Poland
19 April 1943
Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto
The German occupiers treated Polish Jews with particular cruelty. Hitler sought to exterminate the Jewish nation. Ghettoes were set up where Jews had to live and then concentration camps where they were killed. Poland was the only European country where aiding Jews carried the death penalty for both the helper and the family. The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto (19 April 1943) was a great act of Jewish heroism as it was doomed to fail from the beginning. The fighters preferred to die arms in hand.