Proclamation 3523—The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

Of the more than 400,000 Jews whom the Nazis had previously walled into the Warsaw Ghetto, only about 70,000 remained in April of 1943. With deadly efficiency, most of the other inhabitants had been transported by the Nazis to concentration camps and had there been exterminated. The surviving Jews, suffering from malnutrition and disease, with pitifully few weapons and virtually no hope of assistance from any source, determined to sell their lives as dearly as possible. They engaged the Nazis in battle.

The result was known by the Jews to be foredoomed. Yet, though they lacked both military resources and a military tradition, they were able to conduct their struggle against the overwhelming forces of the Nazi occupiers for more than three weeks, thereby providing a chapter in the annals of human heroism, an inspiration to the peace-loving people of the world and a warning to would-be oppressors which will long be remembered.

Now, Therefore, I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of Congress approved August 28, 1962 (76 Stat. 407), do hereby invite the people of the United States to observe the twentieth anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, April 21, 1963, with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this Fourth day of March in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-seventh.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

By the President:

DEAN RUSK,

Secretary of State