MORDECHAI ANIELEWICZ, LEADER OF JEWISH WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING

On Mordechai Anielewicz, the leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, on 24 May 1943, Nazi Officers filed the Stroop (Crime) Report of Jewish Warsaw Ghetto. This report was later used as evidence in the Nuremberg Trials. 

Mordecai Anielewicz is best known for leading the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising against the Nazis in 1943. His sacrifice made him a symbol of Jewish resistance during the Holocaust.

Anielewicz was born on 8 May 1919 in Wyszków, Poland, and grew up in Warsaw. He was involved in Jewish youth movements from a young age, first with Betar, the Jewish Youth Movement, and later with Hashomer Hatzair, the Socialist-Zionist Youth Movement.

When Germany invaded Poland in 1939, Anielewicz fled to the Soviet-controlled city of Wilno, where he tried to organize a resistance. He was caught and jailed by the Soviets while attempting to cross into Romania to reach Palestine. Released in 1940, he returned to Warsaw with his girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer.

In the Warsaw Ghetto, Anielewicz organized defensive groups and an underground newspaper. He made contact with the Polish Home Army and smuggled weapons into the ghetto. In January of 1943, he led the first armed resistance against the Germans during a deportation.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on April 19, 1943. Under Anielewicz's leadership, the Jewish fighters held off the Germans for nearly a month using guerrilla tactics. In May 1943 the Germans discovered the command bunker at 18 Miła Street. Anielewicz, his girlfriend, and his advisors are believed to have died there but his body was never found.

Anielewicz was posthumously awarded the Cross of Valour by the Polish government-in-exile and the Cross of Grunwald by the Polish People's Army. In Israel, a kibbutz (communal settlement) and streets in many cities bear his name. Anielewicz, on 8 May 1943 at 24, was suspected to have committed suicide rather than surrender to Nazi troops that had surrounded his command bunker at 18 Miła Street.