July 22, 2022

Marking 80 years since the murder of Warsaw's Jews

© dpa/picture alliance
The deportation was carried out with utmost cruelty

In July 1942, the SS launched its operation to systematically exterminate the Jews of Warsaw. A march to commemorate this genocide is taking place in Poland on Friday.Life was hell for Jews in the Polish capital, Warsaw, 80 years ago. Ever since Nazi Germany had invaded Poland in September 1939, they had been subjected to constant persecution by the occupiers, and from November 1940 onward they were confined to the Warsaw Ghetto in the northwest of the city. Up to 450,000 men, women, and children lived crammed together behind the high walls of the ghetto. Around 100,000 people had died of hunger or disease, or been killed in summary executions.

Leaving the sealed-off district without permission was punishable by death, as was providing any kind of outside help to the inhabitants of the ghetto. The guards would even shoot little children who smuggled in food or coal. Emaciated corpses lying by the side of the road became part of daily life.

SS officer Hermann Höfle gave the order to kill

Almost a third of the population of the Polish capital was made up of Jews before World War II. They had been an integral part of the city on the Vistula for centuries. July 22, 1942, would mark a tragic turning point.

On this day, Adam Czerniakow, an engineer and local politician, whom the Nazis had forced to become the head of the Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council, wrote the following in his diary: "At 10 o'clock, Sturmbannführer Höfle appeared with his people. [ ... ] We were told that all Jews, irrespective of sex and age -- with certain exceptions -- are to be deported to the East." Every day, Czerniakow was to prepare 6,000 people from the ghetto for deportation. The SS later increased that daily target to 10,000.

more...