Warsaw is the capital of the modern state of Poland. Before World War II, the city was a major center of Jewish life and culture. Warsaw's prewar Jewish population of more than 350,000 constituted about 30 percent of the city's total population. The Warsaw Jewish community was the largest in Europe, and was the second largest in the world after New York City. Following the German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939, Warsaw suffered heavy attack. German troops entered Warsaw on September 29, shortly after its surrender. On November 23, 1939, German civilian occupation authorities required Warsaw's Jews to identify themselves by wearing white armbands with a blue Star of David. The Germans closed Jewish schools, confiscated Jewish-owned property, and conscripted Jewish men into forced labor.
On October 12, 1940, the Germans decreed the establishment of a ghetto in Warsaw; they required all Jewish residents to move into an area sealed off from the rest of the city in November 1940. The ghetto was enclosed by a wall that was over 10 feet high, topped with barbed wire, and closely guarded. The population of the ghetto, increased by Jews from nearby towns, was over 400,000. German authorities forced ghetto residents to live in an area of only 1.3 square miles, with an average of 7.2 persons per room. Jewish welfare organizations inside the ghetto tried to meet the needs of residents struggling to survive. Food allotments rationed by the Germans were insufficient to sustain life. Between 1940 and mid-1942, 83,000 Jews in the ghetto died of starvation and disease.
From July 22 until September 12, 1942, German SS and police units, assisted by auxiliaries, carried out mass deportations from the Warsaw ghetto to the Treblinka killing center. During this period, the Germans deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to Treblinka; they killed approximately 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto during the operation. In January 1943, SS and police units returned to deport the remaining Jews in the ghetto to forced-labor camps. This time, however, many of the Jews resisted deportation, some of them using smuggled weapons. After seizing approximately 5,000 Jews, the SS and police units halted the operation and withdrew. On April 19, 1943, a new SS and police force appeared outside the walls, intending to deport the remaining Jews. The ghetto inhabitants resisted violently, inflicting casualties on the well-armed German units. They continued to resist for four weeks before the Germans prevailed on May 16. The Germans deported approximately 42,000 Jews captured during the uprising to forced-labor camps and to the Majdanek concentration camp. At least 7,000 Jews died during the ghetto uprising, while the SS and police sent another 7,000 to be killed at Treblinka.
Inspired by the approach of Soviet troops, on August 1, 1944, the Polish Home Army, a national underground resistance force, rose against the German occupiers in an effort to liberate Warsaw. The Soviets failed to intervene; in October 1944, the Germans crushed the revolt and razed the center of the city. Though they treated captured Home Army combatants as prisoners of war, the Germans sent thousands of captured Polish civilians to concentration camps. 166,000 people lost their lives in the Warsaw uprising, including as many as 17,000 Polish Jews. When Soviet troops resumed their offensive on January 17, 1945, they liberated a devastated Warsaw. Only about 174,000 people were left in the city, less than six per cent of the prewar population. Approximately 11,500 of these survivors were Jews.