The Warsaw Ghetto was established by the occupying German army on October 12, 1940. All Jewish residents of Warsaw were forced to move into the ghetto, which Germans sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940. The ghetto was enclosed by a wall that was over 10 feet high, topped with barbed wire. As more Jews from surrounding areas were forced into the ghetto, its population was estimated to be over 400,000 Jews. German authorities forced ghetto residents to live in an area of 1.3 square miles.

Food allotments rationed to the ghetto by German civilians were insufficient to sustain life. Between 1940 and mid-1942, 83,000 Jews died of starvation and disease.

From July 22 until September 12, 1942, the Germans deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka; approximately 35,000 Jews were killed inside the ghetto during the operations.

In January 1943, SS and police units returned to Warsaw with the intent of deporting the remaining approximately 70,000-80,000 Jews in the ghetto to forced-labor camps for Jews in Lublin District. This time the Jews resisted deportation, some of them using small arms smuggled into the ghetto. After seizing approximately 5,000 Jews, the SS and police units halted the operation and withdrew.

On April 19, 1943, a new SS and police force appeared outside the ghetto walls, intending to liquidate the ghetto and deport the remaining inhabitants to the forced labor camps. The ghetto inhabitants offered organized resistance in the first days of the operation, inflicting casualties on the well-armed and equipped SS and police units. They continued to resist deportation as individuals or in small groups for four weeks before the Germans ended the operation on May 16. Approximately 42,000 Warsaw ghetto inhabitants were captured during the uprising and sent to camps at Poniatowa and Trawniki and Lublin/Majdanek. At least 7,000 Jews died fighting or in hiding in the ghetto, while the SS and police sent another 7,000 to the Treblinka killing center.

Today, There is a small memorial at ul. Mila 18 to commemorate the site of the Jewish underground headquarters during the Ghetto Uprising. Warsaw Ghetto after razing by German forces in 1943. Photo was taken in 1945 and appears in the book, "Warszawa 1945-1970", Publisher: Wydawnictwo Sport i Turystyka, Warszawa, 1970, page 232.

Public Domain photo via Wikimedia Commons