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For those who didn't hears the news, Poland, inviting a lot of guest from all over the world decided to mark one month long uprising (19 IV - 16 V 1943) in Warsaw Ghetto that briefly freed a big part of European capital from Nazi rule and was one of the biggest challenges to Shoah made by its victims. Here, you can see gallery from the first day of remembrance; here, sadly only in Polish (though online translator should suffice) is planned schedule of the ceremonies.
In the relation of a Jewish fighter reprinted today in most newspapers covering remembrance, 70 years ago, 19 april 1943, at 6 am, 850 soldiers from Waffen SS led by 20 officers entered ghetto to hasten Nazi Endlösung - this time, however, two Jewish resistance groups that were preparing strongpoints and trying to acquire arms in preparation for final confrontation, noted unusual strength of the German unit and decided to open fire. SS-men, shocked with tenacity of the first attack, decided to attack Untermenschen frontally, only to increase their own losses severalfold, and to finally be repulsed without any successes at 10 am. Renewed attack, supported by several tanks and armoured vehicles, was again repulsed with heavy losses, including ex-French tank burned by Molotov cocktails. 8 hours after fighting started, at 16:00, last German soldier was pushed out making Ghetto one of the first areas in Poland liberated from Nazi rule.

Thus began the long month of fighting - Germans, unable to break Jewish fighters, despite continuous shelling of the Ghetto with artillery, Luftwaffe bombs, support of pro-Nazi Ukrainian, Estonian, Latvian and Lithuanian troops (in total, 4.500 men versus nine hundred badly armed fighters) decided to adopt total war - complete destruction of the Ghetto, one building after another, with flamethrowers, explosives, poison gas and cannon shelling, leaving burned wasteland of most complete urban destruction in WWII. Out of 70.000 Jews still in Ghetto, less than hundred managed to escape due to actions of left-leaning Polish Resistance units (Right-wing ones couldn't care less) harassing German siege and in a few cases actually managing to break inside, leading survivors out by canals. Fighting symbolically ended 16 V, with destruction of (now empty) Great Synagogue, one of the largest in the world.

One thing of note that struck me in the memoirs was that no one in leadership considered the fighting "uprising" - in their words, uprisings typically have goals, means, and (however slim) chances of victory. They would term it 'Ghetto resistance' - no one there had doubts they would be all dead in the end, what mattered was choice of it and saving remains of human dignity. Despite all the efforts of the occupant to completely erase them from human memory, example of this fight would later lead to a whole wave of armed acts, including uprisings in Nazi death camps (some ended with fighters managing to escape) and other uprisings against Germans in Central Europe.
Now, the only authentic thing remaining from Ghetto itself is pair of wall fragments (defaced with bricks under plaque 'borrowed' for Washington museum) and a metal marker with monuments illustrating the extent of the Ghetto, both of which will be visited by delegations in the coming month.

Google earth has aerial photos taken in late 1945 of Warsaw. The utter destruction of the Ghetto compared even to the areas damaged in the 1944 uprising is stark. It borders on unimaginable.

This is a ground-level panoramic image of the Ghetto after it's been pacified.

It looks life something that a nuclear attack would leave.

Irbis linked to that exact photo in his initial post under burned wasteland of most complete destruction.

Umm...ooops? Sorry about that

Sea Skimmer wrote:Irbis linked to that exact photo in his initial post under burned wasteland of most complete destruction.

Yes, though I didn't wanted to point it out, still, I hoped my restraint in adding photos to article would mean readers would see them all. Still, no harm in publishing them again.

Also, point of note, Pamiec.pl, website of right-wing IPN history institute did something decent for once, published reports (without trying to lie about them) of Jürgen Stroop and other German commanders of attack on the Ghetto. It's chilling lecture - people convinced of their own superiority and their victims inferiority struggle with cognitive dissonance and all but praise the fighters between the lines. It's really sad lecture.

One thing I found especially bad is how two hundred members of Nazi-administered Blaue Polizei (Poles recruited into basic law enforcement organization) were supporting the attack - and how some surviving Jewish fighters who joined left- and centre-wing Polish resistance organizations after being freed by them later died fighting Nazi-like NSZ (far right-wing "resistance" organization that spent more time fighting Poles and minorities than Germans in some regions, even openly collaborating with Nazis in places). Hopefully, it will be one more step in admitting pre-war Poland had bad-sides too, and one more step that will put an end to lionizing organization that didn't openly join the Nazis only because they hated Germans, too, as is too common recently among Polish right-wingers in an effort to show middle finger to 'communists'

Since edit window ran out - I found link to report, short movie from Ghetto and to gallery of the photographs included in it (bottom of page), here. Nothing really NSFW, but still giving some relation of these days.