The Warsaw Ghetto Resistance Organization, non-partisan and non-political, with membership composed of former Warsaw Ghetto resistance fighters, has been formed here, it was announced today by its president, Jonas Turkow, prominent Polish Yiddish author. “The official founding of WAGRO at this time,” he said, “takes on special significance, since April 19 will be the 20th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.”
“Of the 500,000 Jews whom the Nazis attempted to destroy in Warsaw,” Mr. Turkow added, “there were but a few thousand survivors who are now scattered the world over, with the largest groups in the United States–mainly in the New York area–and Israel.”
Objectives of WAGRO, Mr. Turkow said, are as follows: “To spread the facts about the civilian resistance during the entire German occupation and the military resistance against the Nazi murderers that culminated in the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943; never to let the world forget this historic event and to urge others to commemorate it; and to erect in New York City a Warsaw Ghetto Resistance House as a permanent memorial to this epic struggle for human dignity and as an everlasting symbol of resistance to all forces denying it.”
JTA has documented Jewish history in real-time for over a century. Keep our journalism strong by joining us in supporting independent, award-winning reporting.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
