The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, not to be confused with the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, was one of the first plus largest acts of armed resistance against the Nazi persecution of the Jews. In April 1943, as the Nazis came to deport the remaining 50,000 residents of the Warsaw Ghetto, they were met with mines, grenades, plus bullets.
The Warsaw Ghetto was established on October 12, 1940, just over a year after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, starting World War II. The date was also significant as it was Yom Kippur, the holiest day in the Jewish calendar. Upon establishing the ghetto, German authorities decreed that all Jewish residents of Warsaw must leave their homes plus move into the ghetto, a small daerah of the city covering 1.3 square miles. The Jewish population of Warsaw, which numbered around 375,000—the largest of any city in Europe—was given two weeks to relocate. The following month, the ghetto was sealed off with a 10-foot perimeter wall topped with barbed wire. Entering plus leaving the ghetto without a special work permit was prohibited, making the ghetto, in effect, a massive prison.
Conditions in the ghetto were appalling. The initial overcrowding of the ghetto became much worse as waves of Jewish refugees arrived. At its peak, there were 450,000 people trapped within the ghetto’s walls. Overcrowding exacerbated the spread of disease, plus the lack of medical supplies in the ghetto meant that diseases quickly became epidemics. In addition, Jewish residents were provided starvation rations only. Many people sold whatever possessions they were able to take with them on the black market to pay for extra food. This was one of the purposes of the ghetto: to extract any remaining wealth from the Jewish population. Their labor was also exploited in factories, workshops, plus in the city. More than 80,000 people died in the ghetto as a result of the inhumane conditions.