The 78th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

President Andrzej Duda together with his Spouse Agata Kornhauser-Duda took part in a ceremony commemorating the 78th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

'It was a fight until the very end for they were denied the right to capitulate, they could not surrender, they could not count on being treated like prisoners of war, they could not hope to be protected by any international conventions whatsoever', Andrzej Duda remarked referring to the insurgents.

'They knew that a surrender to Nazi Germans would be tantamount to death. They chose to die with weapons in their hands, they did not condone death in concentration camps, in gas chambers - they wanted to fight right till the very end', the President stressed.

The Presidential Couple laid a wreath at the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes.

Upon the conclusion of the main ceremonies a Remembrance March went down the Memorial Route of Jewish Martyrdom and Struggle participated by Mr. Wojciech Kolarski, Secretary of State at the Chancellery of the President of the Republic of Poland. The Minister laid flowers from the President at the first Monument to the Ghetto Heroes - manhole, the Monument to Council to Aid Jews 'Żegota', the Monument to Szmul Zygielbojm, at the Anielewicz Bunker, and at the Umschlagplatz Monument.

Subsequently, Minister Kolarski visited the Jewish Cemetery where, on behalf of the President, he laid flowers on the graves of Marek Edelman and Paweł Frenkiel, leaders of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

On April 19, 1943 the Uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto broke out - the first urban uprising in German occupied Europe and the largest Jewish armed insurgency in WWII. On that day, the fighters of the Jewish Combat Organization and the Jewish Military Union put up an armed resistance to the German units which had started to liquidate the Warsaw Ghetto. The insurgents were fighting against superior forces of the enemy until May 16, 1943 - the day when Jürgen Stroop, commander of the German units, ordered to blow up the Great Synagogue on Tłomackie Street, as a sign of victory. Germans razed the ghetto to the ground.