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81st anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising.
On the 81st anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum paid tribute to all those who, in August 1944, rose up in the fight for freedom and independence of occupied Poland.
At the symbolic “W” hour, exactly 5:00 p.m., the victims of this largest underground military operation in occupied Europe were honored on the grounds of the former German Nazi concentration and extermination camp of Auschwitz. Dr. Piotr M. A. Cywiński, Director of the Museum, laid a wreath at the Death Wall in the courtyard of Block 11, an especially significant site where executions were carried out during the operation of the camp.
“The history of the Uprising is not only a great act of armed defiance by Warsaw; it is also the martyrdom of a vast number of Varsovians who became the target of the cursed revenge of the German Third Reich,” said Director Cywiński.
The Warsaw Uprising, which began on August 1, 1944, was the largest armed revolt against the German occupiers in Europe. For 63 days, soldiers of the Home Army and thousands of residents of the capital city engaged in an uneven struggle for the liberation of Warsaw. As a result of the fighting and massacres carried out by the Germans, between 150,000 and 180,000 civilians were killed, and nearly the entire city was reduced to rubble.
At least several former Auschwitz prisoners participated in the uprising. These individuals had previously been released by SS authorities or had escaped from the camp. Among them were three men who escaped in April 1943: captain Witold Pilecki and Edward Ciesielski both of whom survived the Uprising, as well as Jan Redzej, who was killed in combat during the first days of August 1944.
Transports of Poles from Warsaw to KL Auschwitz after the outbreak of the Uprising
Following the outbreak of the armed uprising in Warsaw, approximately 13,000 Warsaw residents: men, women, and children, were arrested and deported to KL Auschwitz via the Pruszków transit camp in August and September 1944. They were imprisoned in the Auschwitz II-Birkenau camp.
The deportees were people from diverse social backgrounds, professions (such as government officials, scientists, artists, doctors, merchants, and workers), various physical conditions (injured, sick, disabled, and pregnant women), and ages ranging from infants few weeks old to individuals over eighty-six years old. In certain instances, they were individuals of diverse nationalities, including Jews concealing their identity with so-called Aryan papers.
The largest group to arrive at Auschwitz were the transports of 12 and 13 August, totalling nearly 6,000 people (including some 4,000 women and 2,000 men, and among them, over 1,000 children and young people of both genders).
A subsequent transport of 3,087 men, women, and children was sent from Pruszków to Auschwitz on September 4. Two further transports arrived on13 and 17 of September, bringing with them nearly four thousand men and three women. As part of the initial stages of the preliminary evacuation of Auschwitz, the majority of the people from these transports were sent within a few or several weeks to camps in the depths of the Third Reich and put to work in the armament industry. Many died in these camps.
In January 1945, at least 602 women with children (including children born in the camp) were deported to the camps in Berlin in five transports. Some prisoners from the Warsaw transports were evacuated from the camp in January 1945. Some died during the “death marches”, while others persevered until their liberation from camps within the depths of the Reich. At least 400 people from the Pruszków transports, including some 125 children and juveniles, lived to see liberation.
The fate of those deported to Auschwitz after the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising is described in a special exhibition prepared by the Museum in the Google Cultural Institute and the 10th volume of the educational series - Voices of Memory.
The Museum has also prepared a unique online lesson devoted to the transports from insurgent Warsaw to Auschwitz.
In the "On Auschwitz" podcast, Dr. Wanda Witek-Malicka from the Museum's Research Center discusses the fates of nearly 13,000 Warsaw residents deported to Auschwitz, including about 1,400 children.
