There were 40,000 Jews left in the ghetto on that fateful day in January 1943, when the first armed resistance took place. Only 7,000 could bear arm. Through ingenuity, bribery and raids the Jews had built a small stockpile of arms -- World War I rifles, machine guns, and a collection of Molotov cocktails (bottles of gasoline with flammable wicks for use against tanks). 

The uprising took place when four companies of storm-troopers -- 800 men -- under the pretence of looking for factory workers, arrived in the ghetto to escort their next haul of Jews to the concentration camps. But this time they were met with lead instead of supplication Shocked, the black-booted S.S. men scurried for cover. For three days the battle raged. In the end it was not the Jews but the Nazis who were forced to retreat.
 
The Nazis were outraged at this rout of their S.S. troops, but not beyond prudence. The campaign to crush these rebellious ghetto Jews was put under the command of General Jurgen Stroop, who was rushed to Warsaw at the head of a special combat group with attached artillery units.
 
The Jews feverishly prepared for the German counterattack, converting cellars into bunkers, mining the streets, and establishing a maze of connecting passages through the sewers. They expected to hold out a week at the most; so did Germany's propaganda minister, Herr Joseph Goebbels, who noted in his diary,

"The Jews have actually succeeded in making a defensive position of the Ghetto. Heavy engagements are being fought there which led even to the Jewish Supreme Command issuing daily communiques. Of course this fun won't last long." 

 But both Jews and Goebbels were wrong. The Jews resisted for six weeks.

General Stroop, after careful planning, launched his counteroffensive in March. From a safe distance his artillery batteries laid down a barrage over the ghetto. Block by block the artillery fire raked the buildings, forcing the defenders to take refuge in cellars and sewers. Then the black-uniformed S.S. men attacked with automatic rifles and machine guns, mortars and tanks. Armed with rifles, a few machine guns, hand grenades, and Molotov cocktails, the Jews first fought the Nazis to a standstill, then slowly forced their retreat. Jewish youths gave their lives to smash burning bottles of gasoline against German tanks, and Jewish partisans fired point-blank into the frightened faces of the S.S men as they tried to escape their burning tanks.

The shelling of the ghetto was resumed. It became a hell of exploding shells, crumbling buildings, and moving walls of flame. In desperation the Jews appealed to the Polish underground for help, but in vain. The Poles hoped the Germans would solve their "Jewish problem" for them. 

Little did they realize the surprise that history had In store for them. When, in July 1944, the Polish underground staged its own uprising against the Germans, the Poles begged the Russians to come to their aid. But just as the Poles had refused to come to the aid of the Jews, so the Russians refused to come to the aid of the Poles. The well-armed Polish underground army of 150,000 men was annihilated "The "Germans had solved Russia's "Polish problem" for her.

Jews, God and History: Max I. Dimont