🧵80 years ago after suffering unimaginable sickness, starvation, beatings, death and deportation, Jewish fighters rose up against their Nazi captors in a heroic act of resistance known today as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
In 1939, the Nazis began the forced removal of three million Polish Jews from their homes and transferred them to crowded Ghettos across Poland, including Europe's largest, the Warsaw Ghetto.
By November 1940, 380,000 Jews were sealed inside the Warsaw ghetto.
The 380,000 Jews were crammed into an area of just 1.3 sq miles, surrounded by walls they were forced to build.
Conditions in the Ghetto were horrific.
80,000+ Jews died as a result of overcrowding & starvation. Those who remained alive were completely cut off from the outside.
On July 22 1942, the eve of Tisha Bav, the Germans began deportations from the Ghetto to the Treblinka extermination camp.
By Yom Kippur, 265,000 inhabitants had been deported & 50-65,000 Jews remained in the Ghetto.
📷Jewish refugees waiting in a soup line
Those who remained in the ghetto (including many teenagers) blamed themselves for not resisting when their families were deported and understood that they were to meet a similar fate if they did not act.
A resistance group known as the Jewish Fighting Organization was formed.
On January 18, 1943, following an Aktion launched by the Germans, Ghetto inhabitants believed a final deportation was looming.
23 year old Jewish underground leader (pictured), Mordechai Anielewicz instructed members to fight back with arms.
The Germans halted the Aktion.
This act of resistance empowered the Jewish Underground to prepare for a larger scale mission which included hiding in underground bunkers in the cellars of homes.
On April 19, 1943, the eve of Passover, the Germans began the final liquidation of the Ghetto.
The residents & Jewish fighting groups in the Ghetto barricaded themselves in bunkers and hideouts and took the Germans by surprise.
In response, the Nazis created a dangerous firetrap and began systematically burning down the buildings.
(Burning buildings during the Uprising)
The brave and courageous Jewish men, women and children fought valiantly for a month, until they were defeated by the Germans.
13,000 Jews were killed and about 50,000 were deported to extermination camps following the uprising.
📷The capture of Jews who had hidden in a bunker
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising became a symbol of resistance for Jewish victims in other ghettos and camps & gave them hope in a time of unimaginable darkness.
Simcha Rotem, the last survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising passed away in 2018 (at age 94).
Today, on #IHRD, we honor the brave victims who resisted the Nazis in every way imaginable: through organized rebellion, culturally & spiritually.
Their defiance is our victory.
"The Jewish soul was a target of the enemy. He sought to corrupt it even as he strove to destroy us physically. But despite his destructive force, despite his corrupting power, the Jewish soul remained beyond his reach."-Elie Wiesel
We promise to keep their souls & memory alive.
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Important 🧵: Extremist Palestinians are claiming on social media that Israelis are planning on storming the Al Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem today.
This is an OUTRIGHT LIE being used by Palestinian terrorists to encourage attacks on Israelis.
Here's what's really going on.
Tisha B’Av (which began yesterday at night & ends at sundown today) is a national day of mourning which marks the destruction of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem.
Jews in Israel & around the world spend the day in fast & prayer, remembering both Holy Temples destroyed on this day.
For Jews, this is the saddest day of the year, marking the destruction of their holiest site and a series of calamities which befell the Jewish people.
For centuries, it has been a custom for Jews to go up to the Temple Mount where the Temple once stood on the Ninth of Av.
These are the eleven victims who were murdered in terror attacks by Israeli-Arab and Palestinian terrorists in the last week.
May their Memory be a blessing.
Doris Yahbas: Mother of three and resident of Moshav Gilat.
She was stabbed by an Israeli-Arab outside a shop in Beer-Sheva.
She was evacuated to Soroka Medical Center, but the medical teams were unable to save her life. She is survived by her husband and children.
Laura Yitzhak: 43, mother of three & resident of Beer Sheva.
She was attacked and stabbed repeatedly by the Israeli-Arab assailant while waiting for her husband at a gas station in Beer Sheva. Medics pronounced her dead at the scene.
I was born Hannah Hershkowitz in Biala Rawska, Poland where Jews & Poles lived together for centuries.
My parents Hershel & Zisel were respected members of our town. My Polish neighbor Marisha was my best friend. I had a wonderful childhood until my life was turned upside down.
I was 4 when the Germans arrived in our town.
First the curfews started.
Then the yellow stars, which I noticed one evening sewn into my mother's black & father's gray coat.
That's the number of Jewish refugees from Arab countries & Iran who were forced to flee the countries they called home for hundreds (& even thousands of years).
They left behind homes, businesses, synagogues & belongings.
📸Jewish refugees from Yemen,1949
For over 2,500 years, Jews continuously lived in North Africa, the Middle East & Gulf region.
In the 1930's, Jews began to experience large waves of discrimination.
The situation for Jews became increasingly dangerous following the adoption of the UN Partition Plan in 1947.
Jews in Iraq, Egypt, Syria, Yemen & other countries were targeted in violent pogroms which continued in to the 50s & 60s.
What took place in Aleppo, Syria after the adoption of the Partition Plan mirrors the experience of Jews across the region.
#Hanukkah isn't the only miracle we're celebrating today.
Today, November 29th marks another miraculous moment in the history of our country 🇮🇱.
On this day in 1947, the @UN voted on establishing what would be become the modern state of #Israel.
While our modern history begins with the historic General Assembly vote on a wintery #November day, the history of the Jewish people in the land of Israel began 3,000+ years ago.
This was long before the battle of the #Maccabees & the battles that Israel would fight to survive.
33 countries voted in favor of the resolution, 13 against, 10 abstained & the rest is history.