The warsaw uprising began in april 1943 after the german soldiers and police started to deport people. Between July 22 and September 12, 1942, the German authorities deported or murdered around 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto. So why was this uprising so important?

265,000 Jews to the Treblinka killing center and 11,580 to forced-labor camps. The Germans and their auxiliaries murdered more than 10,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto during the deportation operations. The German authorities granted only 35,000 Jews permission to remain in the ghetto, while more than 20,000 Jews remained in the ghetto in hiding.

In response to the deportations, on July 28, 1942, several Jewish underground organizations created an armed self-defense unit known as the Jewish Combat Organization (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ZOB). Rough estimates put the size of the ZOB at its formation at around 200 members. The Revisionist Party (right-wing Zionists known as the Betar) formed another resistance organization, the Jewish Military Union (Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy; ZZW). Although initially there was tension between the ZOB and the ZZW, both groups decided to work together to oppose German attempts to destroy the ghetto.

After seizing 5,000-6,500 ghetto residents to be deported, the Germans suspended further deportations on January 21. Encouraged by the apparent success of the resistance, which they believed may have halted deportations, members of the ghetto population began to construct subterranean bunkers and shelters in preparation for an uprising should the Germans attempt a final deportation of all remaining Jews in the reduced ghetto.

After four weeks, the main fighting was over. Most of the remaining Jews were rounded up, but it actually took many months of combing through the ruins before the uprising was fully put down.

Although the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was not ultimately “successful,” it marked the first time in all of German-occupied Europe that organized resistance was carried out against the Nazis. This encouraged others, and was followed by Jewish resistance in other places, including concentration camps. In October 1944 at Auschwitz, Jewish women smuggled in explosives and helped destroy part of the crematorium.

This historcal event was very short but very important to jewish people that they were able to stay up and defend themselve at some point in their lives.