The Bravest Battle - Red Victory

19 APRIL 1943, ZAMENHOFA - MILA JUNCTION, WARSAW GHETTO: The seeds of the ZOB (Jewish Combat Organization) were planted on 22 July 1942, when the German Nazis under SS General Jurgen Stroop began the GrossAktion Warschau -transportation of the ghetto population to the Treblinka extermination camp- sealing the fate of the Jews confined in the Warsaw Ghetto. Along with ZZW (Jewish Military League), ZOB turned the occupied ghetto buildings into bunkers; tried to gather small arms from smuggling and Polish resistance. However, despite all of the efforts, the Jewish rebels were armed only with pistols, rifles and Molotov cocktails. On January 1943, Germans started the second phase of the "Grossaktion Warshau". The armed resistance was triggered when a 17 year old girl named Emily Landau threw a grenade into a cluster of SS men from a rooftop on Gesia Street, killing or wounding a dozen of the soldiers. For two months, ZZW and ZOB units fought off SS attacks to control the ghetto. Despite the heavy toll, Germans slowly destroyed the pockets of resistance and pushed the rebels towards Mila and Muranowska Streets. At the night of April 19, Jürgen Stroop dispatched groups of Lithuanian and Ukrainian SS auxiliaries and Polish police into the ghetto to secure the exits of the Mila street where the headquarters of the ZOB was located. Supported by armored vehicles, SS troops advanced in single file toward the junction of Zamenhofa and Mila. Having swore to fight to the death, the young fighters of the ZOB under the command of their leader Mordechai Anielewicz were waiting to make their last stand.