Jews had been settled in Warsaw from around the 14th Century and lived harmoniously with the Germans and Russians who also lived in the city at that time. Before WWII, there were around 450,000 Jews living peacefully in Warsaw. However, in 1940, the German Governer of Warsaw, General Hans Frank decided to build a Jewish ghetto which was later destroyed in 1942, with Jews being transported en masse to the concentration camps of Treblinka and Auschwitz. The largest ever deportation was in August 1942, when some 135,000 Jews were crammed onto crowded freight trains to await their fate in the concentration camps.

By 1943, the remaining 50,000 to 60,000 Jews created armed groups and the Ghetto Uprising broke out on January 18th, 1943, resulting in a further 13,000 deaths. Ending in May of the same year, many of the Jews who had survived the Uprising were also transported to Treblinka. After the war, there remained only 37,000 Jews, and today's Jewish population of Warsaw reaches a mere 2,000.

Although little now remains of the former Jewish ghetto, there are several reminders of this rich cultural heritage. Umshlagplatz, the site of the mass deportations remains, and today exhibits a memorial to the deported Jews, built in 1988 by architect Hanna Szmalenberg and sculptor Wladyslaw Klamerus, in the form of a stone monument in the shape of an open freight car.

The Nozyk Synagogue is an important meeting place for today's Jewish minority, and is open for prayers and services daily and on major Jewish holidays. Built between 1898 and 1902, the synagogue was used by German soldiers as a stable during WWII, although it is now fully restored.

The Gensha Cemetery in Okopowa Street is one of the largest Jewish cemeteries in Europe and was established in 1806. Closed down during the Second World War, the cemetery and its 200,000 graves and crypts is now largely abandoned and overgrown, although there remains a small active area which serves the current Jewish population.

Other sites of interest in the area are the Pawiak Prison, the Jewish Historical Institute housing a museum and library, and a bunker on Mila Street. This reminder of the Holocaust commemorates the lives of 100 Jews buried here who had hidden in the bunker only to be later discovered and killed by Nazi troops. There is now a memorial stone at the site inscribed in Polish, Yiddish and Hebrew. Also of interest is the Path of Remembrance extending along Lewartowskiego Street.