On This Day in Jewish History: August 16th, 1943
The Bialystok Ghetto uprising began #onthisday, August 16th, 1943. The uprising lasted five days – serving yet as another testament to the unbreakable will of the Jewish spirit in the bleakest of circumstances.
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August 1941. The Bialystok Ghetto was established and the Germans forced 50,000 Jews from Bialystok and the surrounding areas into the Bialystok Ghetto.
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Most of the Jews were forced to work at factories within the walls of the ghetto, although some were transported to forced labor outside. When the Germans first invaded, they killed thousands of Jews but then things began to settle down, until February 1943 when 10,000 Jews were deported for extermination at Treblinka.
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In August 1943, the Nazis wanted to destroy the ghetto.
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#onthisday while the Nazis were rounding up Jews, the armed resistance decided to attack back. There were two groups of resistance fighters in the ghetto and although they usually worked separately, for this uprising, knowing it was their last chance – they worked together.
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They tried to fight the Nazis and break out of the ghetto to join the partisans in the forest nearby. They fought for five days. Hundreds of Jews were killed in the fighting and thankfully, more than a hundred were able to escape the ghetto and join the partisans.
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The Nazis also found a bunker where 72 fighters were hiding and killed 71 of them. The deportations proceeded as scheduled with thousands of Jews being sent to Treblinka, Majdanik, and Auschwitz for forced labor and/or extermination.
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Thousands more were shot in the forests surrounding the ghetto.
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Bialystok was liberated a year later by the Soviets in August, 1944.
Text Source: https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/liquidation-of-bialystok-ghetto
Image Source: https://www.jhi.pl/en/blog/2017-08-14-the-fight-and-the-destruction-of-the-bialystok-ghetto
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