Memory of the Warsaw Ghetto

The President of Israel attended the ceremony

Five days of commemorative events dedicated to the 65th anniversary of the Warsaw ghetto uprising against the Nazi occupiers began yesterday in the Polish capital. It broke out on April 19, 1943. Since this year this day coincides with the Jewish holiday of Passover, the events began earlier.

The main event was yesterday's ceremony at the monument to the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto. President of Poland Lech Kaczynski and guest of honor President of Israel Shimon Peres lit the “flame of memory.” Both presidents then toured the site of the future Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which is scheduled to open in 2010.

The highlight was the “roll call of the dead,” which was started by President Kaczynski and continued by famous artists and journalists. Over the course of three days, about 15 thousand names of Jews who died during the uprising will be read out. The crowning glory of the celebrations will be the “Chain of Memory”. On Saturday, the day the uprising began, it will be formed by 15 thousand Warsaw residents who will stand along the 20-kilometer border of the former ghetto territory. As soon as people hold hands, sirens will sound.

The uprising in the Warsaw ghetto broke out when Hitler's troops invaded its territory to take the last inhabitants to concentration camps. The rebels understood that they were doomed to death, but they chose a dignified death. About a thousand weakly armed people, mostly young people, entered the fight. The Nazis threw against them more than two thousand Wehrmacht and SS soldiers, as well as auxiliary detachments of the Ukrainian, Lithuanian and Latvian SS men, famous for their cruelty. Tanks destroyed house after house, planes bombed the ghetto area. The battle lasted until May 16, 1943.

The Nazis completed the suppression of the uprising by blowing up the large synagogue. About 6 thousand rebels died in the struggle, 7 thousand Jews were shot in the ghetto, and the same number were sent to the Treblinka death camp. Another 36 thousand Jews who survived the uprising in ruins and underground bunkers were sent by the Nazis to the Auschwitz and Majdanek concentration camps .

Valery MASTEROV, Warsaw