Babies were still born and young lovers still got married. They never stopped hoping. although there was all too little they could hope for. A precious few were lucky enough to get work permits that allowed them to leave the ghetto and go to work in the German factories. Those people became adept at smuggling. The contraband they brought back with them was an orange or a potato or perhaps some medicine for a sick child. An underground grew up that managed to maintain tenuous contacts with the Polish partisans. The ghetto Jews never stopped trying to live their lives as best they could. even though the Germans were making it impossible for them to live at all. Finally. the Germans hit on their "final solution." and the deportations to the death camps began. What was once a community of a million living souls was soon decimated to a few thousand. But these few thousand could stand no more. In their final act of desperation and courage. they determined that if they were to die. they would at least die gloriously and happily in the knowledge that some of their tormentors would die with them. On April 29. 1943. they finally fought back. A handful of Jews. mostly young men who had escaped the deportations to the death camps because they were strong enough to work for the Germans. held off one of the most powerful armies this world has ever known for nearly a month. They smuggled in weapons. using children to carry them through the sewers of Warsaw. They became proficient in making and using molotov cocktails.
Keywords matched
deportations work permits