Getto warszawskie

A man carries away the bodies of dead Jews in the Ghetto of Warsaw in 1943, where people began to die of hunger in the streets. Every morning, about 4-5 a.M., funeral carts collected a dozen or more corpses on the streets. The bodies of the dead Jews were cremated in deep pits. In November 1940, the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto. The Jewish population still living outside was brought inside the special area, and the Polish living within the designated ghetto boundaries were ordered to move out. On November 15th no Jew was allowed to leave the Jewish precincts. In the Summer of 1942, about 300,000 Jews were deported to Treblinka. When reports of mass murder in the killing center leaked back to the ghetto, a surviving group of mostly young people formed an organisation called Z.O.B. (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa, Jewish Fighting Organisation) calling for the Jewish people to resist. On April 19, 1943 the Warsaw ghetto uprising began after German troops and police entered the ghetto to deport its surviving inhabitants. Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought for nearly a month. But on May 16, 1943, the revolt ended The Germans had slowly crushed the resistance. Of the more than 56,000 Jews captured, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to killing centers or concentration camps. (FILM) AFP PHOTO