The Warsaw Ghetto, established by the Nazis in 1940, became a place of confinement for nearly half a million Jews. By April 1943, after mass deportations to death camps, about 60,000 people remained in the ghetto.

On April 19, 1943, on the eve of Passover, German troops under the command of Jürgen Stroop entered the ghetto for its final liquidation. However, they encountered armed resistance. About 750 fighters of the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) led by Mordechai Anielewicz and the Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) under the command of Paweł Frenkel began the uprising — the first major urban uprising in occupied Europe.

The insurgents, armed with pistols, Molotov cocktails, homemade explosive devices, and a small number of rifles, used a network of bunkers, tunnels, and roofs to attack German forces. Despite the unequal forces — about 2,000 German soldiers with artillery and armored vehicles against 750 poorly armed fighters — the resistance lasted almost a month, until May 16, 1943. A symbolic act was the hoisting of the white-and-blue (future Israeli) and Polish flags on the roof of a house on Muranowska Street, 17.

During the fighting, the ghetto was destroyed, the Great Synagogue was blown up, about 13,000 Jews died, and more than 56,000 were deported, mostly to Treblinka.

The uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto became an act of courage and human dignity. This event inspired other acts of resistance and has forever entered history as an example of the struggle for freedom and justice.