"Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The 80th Year Anniversary" at the Moline Public Library -- May 10.
Wednesday, May 10, 6:30 p.m.
Moline Public Library, 3210 41st Street, Moline IL
An exploration into the first urban rebellion against Nazi Germany in the occupied territories during World War II, Dr. Arthur Pitz will present Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The 80th Year Anniversary at the Moline Public Library on May 10, his talk focusing on how remaining Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were not about to be slaughtered without as much resistance as they could muster.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the 1943 act of Jewish resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto in German-occupied Poland during World War II to oppose Nazi Germany's final effort to transport the remaining ghetto population to the gas chambers of the Majdanek and Treblinka extermination camps. After the Grossaktion Warsaw of 1942, in which more than 250,000 Jews were deported from the ghetto to Treblinka and murdered, the remaining Jews began to build bunkers and smuggle weapons and explosives into the ghetto. The left-wing Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) and right-wing Jewish Military Union (ŻZW) formed and began to train, while a small resistance effort to another roundup in 1943 was partially successful and spurred Polish resistance groups to support the Jews in earnest.
The uprising started on April 19 when the ghetto refused to surrender to the police commander SS-Brigadeführer Jürgen Stroop, who ordered the burning of the ghetto, block by block, ending on May 16. A total of 13,000 Jews were killed, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. German casualties, meanwhile, were reported by Stroop as 110 casualties. In this uprising that was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II, the Jews presumed that victory was impossible and survival unlikely. Marek Edelman, the only surviving ŻOB commander, said their inspiration to fight was "not to allow the Germans alone to pick the time and place of our deaths." According to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, the uprising was "one of the most significant occurrences in the history of the Jewish people."
Program presenter Arthur Pitz, who earned his Ph.D. in history, is a Faculty Emeritus and Adjunct at Black Hawk College and a Fulbright Specialist. He has given many public presentations over the years on multiple topics in the U.S. and overseas, and has been studying and teaching on the Shoah (Holocaust), the Modern Middle East, and American History for many years. Dr. Pitz and Suzanne, his wife of 54 years, have been of service to their communities in their former home in Moline, and presently reside in Elmhurst, Illinois.
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: The 80th Year Anniversary will be presented in the library's Gold, Silver, and Bronze Rooms on May 10, participation in the 6:30 p.m. Program is free, and more information is available by calling (309)524-2470 and visiting MolineLibrary.com.
