Poland commemorates Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

With an official ceremony held at Warsaw's Monument to the Ghetto Heroes and attended by President Andrzej Duda, Poland celebrated the 73rd anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

“Here, where we are standing now, was the Warsaw Ghetto, where people were enclosed, ordinary Polish citizens who had lived on this land... they were an ordinary part of a great community that inhabited the 2nd [Polish] Republic,” the president said."We bow our heads before all those who were murdered. Remembrance is the most important, it is a day of tribute to the heroes who wanted to fight for freedom. Young Jews stood for a heroic and hopeless struggle," Duda said. The uprising in Warsaw's ghetto broke out on April 19, 1943 and was crushed on May 16, 1943. As many 13,000 Jews died, about half of them burnt alive or suffocated. The ghetto was burned to the ground.