OCTOBER 12, 1940

WARSAW JEWS ORDERED INTO GHETTO

The Germans announce the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw. All Jewish residents of Warsaw are ordered into the designated area, which will be sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940. Construction of a wall, more than 10 feet high and topped with barbed wire, begins. The Germans guard the ghetto boundary closely to prevent movement between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. The Warsaw ghetto is the largest of the ghettos in both area and population. More than 350,000 Jews--about 30 percent of the city's population--are confined in about 2.4 percent of the city's total area.

JULY 22, 1942

WARSAW JEWS DEPORTED TO TREBLINKA KILLING CENTER

Between July 22 and mid-September 1942, over 300,000 people are deported from the Warsaw ghetto: more than 250,000 of them are deported to the Treblinka killing center. Deportees are forced to the Umschlagplatz (deportation point), which is connected to the Warsaw-Malkinia rail line. They are crowded into freight cars and most are deported, via Malkinia, to Treblinka. The overwhelming majority of the deportees are killed upon arrival in Treblinka. In September, at the end of the 1942 mass deportation, only about 55,000 Jews remain in the ghetto.

APRIL 19, 1943

JEWISH FIGHTERS RESIST GERMANS IN WARSAW GHETTO

The Germans decide to eliminate the Warsaw ghetto and announce new deportations in April 1943. The renewal of deportations is the signal for an armed uprising within the ghetto. Most people in the ghetto refuse to report for deportation. Many hide from the Germans in previously prepared bunkers and shelters. Jewish fighters battle the Germans in the streets and from the hidden bunkers. The Germans set fire to the ghetto to force the population into the open, reducing the ghetto area to rubble. On May 16, 1943, the battle is over. Thousands have been killed and most of the ghetto population is deported to forced-labor camps. The Warsaw ghetto uprising was the largest and most important Jewish uprising, and the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe.