On July 22, 1942, as part of Hitler's 'Final Solution' targeting Jews, Nazi Germany initiated Operation Grossaktion (Great Action) in the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto. This involved forcibly confining Poland's three million Jews to extremely squalid ghettos, with the Warsaw Ghetto being the largest, holding 400,000 people within a 3.3km space. Prior to Grossaktion, rampant disease and starvation had already claimed thousands of lives.

The operation's objective was to gather all Jews, regardless of age, gender, or health, and transport them in horribly overcrowded boxcars to Treblinka, where they would be subjected to gas chambers. Within a mere 60 days, over 300,000 ghetto residents fell victim to the Germans. Initially, Jews complied with the narrative of being 'relocated,' but as they realized the Germans intended to exterminate everyone, the ghetto mounted resistance.