Warsaw Ghetto Uprising – 80 years on

Official ceremony commemorating the 80th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Leszek Szymański/PAP

This week marked 80 years since the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out. The fight, the largest act of armed resistance by Jews in World War II, started 19 April 1943 and lasted just under a month until 16 May.

Three heads of state: Polish president Andrzej Duda, Israeli president Isaac Herzog and German president Frank-Walter Steinmeier were in Warsaw for the occasion. Steinmeier is the first-ever German head of state to be present at the commemoration in Warsaw.

“I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes committed by Germans here,” Steinmeier said during his speech at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw’s Muranów district.


Here on The Debrief we have looked at some of the events taking place this year, and of course you can check those out in your podcast feed. On the line John Beauchamp speaks to curator from the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, Zuzanna Schnepf-Kołacz, to discuss how different narratives make up the story of the Ghetto Uprising.