Members of the “Poalei Tzion” party joined them in October. Representatives of three Zionist youth movements (“Hashomer Hatzair,” “Dror,” and “Akiva”) established the first cell of the new organization. However, the Gestapo discovered its leader in May 1942, who was arrested and murdered. The “anti-Fascist bloc” was established between March-April 1942, based on a communist cell in the ghetto. The first attempts to establish an armed resistance organization within the ghetto took place even before the deportations. Thus, they resumed the attempts at establishing a fighting underground organization. It was clear to them that they would share the same fate. Many blamed themselves for not resisting and for allowing their families to be deported. The area of the ghetto was thus severely reduced.Ī sense of bitter disillusionment and abandonment settled upon those who remained in the ghetto, the majority of whom were teenagers. Most of the Jews who underwent the selection were chosen for deportation and sent to the Umschlagplatz.Īfter the deportations to Treblinka between 55,000 to 60,000 Jews remained in the Warsaw ghetto and they were concentrated in a few building blocs. Many Jews who hid in the buildings or tried to escape the selection on the street were murdered on the spot. The Germans would carry out a selection while Polish or Ukrainian policemen would search in the abandoned homes for Jews in hiding. After a few days the volunteers stopped coming, and the Nazis switched to siege tactics: city blocks would be closed off and the Jewish Police would remove the buildings’ residents to the streets.

When the deportations began the Nazis promised that people who voluntarily reported for “transfer” would receive three kilograms of bread and one kilogram of jam. Those deported were packed into sealed, locked freight cars with little water and poor ventilation. The deportations were carried out at the Umschlagplatz – a train station and adjacent square situated on the edge of the ghetto. By the time they ended on September 21, Yom Kippur, some 265,000 inhabitants of the ghetto had been deported to the Treblinka extermination camp. On July 22, 1942, on the eve of the Ninth of Av in the Jewish calendar, the Germans began the mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto.

Warsow getto