The Warsaw Ghetto. Blink and you will miss it.

2 years ago
72

The video tells you enough about the walk we took to find the Warsaw Ghetto memorial area about 20 minutes or so walk from the Hotel.
A very depressing site for more reasons than merely remembering the disaster that befell most of the inmates of this terrible place.
From our perspective, this so called memorial is a sick joke. If you are commemorating nearly half a million Polish Jews fate in this place and then consequently the fate of those that survived here only to then be transported to the fully mechanised killing camps all around Poland.
As a memorial of this, the Government of Poland should be condemned for their omission in providing a true historical record and more importantly recognition of the brave uprising against the Nazis that occurred here.
A relatively small band of young Jews with a meagre supply of smuggled in small arms like rifles, handguns, ammunition and some small amounts of hand grenades and explosives. These heroes basically agreed that their ultimate fate was death by starvation, disease, shooting or worse in the death camps so they chose to fight and if necessary die with some semblance of dignity.
This uprising was the first of its kind in any city throughout Nazi occupied Europe. The Germans said they would put the uprising down in a day or two. It took them over a month and with many losses of their own.
It's very interesting how German reports of their casualties during the month long battle are only about 110 while we know for a fact that over 7000 of the Jewish fighters died. The fact is, plenty more German and Ukrainian (Nazi sympathisers) soldiers died in the fierce hand to hand battles fought in typical Guerrilla Warfare fashion than the Nazis would ever admit to.
After all, how could a bunch of Jews defeat or even delay the powerful Nazi juggernaut.
Well, when Sol and I walked into the Novatel Hotel lobby and saw a large number of Israeli soldiers emblazoned with their Star Of David insignias we became elated and euphoric. We later spoke of..."if only this army existed when our people were being rounded up and butchered".
Our Guardian Angels were once again at work, saving our day and providing us with the strength to continue on our mission.

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