Memorial Stone marking the location of Mordechai Anielewcz's Ghetto bunker

Ulica Mila 18 (or 18 Mila Street in English) was the headquarters bunker of the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa (ZOB) (Jewish Fighting Organisation), a Jewish resistance group in Warsaw Ghetto in Poland during World War II. Nowadays stands here a monument of Mordechaj Anielewicz.

The bunker at 18 Mila Street was constructed by a group of underworld smugglers in 1943. The ZOB arrived there by coincidence, and it became the tactical headquarters for the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. The smugglers who had built it helped the ?OB as guides. On May 8, 1943, three weeks after the start of the Uprising, when the bunker was attacked by the Nazis, there were 300 people inside. The smugglers surrendered, but the ?OB command, including Mordechaj Anielewicz, the leader of the Uprising, stood firm. German and Ukrainian troops threw tear gas into the bunker to force the occupants out. Anielewicz, his wife and many of his staff committed suicide rather than surrender, though a few fighters managed to get out of a rear exit.

Photo 150, May 2007

Memorial Stone marking the location of Mordechai Anielewcz's Ghetto bunker, detail

The stone sits on a mound the height of the rubble left in the destroyed ghetto.

Photo 152, May 2007