Ukrainian askaris standing near bodies of murdered Jews, Warsaw, 1943

Two Ukrainian Askari peers into the back door of the bodies of Jews killed during the suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising. The original German caption read: "Ukrainian Askaris used during the operation".

During WWII, the Germans used the term "askaris" for Red Army deserters, who formed units fighting against the Red Army and in other operations on the Eastern Front.

They were largely Ukrainian and Russian. The Askaris soldiers were not part of the SS, they were just auxiliary troops. The word Askari is a loan word from Arabic meaning "soldier", which in turn is from Persian (laskar - meaning "army").

In the context of World War II, the term often has the connotation of cooperationism, and (in the case of the occupied Soviet territories) anti-Bolshevism (and is widely represented by the Germans).

From April 19 to May 16, 1943, during World War II (1939–45), residents of Jewish ghettos in Nazi-occupied Warsaw, Poland, staged an armed uprising against deportation to exile camps.

On April 19, 1943, a rebellion broke out in the Warsaw Ghetto after German soldiers and police entered the ghetto to deport its remaining residents. Seven hundred and fifty fighters fought heavily armed and well trained Germans.

The ghetto fighters lasted about a month, but the rebellion ended on May 16, 1943. The resistance was gradually crushed by the Germans. Of the more than 56,000 captured Jews, about 7,000 were shot, and the remainder were deported to the camps. The uprising was the largest single rebellion by Jews during World War II.