The Ghetto Fights Page 2
A few dozen copies of a report on the Chelmno murders were circulated throughout the ghetto. This report was also sent abroad, together with a demand to take retaliatory measures against the German civilian population. But public opinion abroad did not believe the story either. Our appeal found no response. Comrade Zygielbojm, our representative in the Polish National Council in London, broadcast the literal text of our message in a radio speech to the whole world. The following morning his appeal was circulated in the ghetto both in a special edition of our publication Der Weker and in the papers of all other political groups.
The beginning of the Soviet-German war (summer 1941) was also the time of extensive exterminating activities on the part of the Germans in the Western Ukrainian and White Russian territories. In November 1941, the mass shooting of Jews in Wilno, Slonim, Bialystok and Baranowicze occurred. In Ponary (vic. Wilno) tens of thousands of Jews perished in rapid killings. The news reached Warsaw, but the uninformed public again took a near-sighted view of the situation. The majority was still of the opinion that the murders were not a result of an organized, orderly policy to exterminate the Jewish people, but acts of misbehaviour on the part of victory-drunk troops. Political parties, however, were now beginning to understand the true state of affairs.
In January 1942, an inter-party conference was called. By now all parties agreed that armed resistance was the only appropriate answer to the persecutions. The Hashomer and Hechalutz organizations for the first time suggested a plan for a joint battle organization. Maurycy Orzech and Abrasha Blum addressed the conference on behalf of our movement, maintaining that an armed uprising could be successful only if carried out in agreement with the Polish Underground and with their cooperation. However, the common battle organization was not established at that time.
It was our group that called the first battle organization into being with the knowledge of the Polish Socialists (Left-wing group of the PPS--the Polish Socialist Party). Bernard Goldsztejn, Abrasha Blum, and Berek Sznajdmil constituted the Command. The first "five" of instructors was organized and comprised Liebeskind (from Lodz), Zygmunt Frydrych, Lejb Szpichler, Abram Fajner and Marek Edelman. We started our work with theoretical instruction, but the complete lack of weapons made it impossible to broaden our activities. Thus we were practically limited in our activities to intelligence work among the Germans and, in close relation to the foregoing, the warning of particular people against possible "slip-ups". The following people were active in our intelligence service: Pola Lipszyc, Cywia Waks, Zodka Goldblat, Lajcia Blank, Stefa Moryc, Mania Elenbogen, and comrades from the PS: Marian Meremholc, Mietek Dab, etc. Despite our very limited possibilities, the mere fact of establishing such an organization was of obvious importance. Our initiative met with the full approval of all those in the know.
In those days the Bund was quite a large organization, considering the clandestine working conditions. More than 2,000 people participated in the festivities occasioned by the Bund's 44th anniversary in October 1941. These meetings were held in many places simultaneously. On the surface nothing was discernible, and it was difficult to realize how great the number of small groups--dispersed "fives" or "sevens" meeting in private apartments--really was.
The Central Trade Union Council was also revived (Bernard Goldsztejn, Kersz, Mermelsztein), and eventually registered approximately 30,000 former union members.
The scope of the Zukunft's work was also quite extensive. The clandestine Zukunft Committee established itself during the first days of October 1939, and by mid-November 1939, the first "fives" were meeting. In the generally tragic conditions of Jewish life, the lot of Jewish youth was the worst. Young Jews were being persecuted by the Germans with special cruelty. These young men, whom the Germans continuously hunted for forced labour, were not even free to walk the streets, let alone attempt regular work. To remedy their difficulties, the Zukunft established cooperative enterprises where young people could find employment. In 1940 two barber shops were opened, a cooperative tailor shop, and a cooperative shoemaker shop. The shops served not only as working places, but as comparatively safe meeting places for the entire organization as well. It was here that the first Zukunftsturm (Zukunft Militia) met. With the increase in the scope of work, the Zukunft and Skif Committees merged into one (Henoch Russ, Abramek Bortensztein, Lejb Szpichler, Abram Fajner, Miriam Szyfman, Mojszele Kaufman, Rywka Rozensztajn, Fajgele Peltel, Welwl Rozowski, Jankiel Gruszka, Sziojme Paw, Marek Edelman).
In 1941 a Youth Division was established at the Jewish Social Mutual Aid Organization and the Zukunft became one of the Division's important contributors. We were able to reach large numbers of young people. Our lecturers took charge of numerous youth groups, which were at that time established under the House Committees in every apartment house. There was the choir with its active programme (public concerts were given in the Judaistic Library). School-age youth was also being organized. The SOMS (Socialist School Students' Organization) was re-established, and numbered a few hundred members after a very short time. Comprehensive political education and cultural activities were carried out.
At the same time the Skif, whose activities were until then limited to securing financial help for its pre-war members, started large-scale work among children of school and pre-school age. A so-called "corner" was established in every house, where children found a home for a few hours every day. The Dramatic Club, led by Pola Lipszyc, gave performances twice a week. During the 1941 season 12,000 children attended these performances (Dolls and The Granary were shown 80 times). Instruction classes were held for children 12-15 years of age. The Instructors' Council members themselves attended instruction classes covering a full secondary school course.
Six periodicals were published by us in those days: 1. Der Weker (weekly), 2. The Bulletin (monthly), 3. Tsait Fragn ("Problems of the Times"--a theoretical political magazine), 4. For Our and Your Freedom (monthly), 5. Yugnt Shtime (The Voice of Youth--monthly), 6. The New Youth (monthly). Considerable effort went into the publication of these papers. As a rule, the single old Skif mimeograph machine would be working the whole night through. Usually no electricity was available, and working by carbide gas lights proved extremely strenuous. At about 2 a.m. the printing personnel (Rozowski, Zyferman, Blumka Klog, Marek) would complain of tremendous eye pains and it would be almost impossible to continue working. On the other hand, every minute was precious. At 7 a.m. the issue, no matter how many pages it held, had to be ready for circulation. Everyone worked harder than they were physically able to. They averaged two-three sleepless nights a week. It was impossible to catch up on one's sleep the following morning, because one had to pretend complete ignorance of the printing activities. The manager of the printing office, Marek, was also in charge of circulation (people actually circulating the paper were: Zoska Goldblat, Anka Wolkowicz, Stefa Moryc, Miriam Szyfman, Marynka Segalewicz, Cluwa Krysztal-Nisenbaum, Chajka Betchatowska, Halina Lipszyc and others). After a sleepless night, there usually followed a difficult day, always in suspense, uncertainty whether everything reached its destination, whether all was in order, whether there were no "slip-ups".
Once Marynka was stopped on the street by a "navy-blue" [Polish] policeman while carrying 40 copies of The Bulletin. It happened under the ghetto wall, on Franciszkanska Street. She pretended she was an "ordinary" smuggler and wanted to take care of the matter accordingly--by offering a bribe of 500 zloty. The unusually high offer made the police suspicious, and they asked to be shown the "merchandise". Now the inevitable happened. Not stockings, but printed sheets of paper fell out from under the girl's skirt and littered the street. The matter became serious, and Marynka already saw herself in the Gestapo's dark shadow. Suddenly a lucky "coincidence" occurred--an argument started not far away, and fists were soon flying. Such disturbances could not be tolerated near the ghetto wall. The policemen lost their heads, did not know what to do first, and turned around for an instant--long enough for Marynka to gather the papers, throw the p
olicemen their promised 500 zloty, and disappear... As to the "argument", it was intentionally started by "Little Kostek" (S. Kostrynski) who had noticed Marynka's predicament.
It might be interesting to add that according to a sort of poll that we were able to conduct, our publications were being read by an average of 20 people per copy.
Our periodicals were also circulated throughout the country. This phase of our work was organized by J. Ceiemenski and I. Falk, both of whom had been previously authorized by the Party Central Committee to maintain continuous contacts with groups throughout the country. In addition, Mendelson (Mendele) was delegated by the Zukunft Committee for the purpose of organizing the work of youth groups outside Warsaw.
In the meantime the terror within the ghetto kept increasing while the ghetto's isolation from the outside world became more and more rigid. More and more people were being arrested for sneaking onto the "Aryan side", and finally "special courts" were established. On February 12th, 1941, seventeen people previously sentenced to death for illegal trespassing in the "Aryan section" lost their lives. The execution took place in the Jewish jail on Gesia Street. At 4 a.m. shrill cries notified the neighbourhood that "justice" was being meted out, that seventeen outcasts, including four children and three women, were being duly punished for leaving the ghetto in pursuit of a piece of bread or a few pennies. Cries from other jail cells could also be heard, the voices of future victims awaiting trial for the same offence, a total of 700 people.
The same afternoon the entire Jewish population was notified of the execution by special posters signed by the German Commissar of the ghetto, Dr. Auerswald.
The ghetto could clearly feel the breath of death.
During a short meeting of the Party Executive Committee (Abrasha Blum, Luzer Klog, Berek Sznajdmil, Marek Orzech), held the same day, it was proposed to publish and post short leaflets reading: "Shame to the Murderers."
The ghetto was dumbfounded by the terror of what was happening and by fear of large-scale retaliations on the part of the Germans. Once more every effort to decide on armed resistance was nipped in the bud. The fear of the Germans and of their policy of collective responsibility was such that even the best refused to show any signs of protest.
Now the events began moving at a breath-taking pace. The ghetto streets became a bloody slaughter-house. The Germans made it a habit to shoot passers-by without the slightest provocation. People were afraid to leave their homes, but German bullets reached them through the windows. There were days when the toll of terror was 10-15 quite accidental victims. One of the more notorious sadists, a Schutzpolizei gendarme by the name of Frankenstein, had on his conscience over 300 people murdered in one month, more than half of whom were children.
Simultaneously man-hunts were being conducted on the streets by German and Jewish Police. The captives were sent to various labour camps throughout the General Government. The Germans gained doubly from that procedure: first, they obtained the needed working power; secondly, they were able to show that all evictions were caused by the Germans' desire to "increase the productive power", and that in German labour camps, even though the conditions were difficult, one had an opportunity to live through the war... The Germans were truly magnanimous. They even permitted the people to write to their families...
These letters found their way to the ghetto in great numbers and their result was disbelief of the more and more persistent reports concerning mass executions of Jews. Repeated deportations throughout the country, allegedly to Bessarabia, passed almost unnoticed, because the ghetto obstinately believed the rumours that letters had arrived from these people also. Likewise, people dismissed as untrue the story of the wholesale slaughter of almost the entire transport of German Jews brought the previous year to the vicinity of Lublin. The stories about the executions in the Lublin woods were too horrible, it was thought, to be true.
The ghetto did not believe.
We, however, did our utmost to obtain arms from the "Aryan side". We enlarged our battle organization, whose members were mostly Bund youth cadres (Szmul Kostrynski, Jurek Blones, Janek Bilak, Lejb Rozensztajn, Icl Szpilberg, Kuba Zylberberg, Mania Elenbogen, and many others). It is difficult to describe here the manner and the handicaps of our work. It was an unbroken chain of disappointments and failures. Repeatedly disappointing difficulties in securing weapons, lack of understanding for our efforts on the part of our Polish comrades--these were the conditions in which our group worked and grew.
At one point it looked as if we were about to attain our aim, and that transports of arms would soon start arriving in the ghetto. Instead, news came about the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto. Since a few months before, when the serious "slip-up" of Celek and many others in Piotrkow and Lublin took place, communications with the groups outside the ghetto were almost non-existent. The Warsaw ghetto, lacking direct contacts with the outside, received these latest reports with skepticism too. People gave many reasons to refute the remotest possibility of similar acts of violence, refused to accept the thought that a similar murder could possibly be committed in Poland's capital where 300,000 Jews dwelled. People argued with one another and tried to convince others and themselves that "even the Germans would not murder hundreds of thousands of people without any reason whatever, particularly in times when they were in such need of productive power..." A normal human being with normal mental processes was simply unable to conceive that a difference in the colour of eyes or hair or different racial origin might be sufficient causes for murder.
However, immediately after the arrival of these reports came the tragic and bloody events of the night of April 17th, 1942, like an omen of things to come. Over fifty social workers were dragged from their homes that night by German officers and shot in the ghetto streets. Of our comrades we then lost Goldberg (the barber) and his wife, Naftali Leruch and his father, Sklar, etc. Sonia Nowogrodzka, Luzer Klog, and Berenbaum were also hunted by the Germans. The following morning the entire ghetto, stunned, terrified, hysterical, tried to find the reasons behind these executions. The majority came to the conclusion that the action was aimed at political leaders, and that all illegal activities should have been stopped so as not to needlessly increase the tremendous number of victims.
On April 19th, a special edition of Der Weker was published, in which we tried to explain that the latest executions were but another link in the systematic policy of extermination practiced against the Jews as a whole, and that the Germans wanted to get the Jewish population's more active elements out of the way. Once this was accomplished, the paper argued, the Germans hoped that the remaining masses would meekly accept their lot as they did in Wilno, Bialystok, Lublin and other cities. Our view, however, remained as isolated as it had been before. Only some youth groups, such as Hashomer and Hechalutz, shared our convictions.
At this time a complete reorganization of our work took place. All our clandestine activities, we decided, would now be carried out with a single view in mind: to prepare our resistance. To expedite matters the Party Executive Committee was re-established (Abrasha Blum, Berek Sznajdmil, Marek Orzech). All youth "fives" received basic military training. Special orders were issued. A detailed plan of action was worked out in the event of a German attempt to overrun the ghetto. A transport of weapons promised by the PS (Polish Socialists) was to arrive shortly and was to comprise 100 pistols and a few dozen rifles and grenades.
In the meantime our number decreased as a result of continuous executions. From April 18th to July 22nd, 1942, the Germans killed 10-15 ghetto inhabitants per night. None of our comrades slept at home during that period. It was, however, very difficult to predict the Germans' intentions at any given time since they employed an involved pattern in choosing their victims. These stemmed from all social groups--smugglers, merchants, workers, professionals, etc. The purpose behind it was to implant fear among the population to such a degree as to render it incapable of any instinctive or organized actions, to cause the fear of death from the Germ
ans to paralyze even the smallest acts of the people's resistance and to force them onto the path of blind, passive subordination. This, however, was clear to a small handful only. The ghetto as a whole was unable to grasp the true reasons behind the German acts of terror.
It is difficult to relate today life in the ghetto during those days preceding the "official" exterminating procedure applied to its inhabitants. Now the sadistic and beastly methods of the Germans are well known to the world. A few examples of everyday happenings will suffice.
Three children sit, one behind the other, in front of the Bersons and Baumans Hospital. Agendarme, passing by, shoots all three with a single round.
A pregnant woman trips and falls while crossing the street. A German, present during the accident, does not allow her to rise and shoots her right there and then.
Dozens of those smuggling across the ghetto wall are killed by a new German technique: Germans clad in civilian clothes, with Jewish arm-bands and weapons hidden in burlap bags, wait for the instant when the smugglers scale the wall. At that very moment machine-guns appear from the bags and the fate of the group is settled.
Every morning a small Opel stops at Orla Street. Every morning a shackled man is thrown out of the car and shot in the first house entrance. It is a Jew who had been caught on the "Aryan side" without identification papers.