The Ghetto Fights Read online

  In addition, the Jewish police also "helped", by charging incredible amounts of money, gold or valuables per "head" for a chance to escape. Those who were rescued, however, a comparatively insignificant number, usually showed up at the "Umschlag" for a second and third time, and finally disappeared into the fatal interior of a railroad car with the rest of the victims.

  But people made frantic efforts to get out of the doomed place. They would cling to the coats of passing nurses begging for a white coat and storm the doors of the hospital guarded by Jewish policemen.

  A father asks that at least his child be admitted. Dr. Anna Braude-Heller, Head of me Bersons and Baumans Hospital, takes it from his arms and forcibly pushes it past the protesting guard, into the hospital.

  Helena Szefner, pale and beside herself, brought to the "Umschlag" after the last blockade, is also taken into the hospital by our comrades and is then, at the first opportunity, taken outside the walls on a doctor's certificate.

  Janek Stroz is stopped by a Jewish policeman as he is about to be led out of the enclosure. It looks as if he is lost, but we terrorize the policeman just behind the gendarme's back and he lets Janek through.

  It often happened that the messenger sent to help somebody to escape from the "Umschlag" was not only unable to complete his mission, but perished himself, swept with the crowd into a railroad car. Samek Kostryrski, one of our bravest sent to the "Umschlag" for some of our comrades, met death in such a manner.

  The most important and most difficult thing in the "Umschlag" was to live through the time when the cars were being loaded. The transports left in the mornings and evenings. The loading took place twice daily. An endless chain of Ukrainians would encircle the square and the thousandfold crowd. Shots would be fired and every shot hit its target. It was not difficult to hit when one had within a few paces a thick, moving crowd, every particle of which was a living person, a target. The shots drew the crowd nearer and nearer to the waiting cattle cars. Not enough! Like mad beasts the Ukrainians ran through the empty square toward the buildings. Here a wild chase would begin. The frightened crowd hurried to the upper floors, gathered in front of the hospital doors, hid in dark holes in the attic. Just to get away, higher up, farther from the chase. One might be lucky enough to miss one more transport, save another day of life. Comrade Mendelson (Mendele) remained in an attic for three days. A few girls, Skif members, hid there for five days and were later led out with a group of nurses.

  The Ukrainians did not exert themselves unnecessarily. The number of those who could not escape fast enough was always sufficient to fill the cars. The last moment before the departure, a mother is pushed into a car, but there is no more room for her child, which is pulled away from her and loaded farther down the line, in the next incomplete car. Resistance? An instant shot. Slowly, with difficulty, the doors close. The crowd is so thick that it has to be mashed in with the rifle butts. And then, the train starts. Fresh fodder for the Treblinka gas chambers is under way.

  During this time we lost almost all of our comrades. Just a few dozen of our members remained from our original group numbering more than 500 people: the Hechalutz organization had better luck. It remained almost intact. They started a few fires for diversionary purposes and carried out an assault on the Jewish police commander, J. Szerynski.

  The best from among us were deported in such a manner in the beginning of August 1942: S. Kostrynski, I. Szpilberg, Pola Lipszyc, Cywla Waks, Mania Elenbogen, Kuba Zylberberg were all sent out. Hanusia Wasser and her mother Mania Wasser perished, as did Halina Brandes and her mother. Comrade Orzech, sought by the Gestapo on several occasions, had to flee to the "Aryan side".

  On August 13th, 1942, Sonia Nowogrodzka was taken from the W.C. Tobbens Factory. It was strange. Only two days previously Sonia, looking out the window at the crowd returning from work, had said: "My place is not here. Look who remains in the ghetto, only the scum. The working masses march in formation to the 'Umschlag'. I have to go with them. If I shall be with them, then, perhaps, they will not forget that they are human beings even during their very last moments, in the cars, and afterwards..."

  A small handful of us remained. We did all we could, but only very little was possible. We wanted to save whatever we could at any price. We placed our people in German establishments, the very best it seemed. Just the same we began losing contact with one another. Only one larger group of comrades was able to keep together (20-25 people), the one at the "brushmakers' shops" at Franciszkanska Street.

  This was our most tragic period. We could plainly see the slow disappearance of our whole organization. We could see that everything we had so carefully nursed through the long and difficult years of war was crumbling, part of the general desolation, that all our work and efforts were of no avail. It was mostly due to Abrasha Blum, to his composure and presence of mind, that we weathered the nightmare of those terrible times.

  At about the middle of August, when only 120,000 people were left in the ghetto, the first part of the "action" appeared to have ended. The "Umsiedlungsstab" left Warsaw then without any instructions as to the future. But even now hopes proved futile. It quickly became clear that the Germans were using the short pause to liquidate Jewish settlements in nearby towns--Otwock, Falenica, Miedzeszyn. The entire staff and all the children of the Medem Sanitarium were deported from Miedzeszyn. Roza Eichner died a martyr's death.

  After this temporary let-up, the deportations from Warsaw started again with intensified force. Now the blockades were even more dangerous for us, because there were fewer people and the area had become smaller. They were also more difficult for the Germans, however, because people had already learned how to hide. Therefore, a new method was used: every Jewish policeman was made responsible for bringing 7 "heads" daily to the "Umschlag". And this is how the Germans were playing their best game. Never before had anyone been so inflexible in carrying out an action as a Jewish policeman, never before had anyone been so unyielding in holding on to a captured victim as one Jew in relation to another Jew. So that they might furnish the 7 "heads", Jewish policemen would stop a doctor in a white coat (the coat could be sold for a fantastically high price later, in the "Umschlag"...), a mother with her child in her arms, or a lonely, lost child in search of its home.

  Yes, the Jewish police certainly wrote their own history by their deeds.

  On September 6th, 1942, all remaining ghetto inhabitants were ordered to report to an area bounded by the following streets: Gesia, Zamenhofa, Lubeckiego, Stawki. Here the final registration was to take place.

  From all directions people march, four abreast, to the designated spot. All our friends are here, too. We hear Ruta Perenson tell her little Nick: "You must not be afraid of anything. Terrible things are going to happen soon. They want to kill us all, but we shan't let them. We shall hit them just as badly as they hit us... "

  This, however, did not happen. The entire ghetto population was assembled in the small rectangle of the designated block: the workers of the plants, the Jewish Council employees, the public health workers, the hospital workers (the sick were sent directly to the "Umschlag"). The Germans named a limited number of people who were permitted to remain in every German establishment, and in the Jewish Council. These chosen individuals received numbered slips of paper, a guarantee of life. The chances of receiving such a life-insuring slip of paper were almost nil, but the mere fact that such chances did exist was sufficient to confuse people, to cause their attention to converge solely on the means of securing the numbered slip. Everything else was suddenly of no importance. Some fought for the piece of paper loudly, shrilly at tempting to prove their right to live. Others, tearfully resigned, meekly awaited their fate. The last selection took place in a state of utmost tension. After two days, every hour of which seemed to last ages, the chosen ones were escorted back to their places of work, where they were henceforth to be billeted. The remainder was led to the "Umschlag". The last to arrive here were the families of the Jewish policeme
n.

  No words of any human language are strong enough to describe the "Umschlag" now, when no help from anywhere or anybody can be expected. The sick, adults as well as children, previously brought here from the hospital, lie deserted in the cold halls. They relieve themselves right where they lie, and remain in the stinking slime of excrement and urine. Nurses search the crowd for their fathers and mothers and, having found them, inject longed for deathly morphine into their veins, their own eyes gleaming wildly. One doctor compassionately pours a cyanide solution into the feverish mouths of strange, sick children. To offer one's cyanide to somebody else is a really heroic sacrifice, for cyanide is now the most precious, the most irreplaceable thing. It brings a quiet, peaceful death, it saves from the horror of the cars.

  Thus the Germans deported 60,000 people within two days.

  From the "round-up" the following of our comrades were deported: Natan Liebeskind, Dora Kociotek, J. Gruszka, Anka Wolkowicz, Michelson, Cluwa Krysztat-Nisenbaum, and many others. Comrade Bernard Goldsztejn, for whom the Germans were specifically searching, had to hide on the "Aryan side".

  On September 12th the "action" was officially ended. A nominal number of 33,400 Jews working in factories and for German employers, 3,000 employees of the Jewish Council included, remained in Warsaw. Actually, counting the people who had been able to remain hidden in cellars, etc., the number of remaining Jews was approximately 60,000. All were billeted at their working posts. New walls divided the ghetto, and between the inhabited blocks there were vast, empty, desolated areas, haunted by the dead quiet of the street, the tapping of the open window frames in the wind, and the sickly stench of unburied corpses.

  By now the ghetto comprised: (1) The area of Tobbens', Schultz's, Rohrich's shops--Leszno Street, Karmelicka Street, Nowolipki Street, Smocza, Nowolipie and Zelazna Streets up to Leszno; (2) The "brush-makers' area"-- Swietojerska Street, Walowa, Franciszkanska, and Bonifraterska Streets up to Swietojerska; (3) The "central ghetto"--Gesia Street, Franciszkanska, Bonifraterska, Muranowska, Pokorna, Stawki, Parysowski Square, and Smocza Street up to Gesia.

  Workers of one shop were now forbidden to communicate with those of another. The Germans exploited to the utmost the lives of those whom they had spared. The usual working hours for Jews were 12 hours daily, and sometimes even longer, without interruption, while the working and food condition were simply catastrophic. As in the first period, when spotted fever had been the ghetto's plague, epidemics again ravaged the ghetto. This time tuberculosis was rampant.

  Only the garbage collectors and the grave-diggers (the so-called "Pinker-Boys"--a name derived from the name of a well-known Warsaw Jewish funeral home) became wealthy, transporting to the "Aryan side" in coffins and under garbage piles valuables which the ghetto could no longer use. It became the dream of every inhabitant of the harassed Jewish section to escape to the "Aryan side" and to establish himself there.

  In the beginning of October 1942, talks between our own Executive Committee and the Command of the Hechalutz Battle Organization took place. The purpose of the talks was the establishment of a joint organization. This matter, argued back and forth among our comrades, was finally settled at a meeting of the Warsaw Party cadres which took place on October 15th. We then decided that a joint battle organization should be formed, and that its purpose should be to prepare armed resistance for the time when the Germans might attempt to repeat the extermination procedure in the Warsaw ghetto. We realized that only through coordinated work and our utmost joint efforts could any results at all be expected.

  About October 20th the so-called Coordinating Committee (KK) whose members were representatives of all existing political parties, was formed. Abrasha Blum and Berek Sznajdmil represented us on the KK. At the same time the Command of the new Jewish Battle [Fighting] Organization (ZOB) was appointed. Mordechaj Anielewicz (Hashomer) became the ZOB's Commander. Marek Edelman was called into the Command to represent our groups. Dr. L. Fajner ("Mikolaj") undertook to represent the KK on the "Aryan side", on our behalf. An executive committee for the KK was also appointed, as was a propaganda committee. Abrasha Blum represented us on these committees.

  Since the ghetto was divided into separate areas between which there was almost no contact, the ZOB necessarily had to organize its work accordingly. We took over the leadership in the "brush-makers' region" (Grylak), the W.C. Tobbens area (Paw), and the Prosta Street neighbourhood (Kersz). We succeeded in forming several battle groups. Thus B. Pelc and Goldsztejn led two "fives" in the central ghetto; Jurek Blones and Janek Bilak headed two "fives" in the "brush-makers' area"; A. Fajoer and N. Chmielnicki were the leaders in the Schultz area; W. Rozowski led our group at the Rohrich shop.

  Once again we built a large organization, not alone this time, but by common efforts, and once again the major problem of weapons was encountered. There were almost none at all in the ghetto. In must be taken into account that the time was the year 1942. The resistance movement of the Poles was just beginning at the time, and only vague stories were being circulated about partisans in the woods. It must be remembered that the first organized act of armed resistance on the part of the Poles did not take place until March 1943. Therefore, there was nothing unusual in the fact that our efforts to obtain arms and ammunition through the Government Delegate and through other agencies encountered major difficulties and as a general rule, brought no results. We were able to obtain a few pistols from the People's Guard. Afterwards two assaults took place: on the Commander of the Jewish police, Lejkin, on October 29th, and on J. First (the Jewish Council's representative at the "Umsiedlungsstab") on November 29th.

  And so the ZOB gained its first popularity. It carried out several more assaults against a few Jewish foremen who caused most of the suffering on the part of the Jewish slave labourers. During such an assault in the Hallman area (Hallman's was a joinery shop), German factory guards arrested three of the participants. At night, however, our group from the Rohrich area, led by G. Fryszdorf, disarmed the German guards and freed our prisoners.

  The following incident may serve to clarify the conditions in which we had to work at the time. About mid-November (in the period of "quiet") a few hundred Jews from several shops were deported, allegedly to work in the Lublin Concentration Camp. During the trip Comrade W. Rozowski broke open the bars in the car window, threw out six female prisoners, while the train was in motion (among others, Guta Btones, Chajka Betchatowska, Wiernik, M. Kojfman), and then jumped out himself. Similar feats would have been quite impossible to perform at the time of the first deportations, because even if there had been somebody brave enough to attempt an escape, the other victims would never had allowed it for fear of German revenge. By now the Jews finally began to realize that deportation actually meant death; that there was no other alternative but at least to die honourably. But as was quite natural for human beings, they still tried to postpone death and "honour" for as long a time as possible.

  At the end of December 1942 we received our first transport of weapons from the Home Army. It was not much--there were only ten pistols in the whole transport--but it enabled us to prepare for our first major action. We planned it for January 22nd and it was to be a retaliatory measure against the Jewish police.

  However, on January 18th, 1943, the ghetto was surrounded once again and the "second liquidation" began. This time, however, the Germans were not able to carry out their plans unchallenged. Four barricaded battle groups offered the first armed resistance in the ghetto.

  The ZOB was baptized in battle in the first large-scale street fighting at the corner of Mila and Zamenhofa Streets. The best part of the Organization was lost there. Miraculously, because of his heroic attitude, the ZOB Commander, Mordechaj Anielewicz, survived. After that battle we realized that street fighting would be too costly for us, since we were not sufficiently prepared for it and lacked the proper weapons. We, therefore, switched to partisan fighting. Four major encounters were fought in the apartment houses at 40 Zamenhofa Street,
44 Muranowska Street, 34 Mila Street and 22 Franciszkanska Street. In the Schultz shop area the SS men taking part in the deportation were attacked by the partisans. Comrade A. Fajner took an active part in this action and was killed in its course.

  One of our battle groups, still unarmed, was caught by the Germans and was taken to the "Umschlag". Shortly before they were to enter the railroad cars, B. Pelc addressed the group with a few words. It was only a short address, but it was so effective, that not a single one of the sixty people moved to enter the car. Van Oeppen (the chief of Treblinka) shot all sixty himself on the spot. This group's behaviour, however, served as an inspiration that always, under all circumstances, one should oppose the Germans.

  Of all the prepared 50 battle groups only five took part in the January activities. The remainder, not having been assembled at the time of the Germans' entry into the ghetto, was caught by surprise and was unable to reach the place where their weapons were stored.

  Once again, as was the case in the first stage of the ZOB's activities, four-fifths of the Battle Organization's members perished.

  The latest developments, however, reverberated strongly both within the ghetto and outside of it. Public opinion, Jewish as well as Polish, reacted immediately to the ghetto battles. For now, for the first time, German plans were frustrated. For the first time the halo of omnipotence and invincibility was torn from the Germans' heads. For the first time the Jew in the street realized that it was possible to do something against the Germans' will and power. The number of Germans killed by ZOB bullets was not the only important thing. What was more important was the appearance of a psychological turning point. The mere fact that because of the unexpected resistance, weak as it was, the Germans were forced to interrupt their "deportation" schedule was of great value.