WARSAW

Wednesday, April 19 marks the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising -- the first large-scale urban uprising in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II. At an official commemoration, Israeli President Isaac Herzog and his Polish counterpart Andrzej Duda were joined by Frank-Walter Steinmeier, the first German president to take part in the commemorations.

The 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was an act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final attempt to transport the remaining ghetto population to death camps.

After the Grossaktion of the summer of 1942, in which a quarter-million Jews were deported from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp in Poland and murdered, the remaining Jews built bunkers and smuggled weapons into the ghetto.

The uprising started on April 19 when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander, SS-Brigadefuhrer Jurgen Stroop.

Over the next several weeks, a total of 13,000 Jews were killed.

Marek Edelman, a physician and the only uprising leader, said their inspiration to fight was "not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths."

The Warsaw Ghetto held 300,000–400,000 people in a densely packed central area of Warsaw measuring some 3.3 square kilometers (1.27 square miles).

Prior to World War II, Warsaw had 1.3 million inhabitants, including 380,567 Jews – the largest Jewish community in Europe at the time.

Remembering

At noon, to commemorate the anniversary, alarm sirens wailed all over Warsaw.

Among those gathered were Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki, Defense Minister Mariusz Blaszczak, Archbishop Kazimierz Nycz, and Chief Rabbi of Poland Michael Schudrich.

The uprising has become a symbol of the resistance of Polish Jews against the Holocaust and for many, a symbol of the fight for justice today.

“We are here to show our respects but also to remind people that anyone who believes in human decency and solidarity cannot be indifferent to the plight of the Jews in wartime Warsaw,” said David Randall, a member of the UK trade union RMT.

At the official ceremony, Morawiecki paid tribute to the heroic struggle of the Jewish insurgents, “who took up weapons in a hopeless situation and chose how their lives would end.”

He also recalled the words of John Paul II, the late Polish pope, who said the ghetto uprising was a “desperate cry for the right to life and liberty, as well as a cry for human dignity.”

Morawiecki added that the soldiers of the Polish Home Army had also given their lives in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which is why he “also wanted to pay tribute to them today.”

“Jews were part of Polish society during World War II,” Morawiecki said.

The prime minister also said the pacification of the Warsaw Ghetto is today connected to the issue of German reparations for Poland. Poland is demanding over a trillion dollars from its Western neighbor.

German shame

"The terrible crimes that the Germans committed here fill me with deep shame," said Steinmeier. "I beg your forgiveness," he added.

"It is necessary and at the same time it is so hard to come here as a German and as the federal president of Germany. The terrible crimes that the Germans committed here fill me with deep shame. At the same time, it fills me with gratitude and humility that I can participate in these celebrations as the first head of the German state in general," Steinmeier said.

During his speech, Steinmeier said that the insurgents showed unimaginable courage. "They wanted to show that they had preserved their dignity in the face of certain death," he said.

“We Germans are aware of our responsibility, our mission, which was left to us by the survivors and those who are dead. For us Germans, our responsibility to our history knows no end. It remains a warning to us,” he said.

“Too few perpetrators of crimes were brought to justice after the war. I am standing before you today and I am asking for forgiveness for the crimes that the Germans committed here,” he stressed.

Steinmeier emphasized that "the most important lesson that comes from our stories is: never again,” adding: “No more racist madness, no more unleashed nationalism, no more barbaric war of aggression. Never again – this is what our common Europe is based on.

Difficult histories

Relations between Berlin and Warsaw have been frosty since the nationalist Law and Justice (PiS) party came to power in 2015. At alternative commemorative events on Wednesday, some said they had chosen not to support what many see as the government's attempt to accentuate Poles' help for Jews in the war and deny any culpability.

“We know as facts that many Poles either directly or indirectly murdered Jews in the war. It's just a fact we can't ignore,” said Patrice, a visitor from Paris.

Poland's relations with Israel have also suffered in recent years as the nationalist Warsaw government sought to downplay the culpability of non-Jewish Poles in the murder of their Jewish neighbors during the war. The issue of property restitution for owners of pre-war property in Poland, including Jews, is also a sticking point in Polish-Israeli relations.

Daffodils for all

The main topic of this year's celebration was “non-indifference,” and paper daffodil badges were handed out to celebrate one of the uprising's key figures, the Polish doctor, Edelman.

“We are handing out the badges so people remember what happened here,” said Marta, one of the many teenage volunteers handing out badges.