Warsaw Uprising (August 1–October 2, 1944) passed through the Ghetto gates carelessly and with their usual arrogant swagger, singing bloodthirsty songs about murdering Jews In April and May, 1943, the ZOB organized fighters among the remaining 70,000 Jews to resist the final sweep of the Ghetto by German and Latvian units of the Waffen-SS, who were assisted by some Polish police and supported by tanks Minimally armed ZOB fighters, mostly very young men and women, rose against their mass murderers in a desperate, hopeless, but symbolically hugely important resistance that started on April 19, 1943 The 600 or so active fighters of the ZOB, who had only one machine gun and 17 rifles among them but lots of Molotov cocktails, inflicted significant casualties on about 2,000 SS who moved methodically into the Ghetto The ZOB fighters were joined by 400 more from the Zydowski Zwiazek Wojskowy (ZZW ), or “Jewish Military Union.” Fierce, merciless fighting continued for several weeks On May the ZOB headquarters bunker located at Mila 18 fell to the SS In the end almost all members of the ZOB were killed, having themselves killed about 300 Germans It is thought that fewer than 100 Jews survived the fighting or escaped subsequent deportation to Treblinka: about 14,000 were killed in the fighting, with the last 7,000 inhabitants of the Ghetto sent to the death camps The Warsaw uprising enraged Hitler, though it was not the only one to occur in Jewish ghettos It became a permanent symbol of resistance for Jewish people the world over, captured in the fighting slogan “Never again!” WARSAW UPRISING (AUGUST 1–OCTOBER 2, 1944) Forward elements of Marshal Konstantin Rokossovsky’s 1st Belorussian Front advanced north along the east bank of the Vistula toward Warsaw in July 1944 On July 29, the Stavka ordered all offensive operations in eastern Poland to stop, while ordering new offensives into Rumania and the Baltic States Yet, on the same day, Red Army radio called upon the Polish Armia Krajowa or “Home Army” to rise in revolt and harry the Germans in advance of liberation—which the French Resistance would in Paris a few weeks later Acting on orders from “General Bor” (Tadeusz Komorowski), the Armia Krajowa seized most of Warsaw The Germans moved in reinforcements to systematically destroy Warsaw and crush resistance by thousands of lightly armed Armia Krajowa fighters, men and women Special Schutzstaffel (SS) units of criminals and non-German turncoats organized by Heinrich Himmler to man the infamous and murderous “Dirlewanger” and “Kaminski” brigades Enthusiastic about receiving the appointment from his Führer, Himmler declared: “Warsaw will be liquidated.” Despite pleas from Franklin D Roosevelt and Winston Churchill, and from the Polish fighters in Warsaw and others serving with the Red Army, the Soviets remained on the east bank of the Vistula as the Germans defeated the Armia Krajowa and leveled the city For 63 days the Uprising continued, from August to October Some 200,000 Polish civilians died, many butchered by the SS Waiting across the Vistula by the Red Army is often portrayed as a cynical betrayal of the first order, and it smolders still in Polish national memory Polish and Western historians often blame Stalin for deliberately allowing elimination of the only local force which might resist imposition of Moscow’s authority over Poland Russian historians have argued that the Red Army made several attempts 1164