State officials, diplomats and members of Poland’s Jewish community were among those who attended events to mark 80 years since the outbreak of the World War II-era revolt, in which Jewish fighters took up arms against Poland’s German invaders.
A day of ceremonies included wreath-laying and a symbolic march of remembrance.
Paper daffodils—a poignant echo of the yellow stars that Jews were made to wear during the Nazi German occupation—could be picked up from volunteers at subway stations as well as special vending machines.
Polish President Andrzej Duda and First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda took part in ceremonies in front of a monument in central Warsaw to honour the wartime fighters, together with the German and Israeli presidents, who visited the Polish capital especially for the occasion.
Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
'Honour and glory to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising'
During the commemoration, the Polish head of state said that the Jewish fighters 80 years ago “fought against hatred and Nazism for their freedom and dignity," while choosing to die with arms in their hands instead of surrendering to the Nazis.
“Today we bow our heads before the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising,” Duda said as he spoke at the ceremony in front of the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes.
He added that the revolt eight decades ago was "a symbol of bravery, determination and courage" as well as of “the will to fight for one’s freedom, the will to decide one’s own fate."
"They are our common heroes," Duda said of the ghetto fighters. "They are the heroes of Israel. They are the heroes of Jews all over the world. They are the heroes of Poland and the Polish people. Many of them later fought in the Warsaw Uprising."
The Polish president saluted the memory of the fighters, saying: "Honour and glory to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising."
'Human spirit won': Israeli president
Israel's President Isaac Herzog told the gathering that, even though most of the Jewish ghetto fighters did not survive the revolt, "the human spirit won on this ground sanctified by the blood of our heroic brothers," Polish state news agency PAP reported.
Israeli President Isaac Herzog speaks during ceremonies in the Polish capital on Wednesday to mark the 80th anniversary of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
'I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness': German president
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said: "As German president, I stand before you today and bow to the courageous fighters in the Warsaw ghetto. I bow to the dead in deep sorrow."
He added, as quoted by the dw.com website: "I stand before you today and ask for your forgiveness for the crimes committed here by Germans."
German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier addresses Wednesday's event in Warsaw. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
Steinmeier also said, addressing the Polish and Israeli presidents: "Dear President Duda, dear President Herzog, many people in your two countries, in Poland and in Israel, have granted us Germans reconciliation despite these crimes."
He added: "We must and we will preserve the miraculous achievement of reconciliation and carry it forward into the future."
Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski told the ceremony that the wartime tragedy of the Warsaw ghetto was also "a huge tragedy" for the Polish capital.
He noted that Jews made up roughly a third of Warsaw's population before the war.
Warsaw Mayor Rafał Trzaskowski. Photo: PAP/Leszek Szymański
'A hopeless struggle' for dignity: Polish PM
In a separate tribute earlier in the day, Polish Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said that the Warsaw Ghetto fighters "took up arms in a hopeless struggle" for dignity because "in fact, they wanted to be able to choose how to die" in the face of overwhelming German forces.
The Polish Prime Minister's Office noted in a Twitter post that "the heroic struggle of the Jewish insurgents" 80 years ago "was the largest act of armed resistance taken up by the Jews" during World War II.
"The truth about those events must break through to the consciousness of the modern world," the tweet said.
'Heroism and dedication'
Poland’s parliamentarians in 2018 passed a special motion paying tribute to the Jewish fighters to mark the 75th anniversary of the uprising.
The Sejm, Poland’s lower house, said in the motion at the time that the fighters had shown "the highest heroism and dedication in defence of the universal values of human freedom and dignity."
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which broke out on April 19, 1943 and lasted until May 16, was the first uprising in German Nazi-occupied Europe and the largest act of armed resistance by Jews in World War II. It is estimated that about 13,000 insurgents died in the ghetto during the revolt.
Some surviving Jewish combatants later fought in the Warsaw Uprising, launched by Poland's underground Home Army (AK) on August 1, 1944.
The Warsaw ghetto, established in April 1940, was the largest of the many ghettos which the Germans set up across Poland to isolate the Jewish population after invading the country in September 1939.
The annual daffodil campaign is associated with noted ghetto fighter Marek Edelman, who before his death in 2009 placed daffodils at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw each year on the anniversary of the uprising.
The Polish president in December 2018 paid tribute to the last surviving Warsaw ghetto fighter who died in Israel at the age of 94.
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Source: PAP, IAR, TVP Info, tvn24.pl, pap.pl/pap.pl, dw.com, jpost.com, prezydent.pl
Click on the audio player above to listen to a report by Radio Poland's Michał Owczarek.