Warsaw Ghetto boy
Unidentified child symbolizing Jewish victims of the Holocaust.
The most iconic photograph of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising centers on a small boy, his hands raised above his head, as SS-Rottenführer Josef Blösche trains an MP 28 submachine gun on him. The child and others had been hiding in a bunker during the ghetto’s final liquidation. German troops forced them out, marched them to the Umschlagplatz, and deported them to either the Majdanek or Treblinka extermination camp. Neither the photograph’s exact location nor its photographer has been confirmed; Blösche is the only person in the image identified with certainty. This picture has become one of the Holocaust’s most recognized images, and the boy has come to symbolize both children in the Holocaust and all Jewish victims.
- field
- Victim of the Holocaust
- nationality
- Jewish, likely Polish
- known_for
- Central figure in the iconic photograph of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
- status
- Deported to an extermination camp; exact fate unknown
Lore & Background
The photograph was taken during the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, between 19 April and 16 May, in the Warsaw Ghetto. The original caption was 'Forcibly pulled out of bunkers' (German: Mit Gewalt aus Bunkern hervorgeholt). The boy appears six or seven years old, wearing a newsboy cap and knee-length socks, with his hands up in surrender. Josef Blösche is the only person in the photograph identified with certainty. The photographer was either Franz Konrad or a member of Propaganda Company 689; Albert Cusian may have claimed to have taken the photograph.
Reader's Guide
The Warsaw Ghetto boy remains unidentified despite several claims. Proposed identities include Artur Dąb Siemiątek, Levi Zeilinwarger, Israel Rondel, and Tsvi Chaim Nussbaum, but all stories are inconsistent with known facts. Dr. Lucjan Dobroszycki stated that the photograph 'requires a greater level of responsibility from historians than almost any other... it is too holy to let people do with it what they want.' The image was included in the Stroop Report, a personal souvenir for Heinrich Himmler, which dehumanized Jews as 'bandits', 'lice', or 'rats'. The photograph was entered into evidence at the Nuremberg Trials but not shown to the court. Its legacy endures as a symbol of the vulnerability of children and all Jewish victims during the Holocaust.
Did You Know?
- The boy was probably younger than ten because he was not wearing a Star of David armband.
- The photograph was originally captioned 'Forcibly pulled out of bunkers' in German.
- Josef Blösche is the only person in the photograph who has been identified with certainty.
- One copy of the Stroop Report containing the photograph is held by the Institute of National Remembrance in Warsaw.
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