations of Jewish youth far into the future. YIVO’s archival collections from that time and place are among the crown jewels of our possessions.

Jonathan Brent
Executive Director & CEO
YIVO Institute for Jewish Research

Pictured: Zalman “Zygmunt” Friedrich was a member of the Bund and the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) in the Warsaw Ghetto. He went on a mission to follow up on the deportees to Treblinka and brought back the shocking news of the atrocities at Treblinka to those in the Ghetto. During the uprising, he was a courier for the fighters. He was killed in combat while escorting the Warsaw Ghetto fighters to a village hiding place.