Contained inside the biggest Ghetto in Nazi-occupied Europe, Warsaw’s Jewish population had already been decimated by starvation and disease when transports began to the Treblinka death camp in 1942. In the space of a few months, nearly 300,000 inhabitants had perished in the gas chambers.

Approximately 60,000 Jews remained after this first wave of deportations had ceased; however, their hopes of survival remained frail. When, in the Spring of 1943, rumors of the Ghetto’s imminent liquidation began circulating, the Jewish underground opted to fight back. Later, Marek Edelman (one of the Ghetto Uprising’s key protagonists), would recall: “We knew perfectly well that we had no chance of winning. We fought simply not to give the Germans that chance to dictate our time and place of death.”

Since January, the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) had been covertly constructing bunkers and hideouts within the Ghetto’s tangle of streets, as well as manufacturing petrol bombs and gathering smuggled and stolen firearms. These would finally see action on April 19th, 1943.

Having entered the Ghetto at dawn through the gateway on Świętojerska street, a 2,000-strong unit of German soldiers soon found their progress halted by sporadic sniper fire as well as petrol bombs and grenades hurled from the rooftops. Their spirits buoyed, Jewish insurgents raised a Star of David and a Polish flag from one of the tenements on Muranowski Square. In the first few days, it was this area that would see the fiercest of skirmishes.

Using their knowledge of the courtyards, sewer systems and basements, Jewish fighters were able to initially frustrate the Germans with their guerilla tactics. Responding in the bluntest possible manner, German units resorted to the basest of methods: fire. Employing a systematic approach, buildings were combed for Jews with the cellars often emptied using grenades and smoke candles. Afterwards, the tenements would often be set aflame.

It is estimated that thousands died in this way, buried alive in the shelters underneath or in the fires themselves. Demonstrating their grim disregard for human life, those who leaped from the windows to escape the flames found themselves nicknamed ‘parachutists’ by the German soldiers.

Hampered by their severe lack of firepower, ŻOB quickly found their actions limited to ambushes, evening firefights and the defense of discovered bunkers. Finally, on May 8th, ŻOB’s command bunker at Miła 18 was surrounded. Inside, approximately 100 Jews, among them the Uprising’s leader, Mordechai Anielewicz, chose suicide over surrender.

This, though, did not mark the end of the Uprising and small pockets of Jewish resistance remained. Only on May 16th was the German commander, Jurgen Stroop, sufficiently satisfied that his job had been completed. To signal his triumph, he chose to ceremonially demolish the Great Synagogue that had been at the vanguard of Warsaw’s Jewish life. Infamously likening this act to “a fantastic piece of theater”, Stroop would use his subsequent report to note: “The Jewish district in Warsaw is no more.”