The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (19 April-16 May 1943) was a failed uprising by the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto against the German forces as they attempted to liquidate the ghetto. The underground 600-strong Jewish Combat Organization and 400-strong Jewish Military Union, supported by more Polish Home Army and communist Gwardia Ludowa fighters, refused to surrender to the occupying forces, which included the Jewish collaborationist ghetto police and the Polish Blue Police. SS-Brigadefuehrer Jurgen Stroop ordered the block-by-block burning of the ghetto, ending on 16 May; 13,000 Polish Jews were killed, with half of them being burnt alive or suffocated. The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during World War II, and Warsaw would be razed after the Warsaw Uprising of 1944, another failed attempt to oust the German occupiers.
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