Editing Mordechai Anielewicz (section)

====Warsaw Ghetto uprising====
[[File:Mapa warszawskiego getta pomnik granic getta ul. Świętojerska.JPG|thumb|[[Warsaw Ghetto boundary markers|Warsaw Ghetto boundary marker]] in Świętojerska Street in Warsaw]]
[[File:Aerial photograph of the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto.jpg|thumb|1944 Aerial photograph of the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto]]

In October 1942, the Jewish resistance managed to establish contact with the Polish [[Home Army]], which was able to smuggle a small number of weapons and explosives into the ghetto. Since the end of September 1942, the Jews started building fortified bunkers and shelters in the Warsaw Ghetto, and there were 600 by January 1943. Each fighter had a gun and several hand grenades (many of them home-made) or [[Molotov cocktails]]. There was however a lack of ammunition and heavier weapons{{snd}}only a few rifles, ground mines, and one machine gun were available.{{Citation needed|date=February 2025}}

On 18 January 1943, the Germans resumed deportation. Anielewicz, together with other members of [[Jewish Combat Organization|ŻOB]] and [[Jewish Military Union|ŻZW]], decided to act. They were armed with five revolvers, five grenades, Molotov cocktails, crowbars and clubs.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Ainsztein |first1=Reuben |title=The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt |date=1979 |publisher=Holocaust Library |location=New York |isbn=9780896040076 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=be9tAAAAMAAJ}}<!-- name is spelled Sukiennik in this book--></ref>Twelve of them joined a group of evacuated Jews and attacked the German soldiers on the contracted signal. The fighters joined the line of hundreds of prisoners concentrated on Mila Street. As they reached the corner of Zamenhof and Niska, they attacked, each member of the unit targeting a German soldier. In the subsequent confusion, part of the deported Jews managed to escape. Most of the resistance in the attack died. Towards the end Anielewicz, surrounded by several gendarmes, was saved by [[Yitzhak Suknik]] throwing two grenades at the SS officers who were pursuing him, one grenade killing two Germans whilst the others ran away, allowing Anielewicz to escape.<ref>[Devastation and mutiny of Warsaw Jews by Melech Neustadt Print Achdot Inc. Tel-Aviv 1947]</ref><ref>[Ainsztein, Reuben (1979). The Warsaw Ghetto Revolt. New York: Holocaust Library. ISBN 9780896040076.]</ref><ref>[Noy, Melech (1948). Ḥurbn un oyfshṭand fun di Yidn in Ṿarshe eydes-bleṭer un azḳoreʹs (in Yiddish). Tel-Aviv: Ṿaadat ha-Golah fun der Algemeyner Yidisher arbeṭer-organizatsye (ha-Histadrut ha-kelalit) in Erets Yiśraʼel. pp. 533–4.]</ref> This first case of armed resistance was of great importance. Among other things, it led to the greater willingness of the Polish underground to provide weapons to the Jewish resistance.<ref>{{cite web|last1=Shalev|first1=Ziva|title=Tosia Altman|url=https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/altman-tosia|website=Jewish Women's Archive}}</ref> Not all weapons, however, came from underground groups. Some of them ŻOB bought from arms dealers. The beginning of the revolt was a prelude to the [[Warsaw Ghetto uprising]] that began on 19 April. During these three months, Anielewicz's leadership underwent intensive preparations for the further clashes with the Germans. He decided to use the [[guerrilla warfare|guerrilla]] way of fighting with a vast network of tunnels, bunkers, roofs and surprise moments.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Mordechaj Anielewicz - charakterystyka - Hanna Krall |url=https://poezja.org/wz/interpretacja/4794/Mordechaj_Anielewicz__charakterystyka |access-date=2022-06-02 |website=poezja.org}}</ref> He believed that enough Jews could withstand the ghetto for months. A day after the Germans suspended deportations, he wrote an open letter to the people of the ghetto under the name of the Jewish Battle Organization:

<blockquote>To the Jewish Masses in the Ghetto <br><br/>On January 22, 1943, six months will have passed since the deportations from Warsaw began. We all remember well the days of terror during which 300,000 of our brothers and sisters were cruelly put to death in the death camp of Treblinka. Six months have passed of life in constant fear of death, not knowing what the next day may bring. We have received information from all sides about the destruction of the Jews in the Government-General, in Germany, in the occupied territories. When we listen to this bitter news we wait for our own hour to come, every day and every moment. Today we must understand that the Nazi murderers have let us live only because they want to make use of our capacity to work to our last drop of blood and sweat, to our last breath. We are slaves, and when slaves are no longer profitable, they are killed. Everyone among us must understand that, and everyone among us must remember it always.</blockquote>
[[File:Warsaw_Ghetto_in_flames.jpg|thumb|right|[[Warsaw Ghetto]] in flames. Photo taken in the end of April 1943 from an overpass which connect Żoliborz district with Warsaw's downtown]]

The final destruction of the ghetto and deportation of the remaining Jews began on 19 April, at 6&nbsp;am, the day before [[Adolf Hitler]]'s birthday and [[Passover]]. SS functionary [[Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg]] sent 850 soldiers (German and Ukrainian) to Warsaw with sixteen officers who accompanied a light tank and two armored cars.<ref name="MosheArens">{{cite book|last1=Arens|first1=Moshe|title=Flags Over the Warsaw Ghetto: The Untold Story of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|date=2011|isbn=9789652295279|pages=189–190|publisher=Gefen Publishing House |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HFMHEnxB7ywC&q=Flags+Over+the+Warsaw+Ghetto}}</ref> Members of Jewish resistance groups attacked groups of German soldiers with pistols, grenades, and Molotov cocktails from roofs, balconies, windows, doors and adjoining courtyards. Although the Germans had military superiority, they were not prepared whatsoever for the guerrilla way of fighting they had encountered. On the contrary, Jews had a perfect knowledge of the environment, relied on a number of hiding places, and were difficult to target because of the interconnection of individual houses. After two hours of intense fighting, the Germans withdrew. 
[[File:anilevich.jpg|thumb|left|Anielewicz and girlfriend [[Mira Fuchrer]] in the destroyed Warsaw Ghetto (a painting by Shimon Garmize)]]

At 11:00 the next morning, soldiers under the command of SS General [[Jürgen Stroop]] entered the ghetto, where again they encountered hard resistance from approximately 750 Jewish defenders. Stroop set up artillery and sent soldiers to look for the hiding Jews. In the afternoon of the same day, there was a symbolic event where two Jewish boys climbed to the roof of one of the houses where they put Polish and Jewish flags. Both of them were in the eye of not only to Stroop, but also [[Heinrich Himmler|Himmler]]. On the evening of the first day, Stroop withdrew his men.

During the following days, the Germans broke the tough resistance with the use of artillery and flame throwers. The smoke and heat from the fire forced a number of Jews to leave their shelters, and some chose to commit suicide by jumping from the windows of burning houses, or they escaped through the sewage lines that were still connected to the Gentile part of the city after the construction of the ghetto. On the third day of the collision, Stroop changed tactics and tried to avoid direct confrontation to reduce the number of German losses. After over four days of fighting, the Jewish headquarters in [[Muranów]] fell. Most of the defenders were dead or wounded, and many escaped outside the ghetto.

On 23 April, a bunker was built under the house on Miła Street. Until 25 April, the Germans captured 25,500 Jews.<ref name="Plunka">{{cite book |last1=Plunka |first1=Gene |title=Staging Holocaust Resistance |date=2012 |publisher=Palgrave Macmillan |isbn=978-0230369566 |pages=49–51 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ppbMygAACAAJ}}</ref> At the end of the month, many bunkers and hiding places were exposed and most homes were burned to the ground. On 7 May, a group led by [[Zivia Lubetkin]] set out from the Command Bunkhouse under the Miła Street through a complex sewer system to find an escape route from the ghetto. The same day, however, the bunker was discovered by the Germans{{snd}}at that time, there were two hundred people,<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://www.liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/books/id/40098/|title=Nazism, 1919–1945|date=1988–2001|publisher=Liverpool University Press|others=Jeremy Noakes, Geoffrey Pridham|isbn=978-0-85989-602-3|volume=3|pages=577|language=English}}</ref> including Anielewicz and his girlfriend. On 7 May Stroop reported the discovery of the bunker of inner 'party leadership' to [[Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger|Krüger]], and the following day, he reported to the high command that Nazi forces had breached the bunker and the "deputy head of the Jewish military organization ZWZ" (presumably Anielewicz) had successfully been "captured and liquidated".<ref name=":0" /> With no surviving eyewitnesses to confirm Stroop's claims,<ref name=":0" /> the fate of Anielewicz is unknown; it is assumed that he died on 8 May 1943, alongside his girlfriend and advisors, at the surrounded ŻOB command post at [[Miła 18|18 Miła Street]]. His body was never found and it is believed that it was buried in the ruins of the bunker (covered by the debris of Mila Street) – a site memorialized today as a gravesite – or carried off to nearby [[Crematorium|crematoria]] among the dead. The Germans had fired into the fortified headquarters with gas hoses to expel the hiding Jewish fighters to the surface. Countless had fought to their last breaths amid pure chaos, many succumbing to poison gas or taking their own lives to avoid capture.<ref name=":0" />  From the bunker, only a handful of them managed to penetrate the sewer network.
[[File:Stroop Report - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising BW.jpg|link=A Jewish boy surrenders in Warsaw|thumb|right|260px|Jews from the ghetto captured after the rebellion was suppressed]]
[[File:Zamenhofa Mila Warsaw 1964.jpg|thumb|right|260px|Site of Mila 18 in 1964]]

Several days before the final suppression of the rebellion and shortly after the destruction of the Command Bunker, a rescue operation was carried out, during which about eighty Jewish fighters were transferred to a so-called Aryan section of the city and taken to safety. The event was organized by [[Yitzhak Zuckerman]] and [[Simcha Rotem]]. Although the Germans planned to destroy the ghetto within three days, the struggles lasted for four weeks and they didn't suppress them definitively until 16 May 1943, when Operation Commander [[Jürgen Stroop]] symbolically ended the explosion of the [[Great Synagogue (Warsaw)|Great Synagogue in Warsaw]]. Yet, after many months, the remaining surviving Jews were attacking German patrols. Most of those who managed to escape from the ghetto became guerrillas but were often shot or committed suicide to avoid capture. Many of them later fought alongside the Poles during the [[Warsaw uprising]] in 1944. According to an [[Stroop Report|official German report]], written by Stroop, the German army captured 57,065 Jews and destroyed 631 bunkers. He estimated that 7,000 Jews died during the rebellion, and another 7,000 German authorities deported to Treblinka. The remaining Jews, around 42,000, were deported to [[Majdanek concentration camp|Majdanek]], [[Poniatowa concentration camp|Poniatowa]], [[Trawniki concentration camp|Trawniki]], [[Budzyń concentration camp|Budzyń]], and [[Kraśnik]] camps. With the exception of several thousand prisoners in the Budzyń and Krasnik camps, the remaining Warsaw Jews from other camps were murdered in November 1943, during [[Aktion Erntefest]].