Warsaw Ghetto Uprising a symbol of bravery says president
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a symbol of bravery and determination, Andrzej Duda, the Polish president, said on Wednesday during commemorations marking the 80th anniversary of the 1943 battle that set a small group of Jews against the German army.
Despite being poorly armed and few in numbers the Jewish fighters held out for nearly a month against overwhelming Nazi forces in a defiant but ultimately forlorn struggle.
"For me as the Polish president, and for all of us today, the uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto primarily symbolises bravery, determination and courage. And the will to fight for freedom," Duda said in an address at a formal ceremony that was also attended by the German and Israeli presidents.
Duda stressed that pre-World War II Poland had a multinational population, with Warsaw boasting the world's second-biggest Jewish diaspora after New York.
The German invasion of Poland in 1939 he added, not only destroyed that Polish state but also its social structure.
"The Jewish community lived side by side with Poles and other ethnic groups for nearly a 1,000 years. The German Nazis crushed that Polish Republic not only politically and in terms of statehood, but also in the social sense," Duda said.
"Anyone who sows hatred or anyone who tramples another person beneath their feet, tramples upon the graves of the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, the graves of murdered Jews and the graves of anyone who helped those who were persecuted during these times," the president added.
The Uprising broke out on April 19, 1943, as the final phase of the ghetto's liquidation by the Nazis was taking place.
The insurgency, which lasted until May 16, 1943, was a symbolic act as it had no chance of success. In an uneven struggle, the poorly-armed fighters of the Jewish Combat Organisation (ZOB) and the Jewish Military Union took on the might of the SS and Wehrmacht forces, the Security Police and their auxiliaries.
The Uprising, which cost the lives of about 6,000 insurgents, ended on May 8, 1943 when its then commander Mordechaj Anielewicz, together with a group of ZOB soldiers, committed suicide in a bunker at 18 Mila Street.
Just a handful of fighters managed to escape from the burning ghetto through the sewers. (PAP)
