Trudy Gold
Resistance in the Ghettos, Part 3
Trudy Gold - Resistance in the Ghettos, Part 3
- Good morning, good evening, wherever you are and welcome. Before I start today there’s a few housekeeping ideas that I have to talk about with you. I changed the schedule this week because considering working on the Warsaw Ghetto, I underestimated the amount of time I would take, and I felt that it’s such an important topic, and because myself and my colleagues are very flexible in the way we work, that is why today is Resistance, part two. And on Thursday, I’ll be looking at the Wannsee Conference. Can I just mention, Judi very much works with us on all of this. She will give out the schedule as is written by Wendy and myself. So there is absolutely no blame attached to Judi. Unfortunately, a few people have been in touch with her complaining. So if you want to complain to anyone, please complain to me. And it’s because I felt that this was such an important topic I wanted to give it more time. And now getting onto this incredibly important topic. Of course, tomorrow is Yom Hashoah. Yom Hashoah in Israel is to commemorate the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto. That’s one of the reasons I wanted to look at it this particular week. Every country has its own commemoration date. If you may remember that on January the 27th, we did something on the channel, why? Because we felt very strongly, we wanted to remember as the Europeans remember it.
Visuals are displayed throughout the presentation.
They chose the liberation of Auschwitz. Israel and America chose the anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So what I propose to do, at six o'clock I’m going to stop teaching for one minute, and then I think it will be good for us to reflect on those terrible times, but also to reflect on the incredible bravery of those individuals who gave their lives, who gave their lives for honour and for freedom. And something else I want to point out to you, again, my fault, this is Mordechai Anielewicz. It’s very important. When we look at the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto, there are very few pictures. This is the face of Mordechai Anielewicz. And if you remember, yesterday I was talking about him. We’re not sure if he was born in 1919 or 1920. He led the left-wing Jewish underground organisation. He was an extraordinary character. He was a poet, he was a philosopher, he was a fighter, he was a dreamer. And you will also remember that he often took himself out of the ghetto. He went from village to town trying to set up cells of resistance that he seemed to have been a man that was beyond fear, beyond the kind of horrors that the Nazis were imposing. Now, the other thing that is so obvious, as we look at this terrible time in history, it brings out so many issues that if we can really think about them deeply, just maybe we can come up with some sort of answers for the human condition because I really believe that is one of the important areas.
So today, when we honour our dead and the dead of so many other nations, let us also think about an incredible group of people who saved. I will be coming onto them. And we were doing two or three sessions on rescuers and on resistance, but let’s first honour Mordechai Anielewicz. As I said, he died in Mila 18 in that revolt that held out longer than the whole of Poland. And the other point to remember, it was the first civil revolt of any group within the Nazi empire. Quite often students have said to me, I’m talking about younger students, why didn’t they resist? If someone came into our houses with a machine gun, I wonder if we would resist? And the other point to make about this uprising, it happened when they knew they were going to die. The human condition surely is such that if you live with your loved ones, in every group there are the vulnerable ones, you behave yourself. And the other question I want to put to you, Adam Czerniaków, the head of the Judenrat, can we really blame him? He committed suicide when he realised that the children were going to be deported because nothing like this had ever happened before. And this is another issue that I want you to consider. The Shoah is unique because it is a four year process that is about industrialization and bureaucracy. As Anita Lasker-Wallfisch says, what makes it different is we were recycled, but having said that, the common denominator is human behaviour. And that is why I think we owe it to today and the future to examine this terrible tragedy with the hope that perhaps we can be more vigilant with all the other horror stories that are happening in the world today. So, I didn’t want to sound too preachy, but you cannot really look at the lives of these kind of incredible individuals without looking for some sort of purpose in it all.
So this young man who had a girlfriend, who could have gone to Palestine, remember, he had a woman he loved very much. The two of them had always committed themselves to Palestine. He could have left, they didn’t. Just as Janusz Korczak didn’t have to get on the train. He was so famous the Nazis were prepared to let him out. Even more so his assistant Stefania, who came back from Palestine to help him in the Warsaw Ghetto. So these are people who gave up their lives for what they believed in. Can we see the next picture, if you don’t mind. Here, of course, is the extraordinary Yitzhak Zuckerman. Now I had a chat with Freda over Zoom and she told me that she knew all these characters that survived, and, of course, Yitzhak Zuckerman. Let’s talk a little bit about who he was. His name in the underground was Antek. He was born in Vilnius. He also had a socialist Zionist background. He was a poet, a writer. And in 1939, he participated in the socialist organisations in the Vilna Ghetto. In spring 1940, he comes to Warsaw. He was a leader of Habonim Dror. I know that it’s a very important movement to this day. And, also, he came with his girlfriend who later became his wife, Zivia Lubetkin.
And I mentioned yesterday a descendant of hers is actually listening on the Zoom channel. I can’t really quite get my head around what Wendy and the Kirsh Foundation has created because I get so many incredible letters now from people who were so connected with many of the events that have happened. Not just the dark events because remember, this channel has been going for over a year, but also some of the glory events in Jewish history, which we will go back to because a note of hope in this, looking at this terribly dark time, we have survived. We have survived for over 2,000 years without a land. We’re still surviving and we have had to cope with this appalling tragedy, but nevertheless, we go on and we still have to change the world. Anyway, let’s go back to him. 1941, he becomes one of the commanders of ZOB, And he was the envoy between ZOB and the Polish Home Army, which meant that he was outside the ghetto for the final fight. In fact, in December 1942, he decided, remember, by the end of ‘42 the young wanted very much to start fighting, but there were people in the ghetto who said, hold it, hold it, hold it. He went to a cafe in Krakow, he attacked it. It was used by the SS and the Gestapo, and he basically killed quite a few of them and then managed to escape.
By 1943 at the final liquidation of the ghetto, he was on the Aryan side and he was the link which is going to bring out after the appalling events, having held out for longer than a month, the Nazis then began under General Stroop, to use gas into the bunkers using the underground route of the sewers. He actually met up with Simha Kazik Rotem, who you’ve seen his picture already. And he organised the escape of the surviving fighters through the sewers. And this he had to do in conjunction with Poles who helped because as they came out of the sewers, they had to arrange for lorries to be there. And that’s how some of them survived. Now, after the war, he was involved in an extraordinary movement called Bricha which means escape. I’ve had lots of comments and questions about what happened post-war, for example, the Kielce pogrom. We decided to stick to a historic chronology. We will be looking at what happened to many of the survivors post-war. And I’m sure as many of you know, when survivors went home, because it seems that the first question you ask when you survive hell, who in my family has already made it? They do try to get home. And that is, of course, when so many of them, their properties had been stolen, they were attacked and over 500 of them were murdered, including the man who had led the Sobibor Uprising. Why did this horror happen after the war?
I mentioned Hugo Gryn’s statement yesterday. To me what happens when you have a regime that reverses The Ten Commandments plus the most unbelievably brutal war. War brutalises and venality, because don’t forget who took the ordinary homes of the Jews in Poland, Slovakia, Croatia, Lithuania, Ukraine. We know that the expensive items, of course, went to the Nazis, the venality. The great art collections of Germany, of Warsaw. What happened to them all? They were stolen. Jewish possessions looted, but think about the ordinary families, the ordinary homes, they were taken by the villages. I can remember when we did a trip to Poland just after the collapse of communism we were near Bialystok, and we were going to a village where a great rabbi had lived. And as we drove along the street, and despite whether people are religious or not, men tend to wear yarmulkes in Poland. And we got out of the coach and we were Western. And this woman came out screaming, not knowing that some of our groups spoke Polish, the Jews have come to take away my house. This was in '89, so it’s fascinating, and I will be talking about Poland. So let’s talk a little bit more about Yitzhak Zuckerman. So he leads Bricha, which is an escape route. That was the route that pulled over 100,000 Polish Jews out of Poland at the end of the war to the American zone on route for Palestine. I’ll be spending a lot of time on that.
So having been the great fighter of the Warsaw Ghetto, he survives with Zivia who he marries. They work in the Bricha movement, and then after he goes to Palestine and establishes, he’s one of the founders of the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz Museum. He was a witness at the Eichmann trial, and interesting, his granddaughter, Roni, became Israel’s first female fighter pilot. Now, this is something he said at the 25th anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. I don’t think there is any real need to analyse the uprising in military terms. This was a war of less than a thousand people against a mighty army. And no one doubted how it was likely to turn out. This isn’t a subject for study in military school. If there’s a school to study the human spirit there it should be a major subject. The important things were inherent in the force shown by Jewish youth after years of degradation to rise up against their destroyers and determine what death they would choose, Treblinka or the uprising. In fact, in 1970 in December when Willy Brandt paid a trip to Israel, he went to the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz and he spontaneously knelt at the feet of the memorial. You know, somebody said on the chat yesterday, why Yad Mordechai, why not Yad Paweł Frenkiel?
And one of the things I’m trying to do in this presentation, because Moshe Arens rehabilitated the Revisionists, and I think it’s important to remember. The Revisionists, and it was them who raised the flag over Warsaw, the Star of David. Both groups were incredibly brave. And in the end there was a slight cooperation. And wouldn’t it just be rather lovely if the descendants of those kind of ideas could come together and find more ground because how can one doubt the bravery of a Paweł Frenkiel, or the bravery of Anielewicz or Zuckerman. They were all incredibly brave. And let me now mention Zivia Lubetkin. If we could see the next slide, if you don’t mind, Judi. Yes, beautiful isn’t she? Her dates were 1914 to 1978. Again, she was born in Eastern Poland, and she joined the left-wing Dror in 1939. She was always very politically active. As a very young girl she was on the executive council of Dror. She was a very good speaker, passionately Zionist, because look at times they’re living in. She’s born in 1914 in Poland, that area that’s going to be engulfed in the First World War. Then those terrible pogroms as Poland emerged as a state, Ukraine partially swallowed up by Russia. Lithuania, Latvia, Lithuania, the brutal horrors of Ukraine and Lithuania. And these were the young who said, “Our destiny has to be Palestine.”
And, of course, she is in Soviet controlled. Remember, when the war breaks out the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, she is actually caught in Soviet controlled Poland. She flees. She flees to Nazi occupied Warsaw because she wants to get involved in the underground. That’s where she meets Yitzhak Zuckerman and they fall in love. And they were partially involved in the creation of the Anti-Fascist Bloc, which I told you about yesterday. One of the founders of ZOB, she becomes a member of the political council, and she acted also as a contact between the left-wing Zionists and the Bund. You’ve got to remember in Warsaw 1939, there were over 40 different newspapers. When I showed you those films of the five Polish cities, and there’s still one more, Białystok, to show you at some time, don’t forget how incredible life was in Poland in terms of the richness of the culture. That 40 national newspapers. The Bund, I’m sure you all know the difference between the Bund and socialist Zionism. The Bund was socialists who believed in the diaspora, what they wanted is a far more just society in the diaspora. Yiddish was their language as opposed to the Zionists who said it was Hebrew.
It’s all about ideology. And quite often language is about ideology. The communists and there were Jewish communists in the ghetto fighting as well, what was their stand? They dreamt of a world where all the differences between peoples would come to nothing and that we could all work together. So you had the major groups where the Bundists, the Communists, and the Zionists to the right and the left. And there was a kind of alliance between the Bund and the socialist Zionist who in peacetime absolutely loathed each other because they were both going for the souls of the same kind of people. And then, of course, there were the religious. And then, of course, there were the acculturated, there were the good, the bad, the ugly, and people who just wanted to survive those appalling conditions, so, and, of course, she was very active in the ghetto fighting and was one of those who escaped through the sewers. And after the war worked with her future husband in Bricha and founded the Ghetto Survivors Kibbutz. Just as a rather tragic aside, you know, in August 1939 there was a Zionist Congress in Basel in Switzerland, and she attended as a member of the Israel Labour bloc. Can you imagine how they felt, those Zionists, who were saying goodbye to each other in August 1939?
They didn’t know the war was going to break out, but they knew, if you look at the situation of Jews from country to country to country, and I’m going to do quite a few more sessions on Zionism, because Zionism is a minority movement at this stage in the Jewish world. Zionism, though, had always said that one day the diaspora would have to empty because one day, if you look at what Zionism is about, it’s a movement and it’s divided into three elements. One is the messianic dream, that messianic dream that says we have this connection with our native land, the messianic dream that says it’s the continuum of Jewish history. I mean, every one of you who sat around a Seder table this year, we say next year in Jerusalem, don’t we? Now, another is an authentic Jewish nationalism that says we are a people. And the third, of course, is a response to modern anti-Semitism. So the analysis in 1939, and the analysis in 1945 when does Zionism become a majority movement amongst the Jewish people, and what does Zionism mean? Is it a movement to create a Jewish state, or is it a movement to create and maintain a Jewish state? All these questions will have to be addressed.
There are no great straight answers. For example, I’m sure many of you who are listening today, be it in South Africa, Britain, America, all over Europe, you might consider yourself Zionists, but what about those who are listening from Israel? Does Israel believe still that the diaspora must empty? I remember when that terrible event occurred in Paris, and Netanyahu went to Paris to condone with the mourners. What did he say? What did he say? He said, “Come home.” Zionism is still an open question and it’s still a very complicated question, but can you imagine what it must have been like to be at that Zionist Congress of 1939? Weizmann had reported on the state because please don’t forget that in May 1939, the British had virtually closed the gates to Palestine. Important to remember, also, she took part in the Polish uprising. The Warsaw Ghetto in a way was the catalyst. Then the Poles rose up. It was a terrible tragedy because the Russian Army was actually parked on the other side of the river. Stalin, the cynicism of Stalin. He wanted basically the Poles who had allegiance to the government in London to fight. He wanted the Nazis destroyed, but he also wanted them destroyed. And as you know he’s then going to roll into Poland. Now, after the Polish uprising, she was hidden by a group of Righteous Poles in a hospital. And in March she escaped with an extraordinary man called Abba Kovner. Much more about him. He’s going to have a whole session on his own, why?
Because he created a group at the end of the war called Din and Din means judgement . I mentioned it yesterday. And that’s another issue where we have to decide was his plan to execute Nazis justice or revenge? Was his plan to go further justice or revenge? Now let me just read a quote of hers as she spoke about. She also, of course, she lived a long life, and from Israel this is what she wrote. The January uprising, she’s talking here about the first uprising. Remember, the January uprising was the rehearsal. Had far-reaching consequences, even though not many Germans had been killed. We had fired our very first shots against the enemy. The Jews began to realise that it was not only possible to kill Germans to remain alive afterwards as well. Moreover, the uprising put a stop to the action. This brought about a sharp change in the psychology of the Jewish community. People who cooperated with the Germans began to fear us. The attitude on the Aryan side also underwent change. They now regarded this with what they called trust and respect. Our arsenal grew after the January revolt. Now, you see, this is interesting because the people who created Israel, that phrase that I read to you from, actually, the Revisionist pamphlet, and Abba Kovner in the Vilna Ghetto, let us not go like sheep to the slaughter.
I will say until I’m blue and green in the face they didn’t, but for the founding fathers of Israel, it’s the Bar Kochba, Ben Zakkai thing. From now on we have to be Bar Kochba. We must be militarily strong at all costs. And I hope eventually this balance would be redressed because when you’re talking about resistance, there are so many kinds of resistance. We’ve talked about the great Janusz Korczak, the great Emanuel Ringelblum. Isn’t resistance staying alive? Isn’t resistance not losing your humanity. I mean, the Nazis some of the cruelty, for example, doubling the food rations in the camps on Yom Kippur. It is beyond the best dual. It’s insulting to animals, actually, so, and this is what the evidence she gives at the Eichmann trial, I saw thousands of Germans who were surrounding the ghetto with machine guns, with cannon, and thousands of them with their weapons as if they were going to the Russian front. And we stood opposite them, some 20 young men and women. We knew our end had come. We knew beforehand they would defeat us, but we knew they would pay a heavy price. When we saw German blood flowing in the streets of Warsaw, after so much Jewish blood and tears, we felt within us a great rejoicing. Behold the miracle, the great German heroes withdrew in tremendous panic in the face of Jewish handmade bombs and grenades.
We had reached the day of revenge. At least we were fighting for our lives and it made it easier to die. I remember on the second day the Seder, in one of the bunkers, I came across Rabbi Meisel, who interrupted the Seder and placed his hand on my head, may you be blessed. Now it is good for me to die. Would we have done this earlier? Okay, can we see the next slide if you don’t mind? This is the wonderful Simha Rotem. And we chose an older picture because he died in 2018. Again, very similar pattern. He joined the Akiva Zionist Youth group in Warsaw, and many of his family were murdered. He was really the ZOB carrier for the fighters. They called him Kazik. He was the head courier during the uprising, an absolutely extraordinary character. And it was he from the Aryan side who met up with Zivia Lubetkin to bring the fighters through the sewers at the end. And he also participated in the Warsaw Uprising. And in July 1945, he was one of those who went with the other survivors to Mila 18, which was the last stand of the left in the underground. And after the war, he also joined the avengers. As I said, we’re going to have a whole session on that. He was also involved in Bricha. These characters were lions. It’s interesting, at a time in history they really did rise. These lions came to the fore. It’s rather sad that as we look around the world today, there doesn’t seem to be many of them.
Although, his 12-year-old sister was murdered, but his parents and another of his sisters survived, and they actually made it to Palestine. He is survived by two children and five grandchildren, so a happy outcome. Now, before I leave, I give you a minute silence to contemplate. Remember, Emmanuel Ringelblum was not murdered until '44. Can we go back please to the picture of Rotem, if you don’t mind? Thank you, and I’ll explain why in a minute. He saw the Revisionists raise the flag above the Warsaw Ghetto. He was hiding in the Aryan sector in a bunker. And he says, why is there no data on them? In the history we must leave their tracks even they are not sympathetic in their eyes. And this is a note he wrote to Berman way after the uprising on December the 13th, 1943. As for the Revisionists, I have no data on them. I have two names, Rodal and Frenkiel. The latter was manager of the firm. And, basically, as I said to you yesterday, no effort was made because it was the majority who survived were the left. And, unfortunately, the bad blood between the Revisionists and the left is going to really spill into the creation of Israel in those years '45 to '48, to say nothing of the Altalena, and to say nothing of Israeli politics to this day.
Now I think what I’d like to do is if you don’t mind, Judi, can we just be quiet for one minute, and we will all think our own thoughts about these extraordinary heroes as we honour the Shoah. Okay. We think our thoughts going back to that terrible time. Now I want to come onto the next picture, please. This is Marek Edelman. Okay. Also, a very brave man. He was born in Belarus. His dates 1919 to 2009. His background, he was a Bundist. And later on tragically many of his family were murdered by the Soviets. He settled in Warsaw. He was one of the co-founders of ZOB. And after the death of Mordechai Anielewicz, he actually led it. He survived to participate in the Warsaw uprising. Now after the war, he’s a Bundist. There’s a communist takeover in Poland. And after the war, he becomes a medical student. He became a very famous cardiologist and actually invented a lifesaving operation. In 1948, the Bund was incorporated into the Communist Party. He opposed it, but he was violently anti-Zionist. It’s fascinating, isn’t it? In Poland today he is seen as the great hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So think about it, those three political groups, the labour Zionists who became the heroes of the left in Israel, the Revisionists who today are the heroes of the right in Israel, and Marek Edelman, who becomes one of Poland’s national heroes.
Now, he married a woman called Alina Margolis. He had two children by her. In 1968 there was a terrible upswing in anti-Semitism, and she and his children actually went to live in France, but he said, “Someone has to stay here with all those who perished.” He said this: “Warsaw is my city. It is here that I learned Polish, Yiddish and German. It is here that at school, I learned one must always take care of others. It was here that I was slapped in the face because I was a Jew.” And in a way that sums it all up. I’ve already begun to touch with you on the very, very complicated relationship between Poland and the Jews. And, of course, it’s really flared up at the moment where insulting the memory of Poland and accusing the Poles of collaboration in the Shoah is now an offence. And yet I’m trying to keep the balance. I’ve spent a lot of time in Poland teaching teachers. I was very close as you know to Felix Schaaf who took me many times. I am not an apologist, but I think it is a very, very complex situation. There were Poles who betrayed. There were Poles who murdered.
There were Poles who saved, more honoured in the avenue of the Righteous than any other nation, but more Jews died from Poland than any other nation. There was no Polish SS Division, but after the war, Jews who returned over 500 of them were murdered. And it finishes up with that terrible pogrom in Kielce, but don’t forget, also, that the Poles never really had a chance. They were under the Nazis and then they were under Soviet rule, and they were never denazified. One of the problems that Eastern Europe faced was that cynical old Stalin he needed the Ukrainians, he needed the Latvians and the Lithuanians and the Belarus. When we used to teach in Belarus, which is still communist, we always did so under the context of the great patriotic war. Don’t forget that Ukrainian collaborators are now Soviet citizens. Many of them are going to be used in the Stasi and East Germany, et cetera. So there’s no real denazification programme. So it’s still a wide-open saw. Now can it be resolved? It’s a fascinating question. What I do believe is that Poland was our heartland for hundreds of years. And it is still an area where so much work needs to be done.
I’m not coming down one side or the other. What I’m saying to you, it is really a very, very complicated area. And what he said on the uprising, we knew perfectly well we had no chance of winning, but we knew we were going to die. Again, the same comment. It was easier to die fighting than in a gas chamber. He really does become the hero of the uprising because as far as the Poles are concerned, he is a Pole. The others are Jews. Yes, he was a Jew, but he was a critic of Israel. Poland is part of the Soviet bloc particularly after 1967, became violently anti-Israel. Consequently, over 20,000 Jews got out. There were pogroms again, but he stuck it out, and he becomes really the great hero of the Warsaw Ghetto. When he died, over 2,000 people attended the funeral of a great Polish hero. In the solidarity movement he was incredibly active. He wanted a free Poland, free from Soviet rule. Remember, many of his family have been murdered by Stalin’s people. He’s buried with full military honours and there’s a memorial, very important memorial to him in Warsaw, and what’s written on it. The most important thing is life, and where there is life, the most important thing is freedom.
And then we give our life for freedom. The problem, as I said, was that he, of course, was very anti-Israel, which meant there was a huge divide between him and many of the other survivors. Oh, the complications of being a Jew. Now, one of the most extraordinary aspects of the Warsaw Ghetto is, of course, we always say who writes the stories? It’s the victors, but not in the case of the Warsaw Ghetto, because of the diary of Emmanuel Ringelblum. Even though Stroop wrote at the Stroop, the monster who was brought in finally to destroy the ghetto. He sent a 125 page report beautifully bound to Himmler and to Hitler. Having said that the story is told through Ringelblum. And let me just read what he wrote because if you remember, I told you a couple of weeks ago that he blew up the synagogue. He actually blew up the great synagogue. He says this: The resistance offered by the bandits could be broken only by the energetic, tireless deployment of stormtroopers night and day. On April the 23rd the Reichsfuehrer SS, through the Higher SS and Fuehrer Police issued the order that the Warsaw Ghetto be combed out. I therefore decided to carry out the total destruction of the Jewish quarter by burning down all residential blocks.
And he goes on to tell the horrible story. And then he says: Only as a result of unceasing and untiring efforts of all forces did we succeed in capturing altogether 56,000 Jews destroying them. To this figure we should add Jews who lost their lives in explosions. And he writes that Warsaw, May the 16th, 1943. Who was this monster? He was human too. SS General Jürgen Stroop. Born in 1895. His father had been a chief of police. His mother was very religious. He was fascinated, though, by German folklore, particularly the character Hermann the Cherusci who defeated the Romans in 9 AC. You’ve got to remember, after the First World War it had such a terrible impact on so many of the German youth. Of course, he went the usual route. He served in the infantry in the Prussian Army, early 20s. He comes from quite a wealthy family. They’re enthusiastic monarchists. He becomes close to General Ludendorff in Munich. General Ludendorff, of course, was a committed Nazi, and he was also a believer in the old Germanic gods. You know that terrible quote of Hitler’s, to understand Nazism listen to Wagner. Okay, it’s a very interesting quote. And as I’m sure Patrick has told us many times, Hitler didn’t really like Wagner’s music very much. One of his favourites was “The Merry Widow.” Let’s get real about this, but having said that, it’s the whole notion of the great Teutonic gods which are to quote Nietzsche beyond good and evil.
I shouldn’t quote Nietzsche because he was never a Nazi. And, of course, after the invasion of Poland, he is brought in to organise Germans in the Baltic states. Remember, he’s a police tree. He’s a fanatical Nazi. He’s a general in the German police. And he is sent to destroy the ghetto. He’s transferred to Greece after the destruction. He’s too harsh. Can you believe that? The Nazis believed he was too harsh. And he’s transferred to a police post in Wiesbaden. And he is actually tried. He’s captured by the Americans and he is actually tried. Like many of these great Nazi war heroes, they changed into ordinary Wehrmacht uniform, but he is pointed out and actually he is killed. He’s executed by the Poles. It seems almost disgusting to talk about their biographies, so we have to try and understand them as well, but now I want to come to another aspect of the Warsaw Ghetto. Can we come to the next slide please? This is, of course, to honour Paweł Frenkiel. If we could just see him and his colleague. And then, of course, he died in 1943. So did Leon Rodal. I talked about their biographies yesterday. Can we go on now? The next picture. These are the squares that were blown up. That’s where the Star of David was carried. Thank you Freda for sending me some more pictures.
And now we come to Szmul Zygielbojm. His dates are 1895 to 1943. He was born in a small village, very poor, left school at 10, went to work in a factory, went to Warsaw when he was 12-years-old, but he actually moved with his family to Chelm. You know, I visited Chelm. I wanted to see the wise men of Chelm. It’s what a colleague of my would call He became involved in the labour movement. He joins the Bund. He becomes a secretary of the Trade Union of Jewish Metal Workers. Don’t forget, Warsaw was a third Jewish. He’s very much a party man. He’s elected onto the Central Committee of the Bund whilst he’s still in his 20s. And it’s a position he held until his death. He edited the movement’s paper. He was incredibly bright and he was sent by the Central Committee to Lodz. Lodz was a great industrial city in Poland, of which was a third Jewish. And he was sent there by the Bund to organise activism in Lodz, and in Lodz he is part of the city council. After the Nazi invasion, he returns to Warsaw and participated in the defence committee during the siege of Warsaw as the Nazis invade.
And the city’s president actually suggests that the Bund provide a hostage, and very bravely Zygielbojm offered. This is the Polish city president. He says, why doesn’t the Bund offer a hostage to the Germans? He volunteered, he was released. He was made a member of the Judenrat under Czerniaków. He was part of the council. And, of course, he was part of those who was ordered to begin the creation of a ghetto. David and Dennis will be discussing the Judenrat when they deal with Hannah Arendt. There was huge opposition to him being part of the Judenrat, and his friends were very worried about him, and they told him he had to get out. He leads for Belgium where he speaks at a socialist international, and describes what’s going on in the early stages of the persecution of the Jews in Poland because he was a knit witness. The Nazis invade Belgium, he makes it to France. And he spent a year-and-a-half worrying, worrying, worrying, telling the world what was going on in Poland. March 1942 he makes it to London. Remember, you can move around. It’s hard, it’s difficult.
There’s an underground network. Why does he come to London? Because the Polish government in exile is in London. And he joined the national committee of the Polish underground. He was one of the two members. The other was a man called Schwarzbart. He continued to speak publicly. Information is coming through. It’s not a hermetically sealed ghetto. And this is one of the problems. And in the middle of 1942, it’s a man who I’m going to speak about at length, an extraordinary individual called Jan Karski, working for the Polish government in exile in the Polish underground. He was smuggled into the ghetto, and one of his guides was a man called Leon Feiner, who was a Bundist. Karski asks Feiner, and this is all reported to London. Karski asks Feiner what Britain and America should do. So here you have Feiner in the ghetto. It’s the middle of 1942. Remember when the great deportation starts, July 1942. And this is the message that is received in London. They must find the strength and courage to make sacrifices. No other statesmen have ever had to make sacrifices as painful as the fate of my dying people and as unique.
Now it’s important to remember Karski was published in the “New York Times” and in the “London Times.” Karski goes to see Zygielbojm. He describes in detail what was going on. Two weeks later there was a BBC broadcast. And this is all against the backdrop. This is April the 19th, 1943, the Bermuda Conference. Coincidentally, it’s the day the Nazis began the action. Now, he knows what’s going on. He knows what’s happening. He is told about the final fight. And this is a letter he wrote on the 12th of May 1943. I cannot be silent. I cannot live by the remnants of the Jewish population of Poland of which I am a representative are perishing. My friends in the Warsaw Ghetto died with weapons in their hands in the last heroic battle. Remember this is the 12th of May 1943. It was not my destiny together to die with them, but I belong to them in their mass grave. He discovered, of course, that his wife and son have been killed. By my death I wish to make my final protest against the passivity with which the world is looking on, and permitting the extermination of the Jewish people. I know how little human life is worth today, but as I was unable to do anything during my life, perhaps by my death I should contribute to breaking down the indifference of those who may now at the last moment rescue a few Polish Jews still alive.
I bid farewell to everybody and to everything that was dear to me and that I have loved. And, of course, he took his own life. I want to finish this presentation because remember on Thursday I’m going to have to begin to deal with the monsters of the Wannsee House. Very educated people, two-thirds of them had doctorates in law. They’re going to sit down and ratify the final solution. It was already happening. So, I’m now going to read you a speech by Himmler, the head of the SS. This is a speech that he gave to the SS, and we now know that Albert Speer, in inverted commas, the good Nazi, was at that rally. I want to speak to you here in complete frankness of a really grave chapter. Amongst ourselves for once it shall be said quite openly, but all the same we will never speak about it in public. Just as we did not hesitate on June the 30th, 1934, to do our duty as we were ordered, and to stand comrades who had erred against the wall and shoot them. They’re talking about the Night of the Long Knives. We never spoke about it and we never will. It was a matter of natural tact that is alive in us, thank God, and we never talked about it amongst ourselves. We never discussed it. Each of us shuddered, and yet we knew clearly that the next time we would do it again if it was an order, and it was necessary. I am referring here to the evacuation of the Jews, the extermination of the Jewish people. Most of you men know what it’s like to see 100 corpses side by side, or 500, or 1,000.
To have stood fast through this and accept the cases of human weakness to have stayed decent. Let me repeat that. To have stayed decent, that has made us strong. This is an unwritten and never to be written page of glory in our history for we know how difficult it would have been for us today if under bombing raids, and the hardships and deprivations of war we were to still have the Jews in every city as secret saboteurs, agitators and inciters. If the Jews were still logged in the body of the German nation, we would probably be now have reached the stage of 1916, 1917. All in all, however, we can say we had carried out this most difficult task in a spirit of love for our people. And we have suffered no harm to our inner being, our soul and our character. I think I better finish there. Suffice to say I have in front of me newspaper accounts, headlines, this is in the “New York Times.” August 1943 two million murders by Nazis. Polish in London say, Jews are exterminating Nazi brutality. You see the point is from '42 onwards, in fact, the first news comes out of Russia of the killings as early as August 1941. And I’m going to be talking about that when I do a whole session on what the allies knew, what they didn’t know, what they believed, and what they did or didn’t do. It’s a huge controversy.
It’s a huge controversial debate, but it really has taken itself into the state of Israel because I really believe that from the point of view of the survivors, and from the point of view of the Zionists in Palestine, it was this that made them realise they stood alone. So when we try and evaluate and look at the huge issues, I think we do need to reflect on the impact of the Shoah, and those three years between the establishment, those terrible events in the establishment of the state. I know it’s been a very, very tough session, but I did want to coincide it with Yom HaShoah, but we have had time to reflect on the best of the human spirit, but I wanted to finish with that quote of Himmler because this is the world of nightmare. This is the world where there is no truth. So let’s have a look at questions.
Q&A and Comments:
Hindi Hurt. She’s talking about No, they weren’t fictional. In “Mila 18” Leon Uris played a little fast and loose with the facts, but he told a wonderful book.
Rachelle Marks is recommending Segev’s book “The Seventh Million.” Now a lot of you are saying that nobody should complain about Lockdown University.
Can I please say anyone who complains to Judi she’s going to be very cross with me for saying this because she is doing an amazing job, and Wendy and I we do get a bit cross with it. In fact, remember, and I’m saying this 'cause I know that Wendy isn’t online. What the Kirsh Foundation and Wendy has done is absolutely extraordinary. And please remember, it is a free service. It’s there to help us get through lockdown. It’s also there to enrich us in terms of our history and culture. And I know the majority of you who are listening, I mean, my life has been incredibly enriched by the relationships I’m making. Okay, they’re Zoom relationships, but that is the world we live in. And I’m also getting so much knowledge from so many of you. So keep it going.
Now let’s go on. A lot of people are recommending films. And can I also say, of course, we have to close Adam Taub’s list. There is no definitive list on books for literate Jews. I think his list is excellent. Make your own, talk about it with your children, talk about it with your grandchildren.
Now this is from Helen Meisels. Hi Helen. Claude Lanzmann shows interviews with Polish villagers who say they took the rich Jews houses and possessions. Yes, it is a fascinating film. It nearly destroyed him. I think it’s nine hours, but he took over 200 hours, but there are some who say that it was balanced. It wasn’t balanced because he was the foreigner and a Jew. And in fact, a colleague of mine at the Jagiellonian University, who is Jewish, he sent Poles into the villages and he got some very interesting responses.
Yes, this is from Sally. Patrick said the other night when he spoke about the amazing talent that immigrated to New York just think about the huge loss to arts, science, and knowledge caused by the fanaticism of the Nazis determined to kill all the Jews.
Jan Gross in “Fear” examined the Polish hatred after World War I. Yes, we will be looking at this. I worked with Jan Gross in Poland. He used to be on seminars with me when we were teaching non-Jewish Poles about the Shoah.
And this is from Freda, blessed Freda. I will never forget the last scene of Shoah. Antek is with Kazik in the memorial room, the room with everlasting fire. As you know, Zuckerman was waiting for the help, which didn’t arrive. He says in a quiet but very dramatic way that if you opened him with a knife in his chest, you will see that his heart is bleeding 'til today. He always thought about his murdered comrades while he waited for help.
Yes, Freda, I think that has so marked Israel, don’t you? That’s my personal view.
The book, “The Light of Days” by Canadian, Judy Batalion is being released. Yes, and we are already in contact with her. We’re going to invite her to speak. I’ve been discussing it with Wendy. We’re going to invite her to speak in a joint event with Jewish Book Week.
A lot of you are saying very nice things.
Yes, Paul is talking about the Ghetto Fighters Museum, the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz. Yes, it’s wonderful. And, yes, Kibbutz Yad Mordechai is named after Mordechai Anielewicz. Yes, and it should be, but perhaps we need as somebody said yesterday, maybe we need to memorialise Paweł Frenkiel as well.
This is from Anna, read “Jewish Partisans.” My beloved father was shot several times in a mass grave in Ukraine. He pretended to be dead. Called out in the middle of the night, miraculously arrived to the home of a local Ukrainian farmer he trusted. The Righteous farmer who hated the Nazis, hid my father and tended to his wounds. The farmer helped make contact with local Russian partisans who airlifted my father to a military hospital in Moscow. And he goes on to say how he organised a partisan group. What an extraordinary man he must have been.
Q: How are the armaments secured for the uprising?
A: Well, there were two ways. The Revisionists got quite a lot from the Polish Home Army, the underground, so in the end did ZOB, but there were always weapons to be had.
There were smugglers in the Warsaw Ghetto. There were Germans who were prepared to sell guns. People are corruptible, so. Why the majority who survived were from the That’s how it happened, Fayna. I’m not making any comment, I wasn’t there. They got out through the underground tunnel. The rights were in Muranowski Square, which was the most appalling part of the fighting.
This is from Michael Block. The Revisionists carried on fighting for almost a week after the left had run out of bullets. Yep, yep, yeah.
Should we be lighting our candles tonight? Yes, if you want to.
And this is Freda. Just to add that the Bund was weakly represented in the uprising. Freda, let’s try go for peace.
Was I aware there was a medical school in the Warsaw Ghetto? I knew about it, but I don’t know any details. You see, this is what is so amazing about the human spirit, isn’t it Leon? The fact that even in hell there was a hospital, there was an orphanage, there were diaries, there were social events, there were cultural events, there was music. This is resistance. I read the number of returning Jews directly after the war was 1,230. It included those murdered on trains. The numbers are quite difficult. I was talking about the 500 between '45 and '46. I think it’s probably more than that, but it’s not just in Poland. Tragically there were murders in Croatia, Ukraine. It’s a terrible story.
Yes, this is from Jeffrey. Are you aware that the new book, “Our People” written in Lithuanian, now in English, has caused such an uproar the author had to move to Israel? This is because she told the truth. Yes, you see, this is the problem. Lithuania under communism now free. The Lithuanians who fought the communists were heroes. Well, many of them were Nazis. So many of their national heroes are the enemies of the Jews. I love this business of outside and inside history who are heroes. The same is true of the Ukraine. One of their greatest heroes is Bogdan Hmelnitski. And another great hero is Symon Petliura. He’s on postage stamps. Petliura was responsible for murdering at least 70,000 Jews in the Russian Civil War, the end of the First World War. So you’ve got to remember Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Ukraine, there was no denazification. This was under the Soviets. And once the communist bloc collapses, these are the heroes. The majority of Nazi war criminals in Britain and in America were not German. They were Eastern European. And the other point to stress is if you really want to go into the dark night of the soul, not that many Nazis themselves were brought to justice. Even some of those who were around the table at Wannsee escaped on SS pensions. Although a couple were executed by the Mossad. And think of Wernher von Braun, who became head of the American Space Programme. Once the war is over there’s a new war against Russia.
It’s an interesting question. Us human beings do we have a duty of morality? Is the duty of a state that of morality? I know that Dennis Davis, Judge Dennis, will be interviewing Philippe Sands on the 5th of May. And in discussions with the team and Wendy, we are going to take, and we’ve had suggestions from some of you, we will be debating some of these big issues.
And this is from Linda. I think we should move away from Eastern Europe and concentrate on other countries as they may remain inherently anti-Semitic. Well, I’m in a chronological history. One of the problems, and this comes up time and time again, we’ve given over 350 lectures, the good, the bad and the ugly. So many of you who’ve joined, but don’t forget that we are creating a website and then all the presentations will be available. Please don’t ask for them yet, but they will eventually be available. And we have made short films. What we’re trying to do through Wendy, bless her, is to tell the history of the Jewish people. And I spent quite a long time on Britain, America. We brought in other colleagues on America, South Africa. We’re examining the Jewish world where necessary, bringing in experts and bringing in writers, all sorts of interesting people.
If you can please show the museum where the ghetto was low. I don’t quite know what you mean, Bernice. The museum is mostly outdoor and not where the ghetto was. You’ve got to remember the ghetto was more or less destroyed. There’s parts of the ghetto wall. There is a memorial outside Poland, which is a brilliant museum. Whatever you say about Poland, the Poland Museum is wonderful.
And this is from Marion. Oh, this is good news. She’s in Modine and she came home because she didn’t want to miss our lecture. Thank you. She’s saying life is getting back to normal and she’s thanking all of us. So thank you very much Marion.
And this is from Elaine. Wonder how young people will handle this today. Young people grow up very quickly.
Lodz is pronounced wootch. Yes, I know, I don’t speak Polish, it’s terrible. I’m a very, very bad linguist. Many of you are saying thank you.
Q: How was Schwartz able to get out of Poland?
A: Smuggling routes. You see, that’s what I’ve tried to get over to you. Europe was porous, you could move. It wasn’t easy, but you could. There were all sorts of underground organisations.
Now this is from Romaine. The Zygielbojm brothers came to South Africa, were good friends of my parents and showed us letters. Extraordinary, I love our group.
This is from Jonathan. “Iron Curtain” by Anne Applebaum gives a good outline of what happened subsequently in Poland.
Yes, again, Susan is talking about Judy Batalion’s book and as I said, we’re in negotiation to have her do a presentation.
Ruven Zygielbojm, Szmul’s brother came to South Africa, and was married to my grandson’s mother. In the 1990s he returned to Poland and was fated as a hero by the prime minister. It’s a lovely story.
Patricia Fine is recommending “The Commandant’s Wife” based mainly in the Krakow ghetto. Yes, you see, this is the other issue how people dealt with horror. I know that Hoss, the commandant of Auschwitz, his wife complained that when he came home from his work, he couldn’t always perform his marital duties. Extraordinary.
What happened to the Vatican players who helped the Nazis escape? I promise you there’s going to be at least two sessions on it. In the main absolutely nothing. To say nothing of Evita and Juan Perón who received an awful lot of money from Odessa, which really did exist, by the way.
This is from Adele. was told in London by an emissary that the Polish premier in exile, if the Germans didn’t exterminate, or the Polish after the war, he would finish the job. Be careful about that, Adele. I’ll tell you why. Because the Polish government in exile was the first to bring news of what was happening.
Yes, this is from Michael. Even after the state was formed the Brits and the U.S. refused to send arms to the Middle East. Yes, Michael, there is a case to answer.
Some of you are saying we’ve created a community. Yes, I think we all feel that, and it’s very, very special. And I just hope it will go on.
And one of the things that we were talking about last night is, you know, I know the majority of you are incredibly well-educated. A lot of our children and grandchildren, even those who go to Jewish schools, don’t necessarily know enough about their own history. And I’m not just talking about the dark. I’m talking about the light as well. Maybe knowing the relationship that most grandparents have with their own grandchildren, we are going to be in an interesting position to begin to help with our children’s education in Jewish history, yes? Just an idea.
And this is a special thank you to Judi from Lauren.
This is from Basil.
There’s a short film about the ghetto that’s based on the letters and last will of many of the fighters. I’ve said this to you before, those of you who have Prime, if you actually type in Jewish films, there’s so many of interest, some features, but some very good documentaries, including a very good half an hour documentary on the Ringelblum Archive.
Can I explain how Jews can live in Poland today and why? Oh, that’s from Yablun. Have you just asked me a question that is so big. Will you ask me that question again because I want to give you a proper answer. As I said to you, I did an awful lot of work in Poland. We used to go twice a year for years. I’ve got some very good friends there, and it’s a complicated story.
Will I be talking about the Warsaw uprising? Not me, but I wouldn’t be at all surprised if one of my colleagues does.
This is from June, it’s amusing. For those who are dissatisfied with Lockdown University just stop sending in your payments. Now let’s not be too harsh because I think a lot of people, I think we get awfully… I know how irritable I get. We all get irritable because lockdown is a huge price to pay. So why don’t we just say those of us who have been naughty should go onto the naughty step. My 10-year-old grandson said to his mother, mom, if you don’t stop it, I’m putting you on the naughty step.
Now, this is from Elaine who’s talking about the role of the Catholic church. It’s complicated, you got to remember. Look, it’s Easter. My seven-year-old grandson whose father is actually a religious Christian, but he’s being brought up as a Jew by the religious Christian, you know, families are strange. He’s big, blonde and blue-eyed. He came back from his school in Poland in a big state because it’s Easter and he was told that the Jews killed Jesus. Are we going to ask them to rewrite the gospels? There’s a lot to be said on all of this. You see, that’s the problem. Christianity, Catholicism, it’s a religion of love, but at the core, you know, historians like Hyam Maccoby and Robert Wistrich go as far as to say that the myth of the day aside that the Jews killed Jesus. The fact that he was a Jewish revolutionary is irrelevant. He’s been de-judaized. We are guilty of the greatest crime in history. And that was always Wistrich’s belief. Yes, of course, there was the economic, the social, the political fear, envy, because our history has made us mercurial and in the main we try hard, don’t we? But Wistrich and Maccoby very much took that for you. Other historians take other views. You should know, Judi, that so many people are cross.
Anyway, this is from Rose Rachmani. My mother was an Auschwitz survivor and my grandparents. May their memory be a blessing. They didn’t survive. Oh, Rose, it’s affected so many families, but we must go on for their sakes and live as normal lives as possible for their sakes. You know, there’s an interesting quote of George Steiner. He was saying he feels that Jewish parents hold their children too close because of all the children that couldn’t be held close. I dunno, maybe that’s a thought for you to consider tomorrow night.
Anyway, I think I better stop now because Jeremy Rosen is on, and he’s going to be talking about Moses Mendelssohn. Moses Mendelssohn, of course, is the first modern Jew who believed in the separation of state and religion. So I think that will be a lovely insight. So I wish you all well and take care. And, Judi, I think, shall we close it there?
[Judi] Is Wendy online?
I don’t know if Wendy’s online I haven’t seen her. I think she wasn’t coming on today.
[Judi] Ah, okay.
All right, God bless all of you.
[Judi] We’ll see everybody for Jeremy Rosen. Bye-bye.
Bye.