INTRODUCTION

The intention of this study is to investigate several areas concerning the Warsaw Ghetto and the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

I shall investigate the various forms of resistance. In particular I shall focus on the question of; Why did it take so long for the Jews in the ghetto to "fight back?".

To comprehend the final desperate conflict you have to understand the development of the Nazi occupation and the development of Jewish resistance in Warsaw.

In many ways, Warsaw the capital city of Poland, was symbol of the destructiveness of the second world war. The Polish writer, Kazimierz Brandys in his book on Warsaw, "The Invincible City" says that; "Warsaw was the capital of that war.". Not only was Warsaw the first victim of Global hostilities, it was also the victim of both unholy alliances.

Warsaw was also the largest centre of Jewish cultural activity in Europe, only second to New York that still holds the largest concentration of Jews in the world.

It is the utter destruction of this Jewish cultural centre, that is the Jews of Warsaw; that is the centre point of this investigation. The unimaginable, the unprecedented, or as Yisreal Gutman states, in his book "The Jews of Warsaw, 1939-1943" that with "No precedent in the unimaginable.".

The Jews of Poland were well aware of the threat of German aggression and Polish indifference, even hostility. Many left Poland; many more attempted to leave. It was hard for Jews to leave Poland for the United States or Britain due to the strengthening of immigration laws.

The German invasion was well predicted and feared. Military conflict for any section of the population holds an uncertainty. For the Jews of Warsaw they dare not fear the worst, yet even they could not imagine the unimaginable.

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