On this day in 1943, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended and Jürgen Stroop, SS commander, and police leader, destroyed Warsaw’s Great Synagogue.After several weeks of intense fighting between German military officials Jewish Partisan resistance groups and Polish resistance groups, the uprising came to an end. Resistance forces were overmatched by German SS men. Jürgen Stroop was sent in to replace SS-Oberführer Ferdinan von Sammern-Frankenegg, given his inability to squander the Jewish rebellion when it first began. Stroop was systematic in his approach and demanded that the whole ghetto be leveled completely by bombs, blazes, and buildings. After this took place, all remaining people left in the ghetto were either instantly murdered or sent to death camps. Stroop would later reveal that he maintained anonymity over his control as much as possible, exiting the ghetto during all registered meal times and never staying the night. Such knowledge represented a level of transparency that other SS men working underneath him did not disclose. In the Nazi operation, a total of 1,026 Jews were caught, of whom 245 were killed, either in battle or while resisting; a considerable number of bandits and ringleaders were also caught. In one case, a Jew who had already been made ready for transport fired three shots against a 1st Lieutenant of Police but missed his mark.Stroop is quoted by Kazimierz Moczarski in his book, Conversations with an Executioner (1977), saying, “May 1st was memorable for a number of reasons. I witnessed an extraordinary scene that day. A group of prisoners had been herded into the square. In spite of their exhaustion, many of them held their heads high. I stood nearby, surrounded by my escort. Suddenly I heard shots. A young Jew – in his mid-twenties I'd guess – was firing a pistol at one of our police officers – one ... two ... three ... fast as lightning. One of the bullets hit the officer's hand. My men sprayed the Jew with fire. I managed to whip out my own pistol and hit him as he fell. As he lay dying, I stood over him, watching his life ebb away.” German officials continued deportations through the beginning of May. On May 16, Stroop single-handedly blew up Warsaw’s Great Synagogue, which served as the world’s largest synagogue when it opened in 1878. In his same text, Moczarski included Stroop’s understanding of the Great Synagogue’s destruction which made up his daily report. “What a marvelous sight it was. A fantastic piece of theater. My staff and I stood at a distance. I held the electrical device which would detonate all the charges simultaneously. [The] Jesuiter called for silence. I glanced over at my brave officers and men, tired and dirty, silhouetted against the glow of the burning buildings,” he wrote. “After prolonging the suspense for a moment, I shouted: Heil Hitler and pressed the button. With a thunderous, deafening bang and a rainbow burst of colors, the fiery explosion soared toward the clouds, an unforgettable tribute to our triumph over the Jews. The Warsaw Ghetto was no more. The will of Adolf Hitler and Heinrich Himmler had been done.” In 2019, Polish artist Gabi von Seltmann created a multimedia recreation of the synagogue, which was screened onto the office building that currently stands in its place. Its purpose was to commemorate the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising; the commemoration included recorded versions of Gerszon Sirota, the synagogue's hazzan (cantor), singing, which was preserved and played as part of an organized effort by Open Republic, an organization that fights antisemitism. The multimedia creation served as a solemn reminder of the Jewish presence in the region as well as a revivalist reminder to the Polish community of what was lost at the hands of the Nazis.