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Click on an image to see a larger, more detailed picture.
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| 1943: Death and Resistance |
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pg. 451 |
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Rubble from the Tlomacka Street synagogue in Warsaw, the so-called "Great Synagogue," is all that remained after Jürgen Stroop ordered its demolition in May 1943. The synagogue was located within the confines of the ghetto until November 1942, when the ghetto's size was greatly reduced. Even though the synagogue stood in the Aryan part of Warsaw when the ghetto was razed, Stroop ordered it destroyed in reprisal for the ghetto uprising.
Photo: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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On May 2, 1943, 3000 Jews of Miedzyrzec Podlaski, Poland--a transit ghetto--were deported to their deaths at Treblinka. Only 200 Jews, needed for forced labor, remained. Here, Jewish women, many carrying children, are brutally hustled into a waiting cattle car. During the previous August, thousands of Miedzyrzec Podlaski's Jews were sent to the death camp; 10,000 more were deported in October. Finally, in July 1943 the last 200 Jews were shot to death, making the town judenrein (cleansed of Jews).
Photo: Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi War Crimes / United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archive
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Although Sonderkommandos assisted the Nazis in order to spare their own lives (at least temporarily), they were often hated by those Jews doomed to die. Reportedly, a child of seven or eight told a Birkenau Sonderkommando: "Why, you are a Jew and you lead dear children to the gas--only in order to live? Is your life among the band of murderers really dearer to you than the lives of so many Jewish victims?"
Photo: Bilderdienst SYddeutscher Verlag
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May 6, 1943: In Tunisia, Allied forces launch a final offensive against Axis positions.
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May 7, 1943: Nearly 7000 Jews are killed in Novogrudok, Belorussia.
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May 7, 1943: A group of Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto, led by Pawel Bruskin, is ambushed by German troops while traveling through the city's sewer system; See May 8, 1943.
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May 7, 1943: Sephardic-Jewish homes in Tunisia are ransacked and looted by departing German troops.
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May 8, 1943: German troops in the Warsaw Ghetto reach the headquarters of the Resistance. Leader Mordecai Anielewicz and about 100 of his followers are crushed, are suffocated, or die by their own hands during a Nazi bombardment and gassing; See May 12, 1943.
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May 9, 1943: The Skalat, Ukraine, Jewish community is destroyed.
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May 10, 1943: Two Jews are successfully smuggled out of Dobele, Latvia, and hidden in a haystack.
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| 1943: Death and Resistance |
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pg. 451 |
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The Holocaust Chronicle
© 2009 Publications International, Ltd.
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