Before the Germans captured the city of Warsaw in the 1939 Blitzkrieg, there were 360,00 Jews in the Polish capital. It was a city enriched by centuries of Jewish life.

The Warsaw Ghetto was established November 15, 1940 in a small area within the city that would become a halfway stop to death for hundreds of thousand of Polish and German Jews.

Jews from outlying areas poured into the ghetto. By 1940 its population reached 460,000. Thousands of ghetto residents died of disease and starvation, however, the population was maintained by the continual flow of refugees. Little did they know that they were being forced into what was a preparation for the slaughterhouse.

On July 22, the eve of Tisha B’Av 1942, the death sentence for Warsaw’s Jews was issued. In the early morning hours the Judenrat was convened and the Plenipotentiary for Resettlement Affairs ordered the “resettlement in the East of all Jews residing in Warsaw regardless of age and sex.” The order called for 6,000 Jews per day to be rounded up and deported.

When Warsaw was under siege by the Germans in September 1939, its Jewish Council appointed Adam Czerniakow as mayor of the ghetto. As head of the Judenrat, Czerniakow attempted to assist the many starving and destitute of Warsaw and defended Warsaw’s Jews, often at risk to his own life. Czermakow always kept a tablet of cyanide by his side in the event the Nazi’s asked him to obey an order he felt he had to, refuse.

His despair at the plight of, the children of the ghetto tormented him. On the 14th ofJune, 1942, he wrote in his diary:

commanded that the children be brought to the garden from the, detention room organized by the local Ordmingsdienst. They are living skeletons, street beggars.

I’m ashamed to admit it’s been long since I cried so.

Cursed are those among us who eat and drink and forget these children.”

A week before the anouncementof the deportations, rumors had already spread. The ghetto and the Jews were gripped with terror. Czerniakow asked the Nazi officials for an explanation, but received nothing but denials.

On the 22nd of July, at 7:30 in the morning, Czerniakow, along with the miriibers of the Judenrat, were told that the deportations were to begin the next day - Tisha B’Av - and the expulsions, would include children. He immediately understood the gravity of such an order and that his previous policy of cooperation with the Germans was a grievous error. This was an order he refused to sign since it was one his conscious could not live with. The night following the first deportation, he took the cyanide he had kept with him.

He left the following note to the Jewish council: “I am powerless, my heart trembles in sorrow and compassion. I can no longer bear all this. My act will show everyone the right thing to do.”

The diary A Cup of Tears, by Abraham Lewin, offers the following description of the events that occurred on the 23rd of July: “Disaster after disaster, misfortune after misfortune. The small ghetto has been turned out on to the streets… …Rain has been falling all day.. Weeping. The Jews are weeping. They are hoping for a miracle. The expulsion is continuing. Buildings are blockaded.”

- Chaim Kaplan, in his diary on the Warsaw Ghetto, foresaw the doom that awaited the Jews of Warsaw with the issuance of the decree. He described the decree as “The total destruction of the Jewish nation.” He cites several signs-all ominous and surmises that the deportations can only be a death sentence and those who deny it, grasp at straws.”

In a July 26 entry, Kaplan writes, “We, the inhabitants of the Warsaw ghetto are now experiencing the reality. Our good fortune is that our days are numbered-that we shall not have to five long undercondition as these.”

According to the decree, all were to be deported except those who worked in German industries or for the Judenrat. Over the next nine days 66,701 Jews were deported to Treblinka.

At Treblinka, there was a sign outside the death camp that attempted to maintain calm. It stated:’Do not worry about your future. … all of you are headed for the East, to work; while you work, your wives shalt take care of your houses. But first you must bathe and your clothes must be cleaned of lice. Only moments later, after merciless beatings by SS and Ukrainian guards, the Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto were herded into the crematoria.

On July 19, the second round of Warsaw’s deportations began. A proclamation was posted by - the Jewish police (most of whom were concerned fore most in saving themselves) urging Jews to volunteer for resettlement. The SS, along with Latvian and Lithuanian troops, closed off individual blocks and brutally forced the masses out for deportation. Shots rang out and many were shot on the spot; others were savagely beaten. When the crowd’s numbers reached a few thousand, they were herded off to the “Umschlagplatz”-a deportation railway yard.

Every morning and evening the roundups took place. Over the month of August, 142,525 were deported, with 135,120 Jews being sent to Treblinka. By the middle of August it was widely understood that “resettlement” was a myth. Enough evidence had already reached the Ghetto by word of mouth from witnesses to the Nazi camps that resettlement actually meant death at Treblinka.

By October 3, 310,00 Jews were deported, including most members of the Judenrat. Many were deported on September 21-Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement.

On Tisha B’Av 1942, the well-organized Nazi killing machine was set into high gear and its horrors knew no bounds. That day marked the forthcoming end of Warsaw Jewry. Of the 40,000 Jews who remained in the Warsaw Ghetto following the deportations, several hundred armed themselves and fought against their oppressors.

Hillel Seidman in his diary of the Warsaw Ghetto, wrote in an entry he entitled “The Night of Tears,”: “We Jews of Warsaw, sons of those exiles, sit on the ground to mourn our own personal churban [destruction], the destruction of a major kehillah [community]-the largest and most vigorous-in Europe-which resulted from that earlier Churban [destruction of the Temple]. We weep at our fate, a nation without a land, within the grasp It our fiercest enemy and follows to death. We grieve both for the loss of the Beis Hamikdash [Temple] and the-extinction of our lives. True our lives were full of suffering, yet we always harbored hopes that will now never be realized. Yes, our lives were tough but despite everything they were still rich and purposeful. Now, however, our enemies scheme to wipe us all off the face of the earth.”

This entry was posted on Monday, July 23rd, 2001 and is filed under history.