Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Natan Rapoport

The Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising by Natan Rapoport exists as a memorial to the heroes of the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - a pivotal event in the history of the Holocaust and Jewish people.

The third in Rapoport's series of monuments to the Uprising, this piece differs from the two earlier monuments in its size and depiction of female fighters. This sculpture highlights female participants in the rebellion as combatants and mothers, a stark difference from their earlier depictions solely as caretakers.

While the individuals included in the sculpture are not said to be of any specific heroes of the uprising, the monument itself honors well known fighters such as Mordechai Anielewicz, Zivia Lubetkin Zuckerman, Yitzchak Zuckerman, Michat Klepfisz, Yaakov "Pawel" Frankel, Arie-Leon Rodal, and countless others. These young everyday heroes took up arms in an act of rebellion that shook the Nazis to their core. Against all odds, they held out for weeks against a professional, well-funded military machine. The fighters knew they were facing an overwhelming force, yet they organized, armed themselves, and resisted anyway. Their actions turned the ghetto from a place of imposed death into a site of defiance.

The Workers Circle commissioned Rapoport to create a monument honoring the victims of the Holocaust and the fighters of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising — the first such monument in New York City. The memorial statue was unveiled on April 19, 1977, at its NYC headquarters.

In 2025, The Workers Circle graciously agreed to a fifty-year loan of the sculpture. The historic unveiling took place in HMTC’s Children’s Memorial Garden on April 19, 2026.

The sculpture now stands as a publicly-accessible resource for understanding the power of art as a tool for remembrance and education.

Further Resources On The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Ghetto Fighters House Museum (Beit Lohamei Haghetadt)
The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History
Illinois Holocaust Museum & Education Center
Jewish Historical Institute
Jewish Virtual Library
The National WWII Museum
USHMM – The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Yad Vashem – The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Yad Vashem - Voices from the Inferno

Further Resources On Natan Rapoport

Jewish Historical Institute - “The Last March” by Natan Rappaport
Yad Vashem - Natan Rapoport's Memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
When I Met Natan Rapoport by Alan Kriegstein