Warsaw Ghetto Uprising: Difference between revisions

Ultimately, the efforts of the Jewish resistance fighters proved insufficient against the German occupation system. According to Hanna Krall, the German task force dispatched to put down the revolt and complete the deportation action numbered 2,090 men armed with artillery pieces, armored vehicles, [[minethrower]]s, 82 machine guns and 135 submachine guns.<ref name="Krall 2008" /><ref name="Krall 1986"/><ref name="Krall 1992hc"/><ref name="Krall 1992pb"/> Its backbone consisted of 821 [[Waffen-SS]] [[Panzergrenadier]] troops in five SS [[Military reserve|reserve]] and training battalions and one SS cavalry reserve and training battalion. The other forces were drawn from the [[Ordnungspolizei]] (Orpo) order police (battalions from the 22rd and 23rd regiments), the [[Sicherheitsdienst]] (SD) security service of the SS, the Warsaw [[Gestapo]], one battalion each from two [[Wehrmacht]] (Heer) railroad combat engineers regiments, a battery of Wehrmacht [[anti-aircraft artillery]] pieces and one [[field gun]], a battalion of [[Ukrainians|Ukrainian]] "Trawniki-Männer" from the [[Final Solution]] training camp [[Trawniki concentration camp|Trawniki]], Lithuanian and [[Latvia]]n [[auxiliary police]]men known as "[[Askari]]s" (Latvian [[Arajs Kommando]] and Lithuanian [[Lithuanian Security Police|Saugumas]]), and technical emergency corps. Some personnel from the nearby Gestapo [[Pawiak]] prison, led by [[Franz Bürkl]], volunteered to join. 363 officers from the Polish Police of the General Government (so-called [[Blue Police]]) were ordered by the Germans to cordon the walls of the Ghetto. Warsaw fire department personnel were also forced to help in the operation.<ref name="stroop"/> Jewish policemen were used in the first phase of the Ghetto's liquidation and subsequently executed by the Gestapo.<ref name="ww3" />