The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising monument / Bosyantek, Creative Commons For four weeks, from April 19 to May 16, 1943, during World War II, residents of the Jewish ghetto in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland, staged an armed revolt against deportations to extermination camps. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising inspired other revolts in extermination camps and ghettos throughout German-occupied Eastern Europe. Shortly after the German invasion of Poland, in September 1939, more than 400,000 Jews in Warsaw, the capital, were confined to an area of the city that was little more than 1 square mile. In November 1940, this ghetto was sealed off by brick walls, barbed wire and armed guards. Anyone caught leaving was shot on sight. Among all the ghettos established in cities throughout Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe, the Warsaw ghetto was the largest. The Nazis controlled the amount of food that was brought into the ghetto. Disease and starvation killed thousands each month.