Early day motion · EDM 1155 · 16 Apr 2018

WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING - 75th ANNIVERSARY

Tabled by Patricia Gibson (Scottish National Party) 50 signatures

The motion

That this House commemorates the 75th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, from 19 April to 16 May 1943; notes that after Germany invaded Poland in September 1939, more than 440,000 Jews were confined to just 1.3 square miles of Warsaw, sealed in by a wall patrolled by armed guards; understands Ghetto residents were forced to live in appallingly squalid conditions, with an average of 7.2 people per room, with food rations deliberately insufficient to sustain life; realises many thousands of Ghetto inhabitants died of starvation and disease, while in July 1942, the Nazis began deporting Jews to Treblinka extermination camp, murdering 265,000 in two months; acknowledges that the lightly armed Jewish Combat Organization, led by 23-year-old Mordecai Anielewicz, resisted heroically when on 19 April 1943, SS forces attacked with heavy artillery, tanks and aircraft to liquidate the Ghetto, battling German forces for nearly one month while the SS razed ghetto buildings, destroying bunkers in which thousands of surviving residents had hidden; welcomes the 75th anniversary's commemoration with Warsaw's people laying daffodils upon the grave of Marek Edelman, the last surviving uprising commander; and hopes that the bravery of the Jewish resistance fighters who resisted genocide will be commemorated internationally for years to come.

Source: the official Early Day Motions database.