View source for Grossaktion Warsaw

{{DISPLAYTITLE:''Grossaktion'' Warsaw}}
{{short description|Nazi operation to deport and murder Jews from the Warsaw Ghetto during WWII}}
{{pp-30-500|small=yes}}
{{Infobox holocaust event
| name                = Grossaktion Warsaw
| image               = Umschlagplatz loading.jpg
| image_size          = 
| caption             = Deportation of ghetto inmates at the ''[[Umschlagplatz]]''
| image_map           = {{location mark|float=center|image = WW2-Holocaust-Poland.PNG | width = 250 | x% = 45 | y% = 46.2 |mark_width=6}}
| map_caption         = Location of [[Warsaw Ghetto]] in World War&nbsp;II, <br>southwest of [[Treblinka extermination camp]]
| pushpin_map         = Poland#Poland Masovian Voivodeship
| pushpin_map_width   = 250
| pushpin_map_caption = Location of Warsaw in Poland today
| pushpin_map_relief  = 1 
| pushpin_label       = [[Warsaw Ghetto]]
| location            = [[Warsaw]], [[Occupation of Poland (1939–1945)|German-occupied Poland]]
| coordinates         = {{coord|52.1446|20.5945|display=inline,title}}
| date                = 23 July 1942 – 21 September 1942
| incident_type       = Deportations to [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]], mass shootings
| perpetrators        = 
| participants        = 
| organizations       = [[Schutzstaffel|Nazi SS]]
| camp                = [[Treblinka extermination camp]]
| ghetto              = [[Warsaw Ghetto]]
| victims             = 265,000 Polish Jews<ref name="USHMM">{{cite web |url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007257 |title=Treblinka: Chronology |publisher=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum |date=10 June 2013 |access-date=12 August 2014 |author=Holocaust Encyclopedia |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120605123023/http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/en/article.php?ModuleId=10007257 |archive-date=5 June 2012 |format=Internet Archive |quote=Deportations from Theresienstadt and Bulgarian-occupied territory among others. }}</ref> 
| survivors           = 
| witnesses           = 
| documentation       = 
| memorials           = 
| notes               = 
}}

The '''''Grossaktion'' Warsaw''' ("Great Action") was the Nazi [[code name]] for the deportation and mass murder of [[Jew]]s from the [[Warsaw Ghetto]] during the summer of 1942, beginning on 22 July.<ref name="RS">{{cite book|last=Shapiro|first=Robert Moses|title=Holocaust Chronicles: Individualizing the Holocaust Through Diaries and Other Contemporaneous Personal Accounts|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dnMMxHaUzT8C&pg=PA35|year=1999|publisher=KTAV Publishing House, Inc.|isbn=978-0-88125-630-7|page=35 |quote = ... the so-called Gross Aktion of July to September 1942... 300,000 Jews murdered by bullet of gas}}</ref> During the ''Grossaktion'', Jews were terrorized in daily round-ups, marched through the ghetto, and assembled at the ''[[Umschlagplatz]]'' station square for what was called in the Nazi euphemistic jargon "[[resettlement to the East]]". From there, they were sent aboard overcrowded [[Holocaust trains]] to the [[extermination camp]] in [[Treblinka]].<ref name="Urynowicz" />

The largest number of [[Warsaw]] Jews were transported to their deaths at Treblinka in the period between the Jewish holidays [[Tisha B'Av]] (23 July) and [[Yom Kippur]] (21 September) in 1942. The killing centre had been completed {{convert|80|km}} from Warsaw only weeks earlier, specifically for the [[Final Solution]]. Treblinka was equipped with [[gas chamber]]s disguised as showers for the "processing" of entire transports of people. Led by the SS-leader ''[[Brigadeführer]]'' [[Odilo Globocnik]], the campaign, codenamed [[Operation Reinhard]], became the critical part of [[the Holocaust in occupied Poland]].<ref name="Kopówka">{{Citation|last1=Kopówka |first1=Edward |author-link1=Edward Kopówka |last2=Rytel-Andrianik |first2=Paweł |title=Treblinka II – Obóz zagłady |trans-title=Monograph, chapt. 3: Treblinka II Death Camp |language=pl |url=http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |publisher=Drohiczyńskie Towarzystwo Naukowe [The [[Drohiczyn]] Scientific Society] |work=Dam im imię na wieki [I will give them an everlasting name. Isaiah 56:5] |year=2011 |access-date=9 September 2013 |isbn=978-83-7257-496-1 |format=PDF file, direct download 20.2 MB |quote=with list of Catholic [[Polish Righteous among the Nations|rescuers of Jews]] imprisoned at Treblinka, selected testimonies, bibliography, alphabetical indexes, photographs, English language summaries, and forewords by Holocaust scholars. |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20141010231757/http://echomatkibozejniepokalaniepoczetej.com/embnp/pages/assets/files/2011-09/dam_ime_na_wieki.pdf |archive-date=10 October 2014 }}</ref>

==History==
The [[Warsaw Ghetto]] was the largest World War II ghetto in all of [[Nazi occupied Europe]], with more than 400,000 Jews crammed into an area of {{convert|1.3|sqmi|km2 acre}}, 7.2 persons per room.<ref name="ushmm-5069">{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005069|title=Warsaw|website=www.ushmm.org}}</ref> The Nazi police conducted most of the mass deportations of the ghetto inmates to Treblinka via pendulum trains carrying up to 7,000 victims each.<ref name="Kopówka"/> Every day, trains consisting of overcrowded boxcars departed twice from the railway collection point (''[[Umschlagplatz]]'' in German); the first in the early morning, and the second in the mid-afternoon.<ref name="Kopówka"/> The [[extermination camp]] received most of the victims between 23 July and 21 September 1942.<ref name="YV">{{cite web|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/microsoft%20word%20-%205724.pdf|title=Aktion Reinhard|publisher=Yad Vashem}} Shoah Resource Center, The International School for Holocaust Studies. ''See: "Aktion Reinhard" named after [[Reinhard Heydrich]], the main organizer of the "[[Final Solution]]"; also, Treblinka, 50 miles northeast of [[Warsaw]], set up June/July 1942.''</ref><ref name="BE-B">{{in lang|pl|en}} [[Barbara Engelking]]; [http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php Warsaw Ghetto Internet Database] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130717022046/http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php |date=2013-07-17 }} hosted by [http://www.holocaustresearch.pl Polish Center for Holocaust Research] The Fund for support of Jewish Institutions or Projects, 2006.</ref><ref name="BE-B2">Barbara Engelking, [http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?show=kalendarium&lang=en Warsaw Ghetto Calendar of Events: July 1942] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090504164656/http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php?show=kalendarium&lang=en |date=2009-05-04 }} ''Timeline. See: 22 July 1942 – the beginning of the great deportation action in the [[Warsaw ghetto]]; transports leave from [[Umschlagplatz]] for [[Treblinka]].'' Publisher: Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów IFiS PAN, [http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php Warsaw Ghetto Internet Database] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130717022046/http://warszawa.getto.pl/index.php |date=2013-07-17 }} 2006.</ref> The ''Grossaktion'' (large-scale operation) was directed in the capital by [[SS and Police Leader|SS- und Polizeiführer]] [[Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg]], the commander of the Warsaw area since 1941.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg |url=https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/ferdinand-von-sammern-frankenegg |access-date=2024-03-22 |website=www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org}}</ref>

The turning point in the life of the Ghetto was 18 April 1942, marked by a new wave of mass executions by the [[Schutzstaffel|SS]]. 
{{quote|Until that day, no matter how difficult life had been, the ghetto inhabitants felt that their everyday life, the very foundations of their existence, were based on something stabilized and durable... On April 18th the very basis of ghetto life started to move from under people's feet... By now everybody understood that the ghetto was to be liquidated, but nobody yet realized that its entire population was destined to die. — [[Marek Edelman]]<ref name="Edelman" />}}

==Deportations==
On 19 July 1942, [[Reichsführer-SS|SS Chief]] [[Heinrich Himmler]] ordered [[Friedrich-Wilhelm Krüger]], the [[SS and Police Leader|SS commander]] in charge of the [[General Government]], to carry out the 'resettlement of the whole Jewish population of the General Government by 31 December 1942.'<ref name="Longerich">{{cite book|last=Longerich|first=Peter|title=Heinrich Himmler: A Life|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GBQchepZ-7EC|year=2012|publisher=OUP Oxford|isbn=978-0-19-959232-6 |page=573}}</ref> Three days later on 22 July 1942 the German SS, headed by the "Resettlement Commissioner" [[Sturmbannführer]] [[Hermann Höfle]], called a meeting of the Ghetto Jewish Council [[Judenrat]] and informed its leader [[Adam Czerniaków]] about the "resettlement to the East". Czerniakow, who committed suicide after learning of the plan, was replaced by [[Marek Lichtenbaum]].<ref name="Gutman-2">{{cite book|last=Gutman|first=Israel|author-link=Israel Gutman|title=Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4P_kP4yKqy8C&pg=PA200|year=1994|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=0-395-90130-8|page=200}}</ref> The population of the Ghetto was not informed about the real state of affairs. Only by the end of 1942 did they understand that the deportations, overseen by the [[Jewish Police (Holocaust)|Jewish Ghetto Police]], were to the [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka]] death camp and not for the [[World War II evacuation and expulsion|purpose of resettlement]].<ref name="Edelman" />
[[File:Grossaktion Warsaw 1942.jpg|thumb|right|The ''[[Grossaktion Warsaw (1942)|Grossaktion Warschau]]'' 1942]]
[[File:Umschlagplatz Warsaw Ghetto 01.jpg|thumb|right|''[[Umschlagplatz]]'' holding pen for deportations to Treblinka [[death camp]] ]]
During the two months of summer 1942, about 254,000 – 265,000<ref name="USHMM"/> Ghetto inmates, men, women and children, were sent to Treblinka and exterminated there (or at least 300,000 by different accounts, possibly, with the inclusion of the Ghetto falling considered by many a part of the operation).<ref name="RS" /><ref name="ushmm.org-uprising">{{cite web | title=Warsaw Ghetto Uprising | website=United States Holocaust Memorial Museum | url=https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/warsaw-ghetto-uprising | access-date=March 6, 2013}}</ref><ref name="yv-treblinka">{{cite web|url=http://www1.yadvashem.org/odot_pdf/Microsoft%20Word%20-%205886.pdf |title=Treblinka.|format= PDF file, direct download 75.2 KB |access-date= March 6, 2013 | publisher = [[Yad Vashem]]}}</ref> The sheer death toll among the Jewish inhabitants of the Ghetto during the ''Grossaktion'' would have been difficult to compare even with the liquidation of the Ghetto in the spring of the next year during and after the [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|Ghetto Uprising]], during which around 50,000 people were killed. The ''Grossaktion'' resulted in the death of five times as many victims. The actual razing of the ghetto did not result in the destruction of the Jewish population of Warsaw as much as had the ''Grossaktion'' of the summer of 1942.<ref name="Urynowicz">{{cite web|url=https://ipn.gov.pl/download/1/18175/1-8845.pdf|title='''Gross Aktion''' – Zagłada Warszawskiego Getta|trans-title=Gross Aktion – Annihilation of Warsaw Ghetto|last=Urynowicz |first=Marcin |language=pl |publisher=[[Institute of National Remembrance|Institute of National Remembrance (IPN)]]}}</ref>

For eight weeks the rail shipments of Jews to Treblinka went on without stopping: 100 people to a cattle truck, 5,000 to 6,000 each day, including hospital patients and orphanage children. Dr [[Janusz Korczak]], a famed educator, went with them in August 1942. He was offered a chance to escape from the deportations by Polish friends and admirers, but he chose instead to share the fate of his people.<ref>{{cite book | last=Lifton | first=Betty Jean | title=The King of Children : A Biography of Janusz Korczak | publisher=St. Martin's Griffin | publication-place=New York | year=1997 | isbn=0-312-15560-3 | oclc=36407693 | url=http://www.korczak.com/Biography/kap-0.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160307220226/http://www.korczak.com/Biography/kap-0.htm | archive-date=March 7, 2016 | url-status=dead | access-date=May 4, 2020}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/KORCZAK/about.htm|title=The Janusz Korczak Living Heritage Association|website=fcit.coedu.usf.edu}}</ref> On arrival at Treblinka, victims were stripped of their clothes and directed to one of ten chambers disguised as showers. There they were gassed to death in batches of 200 with the use of monoxide gas ([[Zyklon B]] was introduced at [[Auschwitz]] some time later). In September 1942, new gas chambers were built at Treblinka, which could kill as many as 3,000 people in just 2 hours. Civilians were forbidden to approach the area.<ref name="Edelman" /><ref>Treblinka – ein Todeslager der "Aktion Reinhard", in: "Aktion Reinhard" – Die Vernichtung der Juden im Generalgouvernement, [[Bogdan Musial]] (ed.), Osnabrück 2004, pp. 257&ndash;281.</ref><ref>Court of Assizes in [[Düsseldorf]], Germany. ''Excerpts From Judgments (Urteilsbegründung). AZ-LG Düsseldorf: II 931638''.</ref><ref name="nizkor">{{cite web | title=Operation Reinhard: Treblinka Deportations | publisher=The Nizkor Project, 1991&ndash;2008 | date=February 24, 2012 | url=http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/reinhard/reinhard-faq-13.html | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120224134715/http://www.nizkor.org/faqs/reinhard/reinhard-faq-13.html | archive-date=February 24, 2012 | url-status=dead | access-date=May 4, 2020}}</ref>

{{quote|The tragic end of the Ghetto could not have been changed, but the road to it might have been different under a stronger leader. There can be no doubt that if the Uprising of the Warsaw Ghetto had taken place in August–September 1942, when there were still 300,000 Jews, the Germans would have paid a much higher price. — [[David J. Landau]]<ref>{{cite book | last=Landau | first=David | title=Caged : a story of Jewish resistance | publisher=Pan Macmillan Australia | publication-place=Sydney | year=2000 | isbn=0-7329-1063-3 | oclc=49276431}}</ref>}}

Many of the remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto decided to fight, and many were helped by the Polish underground.<ref name="ushmm">{{cite web|url=http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?ModuleId=10005188|title=Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|website=www.ushmm.org}}</ref> The [[Jewish Combat Organization]] (ŻOB, {{langx|he|הארגון היהודי הלוחם}}) was formed in October 1942 and tasked with resisting any future deportations. It was led by 24 year–old [[Mordechai Anielewicz]]. Meanwhile, the [[Polish Home Army]], [[Armia Krajowa]] (AK), began to smuggle weapons, ammunition and supplies into the Ghetto for [[Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|the uprising]].<ref name="Edelman">{{cite web |first=Marek |last=Edelman |author-link=Marek Edelman
| title=The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising | work=The Warsaw Ghetto: The 45th Anniversary of the Uprising |publisher=Interpress Publishers
 | url=http://www.writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/Holocaust/warsaw-uprising.html }}</ref> Von Sammern-Frankenegg was relieved of duty by [[Heinrich Himmler]] on April 17, 1943, and replaced with SS- und Polizeiführer [[Jürgen Stroop]].<ref name="MA">{{cite web | last=Arens | first=Moshe | title=Who Defended The Warsaw Ghetto? (Moshe Arens) May, 2003 | publisher=[[The Jerusalem Post]] | date=May 2003 | url=http://www.freeman.org/m_online/may03/arens.htm | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060526200526/http://www.freeman.org/m_online/may03/arens.htm | archive-date=May 26, 2006 | url-status=unfit | access-date=May 4, 2020}}</ref> Stroop took over from von Sammern-Frankenegg because of his unsuccessful offensive against the Ghetto underground.{{cn|date=June 2022}}

Ferdinand von Sammern-Frankenegg, in charge of the ''Grossaktion'', was court-martialed by Himmler on 24 April 1943 for his ineptitude and sent to [[Croatia]], where he died in a partisan ambush.{{cn|date=June 2022}} Jürgen Stroop was awarded the [[Iron Cross]] First Class by the supreme commander of the [[Wehrmacht]], Field Marshal General [[Wilhelm Keitel]], for his "murder expedition" ([[Alfred Jodl]]).<ref>{{cite book|last=Gutman|first=Israel|title=Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4P_kP4yKqy8C&pg=PA203|year=1994|publisher=Houghton Mifflin Harcourt|isbn=0-395-90130-8|page=203}}</ref> After the war, Stroop was tried for war crimes by the Americans, convicted, and sentenced to death. His execution was not carried out; instead, he was handed over to the Polish authorities for re-trial. He was again convicted and sentenced to death in [[Poland]] and executed at the site of the Warsaw Ghetto on 8 September 1951.

==Timeline of events==
{| border="1" align="center" style="border-collapse:collapse; border-color:#f2f2f4; margin-top:1px; margin-bottom:15px; font-size:90%" cellpadding="6" width="100%"
|-  align="center"
! colspan=2 bgcolor="#EFEFEF" | Timeline of the ''Grossaktion'' Warsaw{{cn|date=June 2022}}
|-
| width="21%" | 22 July 1942
|Germans with Ukrainian and Latvian guards in SS uniforms surround the walls of the Ghetto
|-
|23 July 1942
|Adam Czerniaków commits suicide after being told to prepare for transport of 6,000 Jews a day
|-
|23 July 1942
|Mass murder of Jews by gassing begins at the [[Treblinka extermination camp|Treblinka death camp]]
|-
|6 August 1942
|Fifteen thousand Jews from the Ghetto are deported to Treblinka in a single day as a result of the German food giveaway. People line up for several days to be "deported" in order to obtain bread. Transports twice daily can not accommodate them all.<ref name="Edelman" />
|-
|13–27 August 1942
|In 15 days 53,750 Warsaw Jews are deported to Treblinka
|-
|6–7 September 1942
|More than 1000 Jews are killed by Nazis in the streets of the Ghetto
|-
|6–21 September 1942
|In the last two weeks of the ''Aktion'' 48,000 Warsaw Jews are deported to their deaths
|-
|21 September 1942
|The last transport sent to Treblinka from the Polish capital with 2,196 victims. It includes Jewish police involved with deportations, and their families.<ref name="Arad-97">{{cite book|last=Arad|first=Yitzhak|author-link=Yitzhak Arad|title=Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka: The Operation Reinhard Death Camps|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=QpAgHYTPRz0C&pg=PA96|year=1999|publisher=Indiana University Press|isbn=978-0-253-21305-1|page=97 }}</ref>
|-
|30 September 1942
|Jews trapped in the Ghetto begin to construct fortified bunkers to defend themselves
|}

==See also==
* [[Jewish ghettos in German-occupied Poland]]
* ''Gross Aktion'' in the [[Kovno Ghetto]], known as [[Kaunas massacre of October 29, 1941]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==Further reading==

* {{cite book |url=https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/survivors/matters-of-faith/622753B288C972B0DBBD5DC7D66A8E6D |title=Survivors: Warsaw Under Nazi Occupation |chapter=Chapter 7 – Matters of Faith {{ndash}} Catholic Intelligentsia and the Church |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |date=2022 |first1=Jadwiga |last1=Biskupska |edition=New |language=English |type=Hardcover |isbn=978-1316515587|pages=192–225
|doi=10.1017/9781009026017.008}}
* {{cite book |first1=Ryszard |last1=Tyndorf |year=2023 |title=Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy: The Testimony of Survivors and Rescuers |volume=1|url= https://repozytorium.kul.pl/items/86f916e2-4bcd-4b40-ab19-32dddf8842fc |format=PDF |last2=Zieliński |first2=Zygmunt |publisher=Wydawnictwo KUL|location=Lublin |isbn=978-83-8288-040-3}} {{ndash}} Free downloadable book.
* {{cite book |first1=Ryszard |last1=Tyndorf |year=2023 |title=Wartime Rescue of Jews by the Polish Catholic Clergy: The Testimony of Survivors and Rescuers |volume=2|url=https://www.scribd.com/document/685331495/Rescue-of-Polish-Jews-by-Clergy-Vol-2 |format=PDF |last2=Zieliński |first2=Zygmunt |publisher=Wydawnictwo KUL |location=Lublin |isbn=978-83-8288-088-5}} {{ndash}} Free downloadable book.

{{Holocaust Poland}}

[[Category:1942 murders in Poland]]
[[Category:The Holocaust in Warsaw]]
[[Category:Operation Reinhard]]
[[Category:Treblinka extermination camp]]
[[Category:Warsaw Ghetto]]
[[Category:Mass murder in 1942]]
[[Category:Holocaust massacres and pogroms in Poland]]
[[Category:July 1942 in Europe]]
[[Category:August 1942 in Europe]]
[[Category:September 1942 in Europe]]