Hundreds commemorate Warsaw Ghetto uprising

Hundreds of people commemorate the 72nd anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.

The main ceremony is held in Warsaw at the monument to the ghetto heroes in front of the Museum of the History of Polish Jews. Polish authorities and visiting Israeli youth join Warsaw residents at the commemoration.

Many of those on hand wear paper daffodils pinned to their clothes, symbolizing the memory of the uprising.

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, secretary of state in the Prime Minister’s Office of Poland, participated in the uprising and speaks at the ceremony. Bartoszewski, 93, was an Auschwitz prisoner and a Resistance fighter who was recognized by the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial in Israel as Righteous Among the Nations for his help in saving Jewish lives.

“This is not the speech of the representative of the government, but a man who was and is witness to historical events,” he said. “It is the fulfillment of my life that after 72 years since those events, I talk about it also in the name of those absent.”

— JTA