The Ghetto Fights Read online




  The Ghetto Fights

  Marek Edelman

  Marek Edelman

  The Ghetto Fights

  I am not acquainted with the young author of this booklet, one of the leaders of the Jewish Uprising. He brought me a typewritten copy, and I read it all at once, unable to interrupt my reading for a single moment.

  ... "I am not a writer, " he said. "This has no literary value. "

  However, this non-literary narrative achieves that which not all masterpieces can achieve. For it gives in serious, purposeful, reticent words a record, simple and unostentatious, of a common martyrdom, of its entire involved course. It is also an authentic document about perseverance and moral strength kept intact during the greatest tragedy in the history of mankind.

  Zofia Nalkowska, LODZ, November 1945

  Dedicated to the Memory of Abrasha Blum

  When the Germans occupied Warsaw in 1939, they found the Jewish political and socialworld in a state of complete chaos and disintegration. Almost all the leading personalities had left Warsaw on September 7th. The 300,000 Jews there experienced a deeper feeling of loneliness and helplessness than the others.

  In such conditions it was easy for the Germans to dominate the population from the very beginning by breaking their spirit through persecutions and by evoking a state of passive submission in their midst. The experienced and devilishly refined German propaganda agencies worked ceaselessly to achieve these aims, spreading incredible--for those days--rumours which further increased the panic and derangement in Jewish life. Then, after a short period of time, the maltreatment of Jews passed the stage of an occasional punch on the nose, sadistic extractions of Jews from their homes, and chaotic nabbing of Jews in the streets for aimless work. The persecutions now became definite and systematic.

  As early as November 1939, the first "exterminating" decrees were made public: the establishment of "educational" camps for the Jewish population as a whole, and the expropriation of all Jewish assets in excess of 2,000 zloty per family. Later, one after another, a multitude of prohibitive rules and ordinances appeared. Jews were forbidden to work in key industries, in government institutions, to bake bread, to earn more than 500 zloty a month (and the price of bread rose, at times, to as high as 40 zloty a pound), to buy from or sell to "Aryans", to seek comfort at "Aryan" doctors' offices, to doctor "Aryan" sick, to ride on trains and trolley-cars, to leave the city limits without special permits, to possess gold or jewelry, etc. After November 12th, 1939, every Jew twelve years of age or older was compelled to wear on his right arm a white arm-band with the blue Star of David printed on it (in certain cities, e.g. Lodz and Wloclawek, yellow signs on the back and chest).

  The Jews--beaten, stepped upon, slaughtered without the slightest cause--lived in constant fear. There was only one punishment for failure to obey regulations--death--while careful obedience to the rules did not protect against a thousand more and more fantastic degradations, more and more acute persecutions, recurrent acts of terror, more far-reaching regulations. To top it all, the unwritten law of collective responsibility was being universally applied against the Jews. Thus, in the first days of November 1939, 53 male inhabitants of the 9 Nalewki Street apartment house were summarily shot for the beating of a Polish policeman by one of the tenants. This occurrence, the first case of mass punishment, intensified the feeling of panic amongst the Warsaw Jews. Their fear of the Germans now took on unequalled forms.

  In this atmosphere of terror and fear, and under conditions cardinally changed, the Bund resumed--or, to be more specific continued--its political and social activities. Despite everything that was happening, there were among us, it seemed, people ready to attempt further work. First, psychological difficulties had to be overcome. For instance, a strongly depressing handicap was the feeling that one could perish instantly not as a result of any particular activities, but as a beaten and humiliated--not human being--but Jew. This conviction that one was never treated as an individual human being caused a lack of self-confidence and stunted the desire to work. These factors will perhaps best explain why our activities in the first period after the fall of Warsaw were mainly of a charitable nature, and why the first instinctive acts of armed resistance against the occupying forces occurred comparatively late and, in the beginning, in such insignificant forms. To overcome our own terrifying apathy, to force ourselves to the smallest spark of activity, to fight against our own acceptance of the generally prevailing feeling of panic--even these small tasks required truly gigantic efforts on our part.

  Even during the darkest moments, the Bund did not suspend its activities for the shortest time. When the Party's Central Committee was forced to leave the city in September 1939, it had placed the responsibility of continuing the political activities of the Bund in the hands of Abrasha Blum. He, together with Szmul Zygielbojm and in cooperation with the efforts of Warsaw's mayor, Starzynski, organized Jewish detachments which took an active part in the defence of the capitai. Almost the entire editorial staff of the Folkszajtung ("The People's Gazette"--the party daily) had left. However, the publication of the Folkszajtung was continued. During the siege period, it appeared regularly, edited by comrades Abrasha Blum, Klog, Klin and others.

  Public kitchens and canteens originated during the siege continued their activities after the seizure of the city. Almost all Party and Trade Union members received financial help. Immediately following the arrival of the Germans, the new Central Bureau of the Party was organized (A. Blum, L. Klog, Mrs. S. Nowogrodzka, B. Goldsztejn, S. Zygielbojm, later A. Sznajdmil ("Berek") and M. Orzech).

  In January 1940, after the first radio transmitting station of the Polish Underground had been found by the Germans, a new wave of mass terror commenced. During a single night the Germans arrested and murdered over 300 people comprising social leaders, intelligentsia and professionals. This was not all. The so-called "Seuchensperrgebiet" (area threatened by typhus) was established, and Jews were forbidden to live outside of this designated area. Furthermore, the Jews were being forced to work for both German and Polish employers, and were generally looked upon as a source of cheap labour. This did not suffice, either. The world was to be shown that the Jews were hated not only by the Germans.

  Thus, during the Easter Holidays of 1940, pogroms lasting several days were instigated. The German Air Corps engaged Polish hoodlums for 4 zloty per "working day". The first three days the hooligans raged unopposed. On the fourth day the Bund militia carried out revenge actions. Four major street battles resulted in the following localities: Solna Street--Mirowski Market Square, Krochmalna Street--Grzybowski Square, Karmelicka Street-- Nowolipie Street, and Niska Street--Zamenhofa Street. Comrade, Bernard Goldsztejn commanded all of these battles from his hide-out.

  The fact that none of the other active political parties took part in this action is significant as an example of the utter misconception of existing conditions common to Jewish groups at the time. All other groups even opposed our action. It was, however, our determined stand that momentarily checked the Germans' activities and went on record as the first Jewish act of resistance.

  It was imperative that the public understand the significance of the events. It was imperative that all the beaten, maltreated people be told and shown that despite all we were still able to raise our heads. This was the immediate purpose of the first issue of The Bulletin which appeared for May Day, published on the battered Skif mimeograph machine which had been found by chance in the Public School at 29 Karmelicka Street. The editorial committee included Abrasha Blum, Adam Sznajdmil and Bernard Goldsztein. The entire issue was dedicated to an analysis of the Easter disturbances. It met, however, with indifference on the part of the public.

  In November 1940, the Germans finally
established the Warsaw ghetto. The Jewish population still living outside the "Seuchensperrgebiet" was brought inside the special area. Poles living within the designated ghetto boundaries were ordered to move out. Small factories, shopsand stores were allowed two weeks more, until December 1st, to complete their evacuation. But, beginning with November 15th, no Jew was allowed to leave the Jewish precincts. All houses vacated by Jews were immediately locked by the Germans and then, with all their contents, gratuitiously given to Polish merchants and hucksters. Hucksters and small-time pedlars, the typical brood of war conditions, those were the people upon whom the Germans counted, whose favours they tried to gain by presenting them with confiscated Jewish assets and by tolerating their practice of food-smuggling.

  The walls and barbed wire surrounding the ghetto grew higher every day until, on November 15th, they completely cut off the Jews from the outside world. Contacts with Jews living in other cities and towns were, naturally, also made impossible. For Jewish workers, all possibilities to earn a living vanished. Not only all factory workers, but all those who had been working in "Aryan" enterprises, as well as government agencies became unemployed. The typically war-time group of "middlemen", tradesmen appeared. The great majority, however, left jobless, started selling everything that could possibly be sold, and slowly approached the depths of extreme poverty. The Germans, it is true, widely publicized their policy of "increasing the productive power of the ghetto", but actually they achieved the complete pauperization of the population. The ghetto population was increased by thousands of Jews evicted from neighbouring towns. These people with practically nothing to their names, alone, in strange surroundings where others were preoccupied with their own difficulties, literally dying of malnutrition, tried to build their existence anew.

  The complete segregation of the ghetto, the regulations under which no newspaper could be brought into it and all the news from the outside world carefully kept out, had a very definite purpose. These regulations contributed to the development of a special way of thinking common to the ghetto inhabitants. Everything taking place outside the ghetto walls became more and more foggy, distant, strange. Only the present day really mattered. Only matters of the most personal nature, the closest circle of friends were by now the focal point of interest of the average ghetto inhabitant. The most important thing was simply "to be alive".

  This "life" itself, however, had a different meaning to each, depending on his environment and opportunities. It was a life of plenty for the still wealthy few, it was exuberant and colourful for a variety of depraved Gestapo-men and demoralized smugglers, and, for a multitude of workers and unemployed, it was a hungry existence upheld by the meagre public kitchens' soup and rationed bread. Everyone tried hard to hang on to his particular sort of "life" as best he could. Those who had money sought the essence of their existence in comfortable living, strove to find it in the dense, chattery air of overcrowded cafes, or plunged into the dance music of the night clubs. Those who had nothing, the paupers, sought their "happiness" in a rotten potato recovered from a garbage pit, found evasive joy in a piece of begged-for bread with which the taste of hunger could, for a while, be stilled. These were the tragic contrasts of the ghetto so often exploited by the Germans, photographed for propaganda purposes and maliciously presented to the opinion of the world. "In the Warsaw Ghetto beggars, swollen from hunger, die in front of luscious window displays of food smuggled from the 'Aryan' sections..."

  The hunger increased daily. From dark, overcrowded living quarters it got out into the streets, came into sight in the shape of ridiculously swollen, log-shaped bodies with diseased feet, covered with open wounds, wrapped in dirty rags. It spoke through the mouths of the beggars, the aged, the young, and the children, in the streets and courtyards.

  Children begged everywhere, in the ghetto as well as on the "Aryan" side. Six-year-old boys crawled through the barbed wire under the very eyes of the gendarmes in order to obtain food "on the other side". They supported entire families in this manner. Often a lone shot in the vicinity of the barbed wire told the casual passers-by that another little smuggler had died in this fight with omnipotent hunger. A new "profession" appeared, the so-called "catchers". Boys, or rather shadows of former boys, would snatch packages from pedestrians and immediately, while still running, devour the contents. In their haste, they sometimes stuffed themselves full of soap or uncooked peas....

  Such was the misery by now that people began to die of hunger in the streets. Every morning, about 4-5 a.m., funeral carts collected a dozen or more corpses on the streets that had been covered with a sheet of paper and weighted down with a few rocks. Some simply fell in the streets and remained there, others died in their homes but their families, after having stripped them completely (in order to sell the clothes), dumped the bodies in front of the houses so that burial would be made at the cost of the Jewish Community Council. Cart after cart filled with nude corpses would move through the streets. One on top of the other the bony carcasses lay, the heads bobbing up and down and beating against one another or against the wood of the cart on the uneven pavement.

  When the ghetto was once more flooded with evicted Jews from smaller cities and towns, the situation became disastrous. There were never enough houses and living quarters. Now homeless, grimy people began loitering in the streets. All day long they camped in the courtyards, ate there, slept there, lived there. Finally, when there was no other way, they turned to the specially established "points"--transient homes for refugees. These "points" were one of the darkest spots of ghetto life, a real plague with which it was virtually impossible to cope (only some of the children could be moved into children's homes, where conditions were better).

  A few hundred people crowd every large, unheated room of a synagogue, every hall of a deserted factory. Unkempt, lousy, with no facilities to wash, undernourished, and hungry ("water soups" are given once daily by the Jewish Community Council), they remain all day on their filthy straw mattresses, with no strength to rise. The walls are green, slimy, mildewed. The mattresses usually lie on the ground, seldom on wooden supports. A whole family often receives sleeping space for one. This is the kingdom of hunger and misery.

  Simultaneously spotted fever raged in the ghetto. Yellow signs reading "Fleckfieber!" (Spotted Fever) were affixed to a constantly increasing number of doors and entrances. Particularly great numbers of the starvelings at the "points" were afflicted. All hospitals, by now handling contagious diseases exclusively, were overcrowded. 150 sick daily were being admitted to a single ward and placed two or three in a bed, or on the floors. The dying were viewed impatiently--let them vacate quicker for the next one! Physicians simply could not keep up with it. There had not been enough of them in the first place. Hundreds were dying at a given instance. The grave-diggers were unable to dig fast enough. Although hundreds of corpses were being put into every grave, hundreds more had to lie around for several days, filling the graveyard with a sickening, sweetish odour. The epidemic kept growing. It could not be controlled. Typhus was everywhere, and from everywhere it threatened. It shared mastery over the ghetto with the overpowering hunger. The monthly mortality rate reached 6,000 (over 2% of the population).

  In such tragic conditions, the Germans attempted to establish a semblance of law and order. The Jewish Council ("Judenrat") officially governed the ghetto from the very first day of its establishment. To secure "order" a uniformed Jewish police force was formed. The children smuggling across the barbed wires now had to be careful lest still another official would catch them, and the ghetto population received another Cerberus, making a total of three: the Germans, the Polish policemen, and the Jewish policemen. But the agencies established to give the ghetto a semblance of normal life were in reality nests of corruption and demoralization. The Germans succeeded in drafting the best-known citizens into serving on the Jewish Council. The only member of the Council, however, who had the courage to leave that agency despite the death penalty for such an act was Comrade
Arthur (Szmul Zygielbojm).

  Such was life in the ghetto when the first report of the gassing of Jews in Chelmno, Pomerania, reached Warsaw. The news was brought by three persons who were to be put to death in Chelmno and who had miraculously escaped. Their story showed that during November and December 1940, approximately 40,000 Jews from Lodz, another 40,000 from Pomerania and towns from other regions incorporated into the Reich, and also a few hundred Gypsies from Bessarabia had died in the Chelmno gas chambers. They had been murdered by the Germans in the now well-known vile manner. The victims were told they were being taken for work and ordered to take along hand-luggage. Upon their arrival at the Chelmno Palace they were stripped of all their clothes and everyone was given a towel and soap, supposedly for the bathing that was to follow. All appearances were kept up to the very last minute. The victims were led into hermetically closed trucks containing gas chambers. The gas was forced into the chambers by the truck engines. Afterwards, in a clearing in the woods in the vicinity of Chelmno, Jewish grave-diggers unloaded the corpses from the trucks and buried them. The woods were surrounded by 200 SS-men. A certain SS-man called Bykowiec was in charge of the procedure. Inspections by SS and SA generals occurred several times.

  The Warsaw ghetto did not believe these reports. People who clung to their lives with superhuman determination were unable to believe that they could be killed in such a manner. Only our organized [youth] groups, carefully noting the steadily increasing signs of German terror, accepted the Chelmno story as indeed probable, and decided upon extensive propaganda activities in order to inform the population of the imminent danger. A meeting of the Zukunft cadres took place in mid-February 1941, with Abrasha Blum and Abramek Bortensztein as speakers. All of us agreed to offer resistance before being led to death. We were ashamed of the Chelmno Jews' submissiveness, of their failure to rise in their own defence. We did not want the Warsaw ghetto ever to act in a similar way. "We shall not die on our knees," said Abramek, "Not they will be an example for us, but men like our comrade Alter Bas." While Chelmno victims were dying passively and humbly he, after having been caught as a political leader, with illegal papers in his pocket, and tortured in every manner known to the Germans, resisted the barbarous torment through superhuman efforts, when but a few words would have saved his life.