1. Short title This Act may be cited as the Heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto Congressional Gold Medal Act . 2. Findings Congress finds the following: (1) The Jewish people have long formed an integral part of the culture and history of Europe and of Poland. (2) Europeans Jews contribute to the rich diversity of society and culture across Europe. (3) For centuries, prior to World War II, Poland represented a center of Jewish life in Europe and was home to millions of Jews. (4) Prior to World War II, 350,000 Jews lived in Warsaw, representing about 30 percent of the city’s population. (5) Following the Nazi takeover of Poland, the Germans established the Warsaw ghetto in October 1940, and unlawfully confined Jewish civilians to the ghetto in November 1940, with the population of the ghetto reaching a height of 400,000 Jews. (6) Life in the Warsaw ghetto was marked by widespread starvation, disease, physical violence, and deplorable conditions unsuitable for life, leading to the deaths of 83,000 Jews between 1940 and mid-1942. (7) In less than two months in 1942, German units deported about 265,000 Jews from Warsaw to the Treblinka death camp and killed an additional 35,000 Jews inside the ghetto. (8) In early 1943, German and SS units intended to deport the remaining Jewish population of the ghetto to forced labor camps, but many Jews resisted deportation. (9) The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began on April 19, 1943, when SS and police forces appeared outside the walls of the Warsaw ghetto with the intent of liquidating the ghetto and deporting its remaining inhabitants. (10) Aided in part by arms from the Polish underground and relying on clandestinely organized Jewish self-defense groups, the ghetto heroically resisted German forces, mounting an organized armed resistance against SS and police units and fighting against impossible odds. (11) Jews in the ghetto continued to fend off their German occupiers for almost one month, fighting to the last. (12) After weeks of resistance, the Germans systematically destroyed the