1940, June 19. 2001. The Encyclopedia of World History

The Encyclopedia of World History. 2001.


1940, June 19

The government in exile transferred from Paris to London.	1

1941, Dec. 11

The government in exile declared war on Japan.	2

1943, April 16

The government in exile asked the International Red Cross to investigate a German report that 10,000 Polish officers, allegedly slain by the Soviets, had been found near Smolensk.	3

April 18

Soviet radio declared that the slaughter and burial of Polish officers near Smolensk could be traced to the German Gestapo, and (April 27) suspended relations with the Polish government in London.	4

April 19–May 16

WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING. The ghetto, originally containing 400,000 Jews, was populated by only 60,000 survivors when the Nazis decided to destroy it. A force of 2,000 German soldiers aided by Lithuanian militia members and Polish police and firefighters met heroic resistance by Jews armed with only a few pistols, rifles, machine guns, and homemade weapons. The Nazis countered by setting the ghetto on fire block by block and then flooding and smoke-bombing the sewers when the Jews attempted to use them as escape routes. Similar uprisings occurred in the ghettoes of Kraków, Vilna, Kaunus, Minsk, and Slutsk.	5


The Encyclopedia of World History, Sixth edition. Peter N. Stearns, general editor. Copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Maps by Mary Reilly, copyright © 2001 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.