Anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Every year on the 19th of April, Varsovians leave yellow daffodils at monuments and sights related to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, which began on that same day in April in 1943. The tradition was started by Marek Edelman, one of the commanders of the uprising and a co-founder of the Jewish Combat Organization, (ŻOB), an armed leftist and anti-fascist Jewish resistance movement instrumental in opposing Nazi rule in the ghetto. 

During recent anniversaries, POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews sponsored the painting of a special commemorative mural on the walls outside of Warsaw's central metro station. In 2023, during the 80th anniversary of the uprising, an activist choir sang Bundist and Jewish anti-fascist songs during alternative commemorations which are held annually and were started by leftist Polish Jews who decided ot organize grassroots commemorations of the uprising as opposed to taking part in the state sponsored ceremony regularly attended by right-wing Polish and Israeli politicians. 

The uprising ended in May 1943, the ghetto was then subsequently destroyed by the Nazis and it's inhabitants sent to death camps where they either ultimately survived or were killed. The memory of the uprising lives on in Warsaw not only as a remembrance of the tragedy faced by Polish Jews but also as a reminder of the importance of resisting fascism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia, then and now.