SS-General Jürgen Stroop, called the killer of the Warsaw ghetto, titled his report "The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is No More!" It’s an official record of the actions that the Germans took to quell the uprising in the largest closed residential district for Jews in occupied Europe. The revolt in the spring of 1943 demonstrated the determination of the Jewish residents, who, even though their situation was hopeless, offered armed resistance to German attempt to liquidate the ghetto, and fought for their dignity, if not for their lives. The report’s perspective is a truly unusual one: it is a viewpoint of a perpetrator, not a victim, and the former are normally unwilling to share the details of their crimes. Yet, the document does not feel like a praise of German "courage, strength and sacrifice", as the author wished, but is rather an accusation and evidence of a crime committed on the Jewish population; it does not commend Stroop’s men for following orders to the letter, but pays tribute to their innocent victims. The photographic section of the report contains extremely suggestive shots that have entered public consciousness, and are widely associated with WWII plight of Jews; in fact, some of them have become iconic images of the Holocaust.
The significance of Stroop Report was recently recognized by UNESCO, which included the document, kept in the IPN's Archive, into its "Memory of the World" program. Its goal is to conduct and support activities aimed at preserving and popularizing archival heritage, as well as raising awareness of the importance of document collections. One of the elements of the Program is the "Memory of the World" World List. Here, you can read about the program certificate issued to the IPN.
The Institute of National Remembrance loaned the original Jürgen Stroop Report to the Warsaw Ghetto Museum. The IPN's Deputy President, announcing the loan at a press conference in November 2021, said,
It's one of the most precious artefacts in our collections . . . therefore, I must admit that the decision to loan it to the Warsaw Ghetto Museum was not an easy one. However, after long deliberations and given our good cooperation with the Museum, we came to the conclusion that it deserved being exhibited in this new, very important, institution, one of the key places preserving the history of Polish Jews, especially the history of Jews during WWII.
The ground for the cooperation between the institutions was laid by the agreement of 19 April 2019.
Agreement between the Warsaw Ghetto Museum and the IPN's Archive signed
Download a copy of the Stroop Report: