March of Remembrance passed through the streets of Warsaw to commemorate Jews who had been killed in the so-called liquidation action of the Warsaw Ghetto in 1942. Eighty years ago, the Jewish community of Warsaw almost completely ceased to exist. In the summer of 1942, the Germans deported nearly 300,000 Jews to the Treblinka death camp.
The march commenced at the Umshlagplatz Monument at 10 Stawki Street and walked along a symbolic route which ends at Stare Nalewki Street right next to Krasinski Garden, which had used to be a centre of Jewish Warsaw before WWII.
On July 22, 1942, began the so-called ghetto liquidation action, which was a part of the Operation Reinhardt, which in turn assumed extermination of Jews.
In the period of two months, approx. 300,000 Jews were transported to extermination camp in Treblinka where they were murdered. It was around 75% of Warsaw Ghetto residents. Some 10% were killed already in Warsaw, whereas 60,000 people were left in a smaller ghetto in order to force them to work in companies producing goods for the Third Reich.
Initially, the Jews did not realise what was the true goal of "Grossaktion Warschau" launched in the summer of 1942. German propaganda was spreading false information that the Jews from Warsaw Ghetto would be deported east to work on farms for the benefit of the Germans. However, partially thanks to accounts of Jews who had managed to escape from Treblinka, it quickly became clear that the real aim of the Nazis was mass murder and complete extermination of all Europe's Jews.
As every year, the participants of the March carried symbolic Ribbons of Remembrance with the names of murdered Jewish deportees and refugees.
Źródło: TVN24 News in English, tvnwarszawa.pl, PAP