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The inhabitants - hundreds and thousands of Jews from Warsaw and surrounding areas - were forced to live in appalling, over-crowded conditions. Over 100,000 died from starvation and disease and a further 300,000 were deported to extermination camps.

In early 1943 members of the Jewish Fighters Organisation and the ghetto rose up against the Nazi occupiers, planned less as a bid for physical freedom than to show that acts of independence, defiance and will are a freedom in themselves. The Ghetto Uprising was violently suppressed and the whole of the ghetto demolished.

Today at the centre of the former ghetto is the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, erected in 1948 as a tribute to those who fought and died in the ghetto. It is a very moving piece of sculpture and a sombre starting point to the Path of Remembrances – a walk through the former ghetto marked by 16 granite blocks commemorating those who lived and died in the ghetto and the extermination camps. Along the walk is the Bunker Monument marking the spot from were the rebellion was co-ordinator and the walk ends at the very moving Umschlagplatz Monument, at the site of the railway siding from where so many Jews were transported to their deaths.

The monuments are simple and very effecting, not only by reminding you of the suffering that occurred during that time but also of the spirit which allowed people to demonstrate their freedom even in the face of death.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/2206 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/8199
At the Eastern end of the park is Pilsudaki Square and the Tomb of the Unknown Solider. Inside the park are a Fountain and Watertower – designed by the architect Henryk Marconi – some pieces of 18th Century statuary and an ornamental lake.]]> http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/8199 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/1306 http://www.ivebeenthere.co.uk/tips/1306