The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising broke out on 19th April 1943, the eve of Passover (Pesach), when the Nazi Germans entered the ghetto in order to deport its surviving inhabitants. They were met with armed resistance by a group of approximately 700 insurgents, who, knowing their fate, took up arms in an attempt to die with dignity. The Warsaw Ghetto fighters – led by, amongst others, Mordechaj Anielewicz, Icchak Cukierman, Tosia Altman, Cywia Lubetkin and Marek Edelman – managed to fight off the Nazis for nearly a month with few guns and little ammunition. The end of the uprising was marked by the destruction of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw by Nazi German SS commander General Jürgen Stroop on 16th May 1943.
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising was the first urban uprising in Nazi German-occupied Europe.