Pictured: Warsaw ghetto resistance fighters including Malka Zdrojewicz, right, who survived the death camps.
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On this day, 19 April 1943, the Warsaw ghetto uprising broke out in earnest when Jewish people fought back against Nazi attempts to deport them to the Treblinka extermination camp.
2000 German troops and police backed up with tanks entered the ghetto with the intention of removing the surviving residents, and were met by around 750 resistance fighters with a small number of smuggled small arms and some home-made Molotov cocktails. They forced the Germans to retreat and come back with reinforcements. After several days of failure to overcome the rebels, the Germans began burning down the entire ghetto one building at a time.
Despite this, the resistance managed to hold out against the onslaught for 27 days, killing around 300 Germans. While some fighters managed to escape through the sewers, 7000 Jewish people were killed and another 7000 eventually deported to Treblinka.
Pictured: Warsaw ghetto resistance fighters including Malka Zdrojewicz, right, who survived the death camps.