Grossaktion Warsaw
The Grossaktion Warsaw
("Great Action") was the Nazi code name for the deportation and mass
murder of Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during the summer of 1942, beginning on
22 July. During the Grossaktion, Jews were terrorized in daily round-ups,
marched through the ghetto, and assembled at the Umschlagplatz station square
for what was called in the Nazi euphemistic jargon "resettlement to the
East". From there, they were sent aboard overcrowded Holocaust trains to
the extermination camp in Treblinka.
The largest number of Warsaw Jews
were transported to their deaths at Treblinka in the period between the Jewish
holidays Tisha B'Av (23 July) and Yom Kippur (21 September) in 1942. The
killing centre had been completed 80 kilometres (50 mi) from Warsaw only weeks
earlier, specifically for the Final Solution. Treblinka was equipped with gas
chambers disguised as showers for the "processing" of entire
transports of people. Led by the SS-leader Brigadeführer Odilo Globocnik, the
campaign, codenamed Operation Reinhard, became the critical part of the
Holocaust in occupied Poland.
History The Warsaw Ghetto
was the largest World War II ghetto in all of Nazi occupied Europe, with more
than 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of 1.3 square miles (3.4 km2), or 7.2
persons per room.[5] The Nazi police conducted most of the mass deportations of
the ghetto inmates to Treblinka via pendulum trains carrying up to 7,000
victims each. Every day, trains consisting of overcrowded boxcars departed
twice from the railway collection point (Umschlagplatz in German); the first in
the early morning, and the second in the mid-afternoon. The extermination camp
received most of the victims between 23 July and 21 September 1942. The
Grossaktion (large-scale operation) was directed in the capital by SS- und
Polizeiführer Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, the commander of the Warsaw
area since 1941.
The turning point in the life of
the Ghetto was 18 April 1942, marked by a new wave of mass executions by the
SS. Until that day, no matter how difficult life had been, the ghetto
inhabitants felt that their everyday life, the very foundations of their
existence, were based on something stabilized and durable... On April 18th the
very basis of ghetto life started to move from under people's feet... By now
everybody understood that the ghetto was to be liquidated, but nobody yet
realized that its entire population was destined to die. — Marek Edelman
Deportations On 19 July
1942, SS Chief Heinrich Himmler ordered Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger, the SS
commander in charge of the General Government, to carry out the 'resettlement
of the whole Jewish population of the General Government by 31 December 1942.' Three
days later on 22 July 1942 the German SS, headed by the "Resettlement
Commissioner" Sturmbannführer Hermann Höfle, called a meeting of the
Ghetto Jewish Council Judenrat and informed its leader Adam Czerniaków about
the "resettlement to the East". Czerniakow, who committed suicide
after learning of the plan, was replaced by Marc Lichtenbaum. The population of the Ghetto was not informed
about the real state of affairs. Only by the end of 1942 did they understand
that the deportations, overseen by the Jewish Ghetto Police, were to the
Treblinka death camp and not for the purpose of resettlement.
The Grossaktion Warschau 1942 During
the two months of summer 1942, about 254,000 – 265,000 Ghetto inmates, men,
women and children, were sent to Treblinka and exterminated there (or at least
300,000 by different accounts, possibly, with the inclusion of the Ghetto
falling considered by many a part of the operation). The sheer death toll among the Jewish
inhabitants of the Ghetto during the Grossaktion would have been difficult to
compare even with the liquidation of the Ghetto in the spring of the next year
during and after the Ghetto Uprising, during which around 50,000 people were
killed. The Grossaktion resulted in the death of five times as many victims.
The actual razing of the ghetto did not result in the destruction of the Jewish
population of Warsaw as much as had the Grossaktion of the summer of 1942.
For eight weeks the rail
shipments of Jews to Treblinka went on without stopping: 100 people to a cattle
truck, 5,000 to 6,000 each day, including hospital patients and orphanage
children. Dr Janusz Korczak, a famed educator, went with them in August 1942.
He was offered a chance to escape from the deportations by Polish friends and
admirers, but he chose instead to share the fate of his people. On arrival at Treblinka, victims were stripped
of their clothes and directed to one of ten chambers disguised as showers.
There they were gassed to death in batches of 200 with the use of monoxide gas
(Zyklon B was introduced at Auschwitz some time later). In September 1942, new
gas chambers were built at Treblinka, which could kill as many as 3,000 people in
just 2 hours. Civilians were forbidden to approach the area.
The tragic end of the Ghetto
could not have been changed, but the road to it might have been different under
a stronger leader. There can be no doubt that if the Uprising of the Warsaw
Ghetto had taken place in August—September 1942, when there were still 300,000
Jews, the Germans would have paid a much higher price. — David J. Landau Many
of the remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto decided to fight, and many were
helped by the Polish underground. The Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB, Hebrew: הארגון
היהודי הלוחם) was formed in October 1942 and tasked with resisting any future
deportations. It was led by 24 year–old Mordechai Anielewicz. Meanwhile, the
Polish Home Army, Armia Krajowa (AK), began to smuggle weapons, ammunition and
supplies into the Ghetto for the uprising. Von Sammern-Frankenegg was relieved
of duty by Heinrich Himmler on April 17, 1943 and replaced with SS- und
Polizeiführer Jürgen Stroop. Stroop took over from von Sammern-Frankenegg
because of his unsuccessful offensive against the Ghetto underground.
Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg,
in charge of the Grossaktion, was court-martialed by Himmler on 24 April 1943
for his ineptitude and sent to Croatia, where he died in a partisan ambush. Jürgen Stroop was awarded the Iron Cross First
Class by the supreme commander of the Wehrmacht, Field Marshal General Wilhelm
Keitel, for his "murder expedition" (Alfred Jodl). After the war, Stroop was tried for war crimes
by the Americans, convicted, and sentenced to death. His execution was not
carried out; instead, he was handed over to the Polish authorities for
re-trial. He was again convicted and sentenced to death in Poland and executed at
the site of the Warsaw Ghetto on 8 September 1951.
Timeline of events
22 July 1942 Germans with Ukrainian and Latvian
guards in SS uniforms surround the walls of the Ghetto
23 July 1942 Adam Czerniaków commits suicide after
being told to prepare for transport of 6,000 Jews a day
23 July 1942 Mass murder of Jews by gassing begins at
the Treblinka death camp
6 August 1942 Fifteen thousand Jews from the Ghetto are
deported to Treblinka in a single day as a result of the German food giveaway.
People line up for several days to be "deported" in order to obtain
bread. Transports twice daily can not accommodate them all.
13–27 August 1942 In 15 days 53,750 Warsaw Jews are
deported to Treblinka
6–7 September 1942 More than 1000 Jews are killed by
Nazis in the streets of the Ghetto
6–21 September 1942 In the last two weeks of the Aktion 48,000
Warsaw Jews are deported to their deaths
21 September 1942 The last transport sent to Treblinka
from the Polish capital with 2,196 victims. It includes Jewish police involved
with deportations, and their families.
30 September 1942 Jews trapped in the Ghetto begin to
construct fortified bunkers to defend themselves
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