The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes ( pl, Pomnik Bohaterów Getta) is a monument in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populous ...

, commemorating the

Warsaw Ghetto Uprising The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; pl, powstanie w getcie warszawskim; german: link=no, Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's ...

of 1943 during the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

. It is located in the area which was formerly a part of the

Warsaw Ghetto The Warsaw Ghetto (german: Warschauer Ghetto, officially , "Jewish Residential District in Warsaw"; pl, getto warszawskie) was the largest of the Nazi ghettos during World War II and the Holocaust. It was established in November 1940 by the G ...

, at the spot where the first armed clash of the uprising took place. The monument was built partly of

Nazi German Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...

materials originally brought to Warsaw in 1942 by

Albert Speer Berthold Konrad Hermann Albert Speer (; ; 19 March 1905 – 1 September 1981) was a German architect who served as the Minister of Armaments and War Production in Nazi Germany during most of World War II. A close ally of Adolf Hitler, he ...

for his planned works. The completed monument was formally unveiled in April 1948.

History and description

The monument was raised in the square bordered by Anielewicza Street, Karmelicka Street, Lewartowskiego Street and Zamenhofa Street."The First Warsaw Ghetto Heroes Monument (Anielewicza St./ Zamenhofa St.)"

Virtual Shtetl The Virtual Shtetl ( pl, Wirtualny Sztetl) is a bilingual Polish-English portal of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews in Warsaw, devoted to the Jewish history of Poland. History The Virtual Shtetl website was officially launched on June 1 ...

. Museum of the History of Polish Jews. sztetl.org.pl. Retrieved 2018-02-21. From August 1942 until the end of the Warsaw ghetto this was the last location of the

Judenrat A ''Judenrat'' (, "Jewish council") was a World War II administrative agency imposed by Nazi Germany on Jewish communities across occupied Europe, principally within the Nazi ghettos. The Germans required Jews to form a ''Judenrat'' in every com ...

. The site also witnessed several clashes between the

Jewish partisans Jewish partisans were fighters in irregular military groups participating in the Jewish resistance movement against Nazi Germany and its collaborators during World War II. A number of Jewish partisan groups operated across Nazi-occupied Europ ...

and the German and auxiliary troops. Commemorating plate 1946

Suzin plaque

The decision to build a monument to the Ghetto partisans was made as early as in 1944, by the

Central Committee of Polish Jews The Central Committee of Polish Jews also referred to as the Central Committee of Jews in Poland and abbreviated CKŻP, ( pl, Centralny Komitet Żydów w Polsce, yi, צענטראלער קאמיטעט פון די יידן אין פוילן, trans ...

Lublin Lublin is the ninth-largest city in Poland and the second-largest city of historical Lesser Poland. It is the capital and the center of Lublin Voivodeship with a population of 336,339 (December 2021). Lublin is the largest Polish city east of t ...

. The monument was designed by Leon Suzin. The first part of the monument, a small memorial tablet, was unveiled on April 16, 1946; the plaque was in the shape of a circle, with a palm leaf, a

Hebrew Hebrew (; ; ) is a Northwest Semitic language of the Afroasiatic language family. Historically, it is one of the spoken languages of the Israelites and their longest-surviving descendants, the Jews and Samaritans. It was largely preserved ...

letter "B" , and a Hebrew,

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Poles, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken *Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin screenwr ...

and

Yiddish Yiddish (, or , ''yidish'' or ''idish'', , ; , ''Yidish-Taytsh'', ) is a West Germanic language historically spoken by Ashkenazi Jews. It originated during the 9th century in Central Europe, providing the nascent Ashkenazi community with a ver ...

inscription: "For those who fell in an unprecedented and heroic struggle for the dignity and freedom of the Jewish people, for a free Poland, and for the liberation of mankind. Polish Jews". It was also decided to build a larger monument in the future.

Rapoport monument

The new, larger monument, sculpted by

Nathan Rapoport Nathan Rapoport (1911–1987) was a Warsaw-born Jewish sculptor and painter, later a resident of Israel and then the United States. Biography Natan Yaakov Rapoport was born in Warsaw, Poland. In 1936, he won a scholarship to study in France and ...

(who worked under the supervision of Suzin), was unveiled on April 19, 1948. The monument stands tall. As Rapoport himself explained, the "wall" of the monument was designed to evoke not just the Ghetto walls, but also the

Western Wall The Western Wall ( he, הַכּוֹתֶל הַמַּעֲרָבִי, HaKotel HaMa'aravi, the western wall, often shortened to the Kotel or Kosel), known in the West as the Wailing Wall, and in Islam as the Buraq Wall (Arabic: حَائِط � ...

("Wailing Wall") in

Jerusalem Jerusalem (; he, יְרוּשָׁלַיִם ; ar, القُدس ) (combining the Biblical and common usage Arabic names); grc, Ἱερουσαλήμ/Ἰεροσόλυμα, Hierousalḗm/Hierosóluma; hy, Երուսաղեմ, Erusałēm. i ...

. The great stones would thus have "framed the memory of events in Warsaw in the iconographic figure of

Judaism Judaism ( he, ''Yahăḏūṯ'') is an Abrahamic, monotheistic, and ethnic religion comprising the collective religious, cultural, and legal tradition and civilization of the Jewish people. It has its roots as an organized religion in the ...

's holiest site".Young, James E. ''The Texture of Memory'', Yale 1993, p. 171 The

labradorite Labradorite (( Ca, Na)( Al, Si)4 O8) is a calcium-enriched feldspar mineral first identified in Labrador, Canada, which can display an iridescent effect ( schiller). Labradorite is an intermediate to calcic member of the plagioclase series. It ...

stone used in parts of the monument comes from German supplies, ordered by

in 1942 for planned Nazi German monuments. The western part of the monument shows a

bronze Bronze is an alloy consisting primarily of copper, commonly with about 12–12.5% tin and often with the addition of other metals (including aluminium, manganese, nickel, or zinc) and sometimes non-metals, such as phosphorus, or metalloids such ...

group sculpture of insurgents - men, women and children, armed with guns and

Molotov cocktail A Molotov cocktail (among several other names – ''see other names'') is a hand thrown incendiary weapon constructed from a frangible container filled with flammable substances equipped with a fuse (typically a glass bottle filled with flamma ...

s. The central standing figure of this frieze is that of

Mordechai Anielewicz Mordechai Anielewicz ( he, מרדכי אנילביץ'; 1919 – 8 May 1943) was the leader of the Jewish Fighting Organization ( pl, Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB), which led the Warsaw Ghetto uprising; the largest Jewish insurrection dur ...

(1919 – 8 May 1943), the leader of

Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa The Jewish Combat Organization ( pl, Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB; yi, ''Yidishe Kamf Organizatsie''; often translated to English as the Jewish Fighting Organization) was a World War II resistance movement in occupied Poland, which wa ...

(ŻOB; en, Jewish Combat Organization) during the uprising. 70th Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising 09

President Obama in Warsaw May 2011 5835906995 7251a8fc74 o

The eastern part of the monument shows the persecution of Jews at the hands of the Nazi German oppressors. The monument has a three-language sign: "Jewish nation to its fighters and martyrs."

Commemoration-related events

The ''

Warschauer Kniefall The term ''Kniefall von Warschau'', also referred to as ''Warschauer Kniefall'' (both German for "Warsaw genuflection"), refers to West German Chancellor Willy Brandt kneeling and giving a moment of silence during a visit to a Warsaw Ghetto Up ...

'' (German for "Warsaw

kneeling Kneeling is a basic human position where one or both knees touch the ground. Kneeling is defined as “to position the body so that one or both knees rest on the floor,” according to Merriam-Webster. Kneeling when only composed of one knee, and ...

") by

Willy Brandt Willy Brandt (; born Herbert Ernst Karl Frahm; 18 December 1913 – 8 October 1992) was a German politician and statesman who was leader of the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) from 1964 to 1987 and served as the chancellor of West Ge ...

took place in front of the monument in 1970, when Brandt was the Chancellor of

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. The

Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews ( pl, Muzeum Historii Żydów Polskich) is a museum on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto. The Hebrew word ''Polin'' in the museum's English name means either "Poland" or "rest here" and relates to a ...

located opposite the monument was opened in April 2013.

References

Footnotes

Citations

External links

{{commons category, Monument of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in Warsaw
Entry on the monument at sztuka.net
includes a gallery Warsaw Ghetto Monuments and memorials in Warsaw 1948 establishments in Poland 1948 sculptures Holocaust memorials in Poland