Warsaw Ghetto Uprising — Largest Armed Jewish Revolt of the Holocaust

On the eve of Passover, the Jewish Combat Organization (ŻOB) under 24-year-old Mordechai Anielewicz launched an armed revolt against SS forces arriving to liquidate Warsaw's remaining 60,000 ghetto inhabitants. Approximately 700 fighters armed with smuggled pistols, rifles, and improvised weapons held off 2,000+ SS troops and Wehrmacht soldiers for 28 days. SS General Jürgen Stroop systematically burned the ghetto block by block to suppress the uprising. Anielewicz and his command staff died at the ŻOB bunker at 18 Miła Street on May 8. The uprising ended on May 16, 1943, when Stroop detonated the Great Synagogue of Warsaw as a symbol of Nazi victory. The revolt is the largest single act of Jewish armed resistance during the Holocaust and is commemorated annually on April 19.