Today in Labor History: April 19

April 19, 1943 – The 50,000 Jews remaining in Warsaw began a desperate and heroic attempt to resist Nazi deportation to extermination camps. Their armed insurgency became known as the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. (From the Daily Bleed) There had been over 3 million Jews living in Poland prior to the Nazi occupation. The Nazis rounded them up and forced them into crowded ghettos. The Warsaw ghetto had 250,000-300,000 Jews living in abominable conditions. Between 250,000 and 300,000 Warsaw ghetto residents died at the Treblinka concentration camp within the two months the Nazis were deporting them. The Jews managed to stockpile Molotov cocktails, hand grenades, military uniforms, and even a few pistols and some explosives. The resistance was crushed by the Nazis on May 16. (From Wikipedia)