A key element of the Holocaust

The liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto

Aktion Reinhardt was the name of the plan given to the organized murder of the Jewish population of German-occupied Poland, together with the Roma and Sinti peoples. A central part of this undertaking was the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto, with its population of more than 350,000. It began on 22 July 1942 with an order issued to the chairman of the “Jewish Council” responsible for administrating the ghetto, instructing him to prepare 6,000 of its inhabitants for “resettlement to the East” every day. Those selected for “evacuation” were taken by railway to Treblinka extermination camp in eastern Poland. Some 60,000 people had been deported by the end of July.

After escapees spread the word of the true fate of the deported, the Germans assumed control of the organization of the transports. They first combed the ghetto for the unemployed, then rounded up unskilled labourers and finally skilled workers. At least 6,600 people were shot within the course of raids and thousands more were executed. Over a quarter of a million former inhabitants of the Warsaw Ghetto were murdered in Treblinka. Only some 70,000 inhabitants remained in the ghetto, as their labour was central to the war effort.