Umschlagplatz

From the Umschlagplatz mass transportations to Treblinka extermination camp took place – over 300 000 people were deported. Also here you will see the engraved verse from the Book of Job (16:18): ‘O earth, cover not thou my blood, And let my cry have noresting-place’. 

In October 1942, SS chief Heinrich Himmler ordered the liquidation of the Warsaw ghetto and deportation of its able-bodied residents to forced labor camps in the Lublin District of the Generalgouvernement. In accordance with this order, German SS and police units tried to resume mass deportations of Jews from Warsaw on January 18, 1943. A group of Jewish fighters, armed with pistols, infiltrated a column of Jews being forced to the Umschlagplatz (transfer point) and, at a prearranged signal, broke ranks and fought their German escorts. Most of these Jewish fighters died in the battle, but the attack sufficiently disoriented the Germans to allow the Jews arranged in columns at the Umschlagplatz a chance to disperse. After seizing 5,000-6,500 ghetto residents to be deported, the Germans suspended further deportations on January 21.