2 The Judenrat was rife with corruption and collaborators Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 30.
3 “scoundrels, vipers, and louses” Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, p. 46.
4 “He was in an impossible position” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
5 “Vomiting at home” Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, p. 85.
6 “At 2 A.M. I begin to fret” Ibid., p. 91.
7 “When they found out he wasn’t there” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.
8 Ghetto entry for Christians was Streng Verboten Helena Balicka-Kozlowska, Mur Mial Dwie Strony (Warsaw: Dom Wydawniczy Bellona, 2002), p. 10.
9 “They remain all day on their filthy straw mattresses” Edelman, Ghetto Fights, p. 41.
10 “Very rapidly they started to die” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.
11 “So they took me” Ibid.
12 “Who was that woman?” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 138.
13 “For three days his body will hang as a warning” Ibid., p. 193.
14 “I have only one explanation” Ibid., p. 140.
15 a series of assisted “suicides” among the nine thousand Volksdeutsche Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, 1859 Dni Warszawy (Krakow: Znak, 2009), p. 202.
16 Bogus farewell notes were left at the scenes Karski, Story of a Secret State, p. 226.
17 executing the customary one hundred Poles in retaliation Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 35.
18 “I hinted that I would be willing to pay” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 141.
19 fifty-three died in camp, and another fifty died shortly after their release Samuel D. Kassow, Who Will Write Our History? Rediscovering a Hidden Archive from the Warsaw Ghetto (London: Penguin, 2007), p. 133.
20 “They behaved wonderfully toward us” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 142. 128 “When you set up the gallows” Ibid.
21 “I didn’t understand what we were doing there” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
22 “They fed us a bowl of soup a day and two hundred grams of bread” Ibid.
23 “It was awful” Ibid.
24 “I thought the Blue Police was bad” Ibid.
25 “when they finish with us, they’ll move on to you” Ibid.
26 “Don’t faint. You can’t faint” Ibid.
CHAPTER 18: THEY DIDN’T DESERVE SUCH A PARTING
1 “the pampered child of Valiant” Street Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 144.
2 “For the first time, I had seen with my own eyes” Ibid.
3 Jews would enter from Forestry Boulevard Paulsson, Secret City, p. 63.
4 “I saw how the Germans beat the Poles there at the station” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 122.
5 “We were sure of a quick victory by the Red Army” Ibid., p. 146.
6 “barkers” Ozimek, Media Walczacej Warszawy, p. 47.
7 “I left in a few minutes” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 122.
8 “We were shocked” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 55.
9 “We must assume that this was an awful act of revenge” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 151.
10 “There was nowhere Lonka would not go” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 52.
11 “The craziest rumors were circulating” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
12 “prone to childish bouts of fantasy and enthusiasm” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 59.
13 “We were ideological rivals” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
14 It would claim 14,449 lives by year’s end Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 71.
15 “Their organs were translucent” Ibid.
16 “I instruct the entire population of the Warsaw District” Bartoszewski, 1859 Dni Warszawy, p. 290.
17 “Runge was smuggled into the ghetto with great care” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 83.
18 a special pogrom unit of Lithuanians called the Ipatingas Jean-Francois Steiner, Treblinka (New York: Signet Books, 1968), p. 18.
19 “rightful punishment to collaborators and traitors” Richard Rhodes, Masters of Death (New York: Knopf, 2002), p. 41.
20 “On the concrete forecourt of the petrol station” Ibid.
21 “from the reliable non-Communist elements among Ukrainians” Ibid.
22 “Death to Jews, death to Communists” Ibid., p. 59.
23 In the town of Radzilow, Germans incited Polish peasants to murder eight hundred Jewish inhabitants Jan T. Gross, Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland (New York: Penguin, 2002), p. 32.
24 “That was part of the German genius” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
25 “I didn’t get out of bed for a month” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
26 suffering from ascites or the “wet form” of severe malnutrition: Myron Winick, Final Stamp: The Jewish Doctors in the Warsaw Ghetto (Bloomington, Indiana: Author House, 2007), p. 35.
27 This was known as the diuretic phase of starvation treatment Ibid., p. 39.
28 “For her, everything was ‘God’s will’ ” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
29 “in the evening you could see well-dressed women, wearing lipstick and rouge” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 222.
30 “He had had it for eight or nine years” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
31 “I didn’t know if I could bring myself to swallow that bread” Ibid.
32 “I watched him fade, day by day” Ibid.
CHAPTER 19: SIMHA LEAVES ZIVIA TO HER PROPHECY
1 “bedsheets could be traded for half a kilo of bread” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
2 like Model Pienkert or Nathan Wittenberg’s Final Journey Funeral Parlor Photo exhibition, Jewish Historical Institute, Tlomackie Street, Warsaw.
3 forty-three thousand people had died of hunger and disease Engelking and Leociak, Getto Warszawskie, p. 317.
4 “Dead bodies had become part of the landscape” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
5 “I could only guess that this was a Jewish boy” Paulsson, Secret City, p. 69.
6 “A little skeleton, four or five years old” Ibid.
7 “I was almost seventeen and strong” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
8 “My parents didn’t like it” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 13.
9 “My mom had relatives who lived in a tiny village deep in the countryside” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
10 “I was very eager to leave” Ibid.
11 “If international Jewry, in Europe and outside of Europe” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 55.
12 “A fat German officer greeted them politely” Ibid., p. 56.
13 “Nobody believed him” Ibid., p. 57.
14 They had ample historic precedent Laqueur, History of Zionism, p. 159.
15 “People were unable to believe that they could be killed like that” Kerry P. Callahan, Mordechai Anielewicz: Hero of the Warsaw Ghetto Rising (New York: Rosen Publishing, 2001), p. 70.
16 “Something like this could never happen in the heart of Europe” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 57.
17 “I closed my eyes” Ibid.
18 “I remember sitting in silence” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 156.
19 “Those were the hardest weeks of my life” Ibid., p. 157.
20 “It is better to die fighting like free men” Yisrael Gutman, Resistance: The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Boston: Mariner Books, 1994), p. 103.
21 “Let’s face facts” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 59.
22 “We must make contact with other Jewish groups at all costs” Ibid.
CHAPTER 20: JOANNA AND THE TERRIFY
ING MR. GLASER
1 She remained terrified of the mean and mysterious caretaker Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 277.
2 “My mother and grandmother would not have asked about it” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
3 “He’s far away, traveling” Ibid.
4 “In my next memory we are slogging through mud” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 277.
5 “Was it for money? Out of servile loyalty to the occupiers?” Ibid., p. 279.
6 “In my hazy recollection of events” Ibid.
7 Auschwitz, which by 1942 had already claimed the lives of sixty thousand suspected Gentile rebels Auschwitz Museum exhibit, author visit.
8 “So without shedding any tears I left Michael in a puddle” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 279.
9 In total, fifty-two people were killed on April 17 Gutman, Jews of Warsaw: 1939–1943, p. 176.
10 deporting 461 suspected Resistance members to Auschwitz Bartoszewski, 1859 Dni Warszawy, p. 330.
11 where display windows were still stocked with wines and luxury goods Balicka-Kozlowska, Mur Mial Dwie Strony, p. 11.
12 when the Germans extended the Cool Street corridor in January 1942 Engelking and Leociak, Getto Warszawskie, p. 143.
13 “We were accused of being dangerously irresponsible” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 60.
14 “You are quite young,” Isaac remembered him responding Ibid.
15 “I was ready to kill my Bundist colleagues for their blindness” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 175.
16 “Many of us were not happy with the decision” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
17 “It was a mistake” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
18 “We had serious reservations” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 62.
19 “This was after our great failure with the Bund” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 182.
20 “So we joined” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 62.
CHAPTER 21: THE RIGHT OPTION
1 an elitist prewar organization called Brit Hechayal Chaim Lazar, Muranowska 7 (Tel Aviv: Massada Press, 1966), p. 126.
2 “well-off”: Marian Apfelbaum, Two Flags: Return to the Warsaw Ghetto (Jerusalem: Gefen Publishing, 2007), p. 23.
3 “We don’t want to go to the Oflag” Henryk Iwanski, Kultura 6, no. 16, April 1968, p. 254.
4 (and where a small square would be named in Apfelbaum’s honor) Dariusz Libionka and Laurence Weinbaum, “A Legendary Commander,” Haaretz.com., news.haaretz.co.il/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=874017&contrassID=2&subContrassID=14&sbSubC.
5 “Hurray patriotism combined with primitive anti-Semitism” Shore, Caviar and Ashes, p. 28.
6 “Anti-Semitism was not merely an addendum to the Endek program” Jan Engelgard, Norodowa Demokracja I Okolice (Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Prasy Lokalnej, 2006), p. 37.
7 “I must confess that I had never expected” Dan Kurzman, The Bravest Battle: The 28 Days of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (New York: Da Capo Press, 1976), p. 62.
8 “Help us organize the Jewish youth” Iwanski, Mowi Major Bystry, p. 254.
9 the Sanation regime helped train a radical offshoot Moshe Arens, The Jewish Military Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto, Oxford Journals, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, vol. 19, no. 2, p. 207.
10 “it is in your interest and in ours” Lazar, Muranowska 7, p. 42.
11 had found thirty-nine individuals Apfelbaum, Two Flags, p. 24.
12 “I receive thee among the soldiers of Freedom” Bor-Komorowski, Secret Army, p. 29.
13 supplied with twenty-nine handguns Apfelbaum, Two Flags, p. 24. 163 the first casualty of war Abraham Rabinovich, Jerusalem Post, April 20, 2006.
14 “almost to the point of total omission” Dazriuz Libionka and Laurence Weinbaum, Deconstructing Memory and History, Jewish Political Studies Review, 18:1–2 (Jerusalem: Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, Spring 2006).
15 “what to make of the story of David Moryc Apfelbaum” Libionka and Weinbaum, Haaretz, June 22, 2007.
16 “They were smugglers and thieves backed by a bunch of [Polish] nationalists” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
17 “elitist recruitment policies strongly weighted toward those better-off Jews” Apfelbaum, Two Flags, p. 45.
18 membership in the group soared to over 250 inductees Kalmen Mendelson, Historia Powstania ZZW.
19 “We became Fascists, Hitlerites” Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved, p. 7.
20 “cannot serve two gods, Zionism and Socialism” Ibid., p. 5.
21 “Vladimir Hitler” Ibid., p. 10.
22 “was among the most beautiful, the most honest, the most modest people I have ever met” Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved, p. 79.
23 “The [Polish Underground] became aware of this influx of volunteers and wanted to take advantage” Kalmen Mendelson, Historia Powstania ZZW, Kronika, no. 18, May 2, 1970.
24 By 1942, the JMU boasted nearly three hundred registered combatants Ibid.
25 A three-man general command staff presided over the secretive group Lazar, Muranowska 7, p. 139.
26 In two underground shooting galleries on Cordials and Franciscan Streets Apfelbaum, Two Flags, p. 62.
27 the JMU’s Technical Department dug a tunnel in December 1941 Tadeusz Bednarczyk, Zycie Codzienne Warszawskiego Getta (Warsaw: Goldpol, 1995), p. 67.
28 “Bloody Friday has had strong repercussions” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 270.
29 “I became a pariah” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 179.
30 “There were not many.… But they did a tremendous amount of damage” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
31 “People don’t like to hear that we had Jewish prostitutes, criminals, or collaborators” Ibid.
32 “The clientele of these places consisted principally of Jewish Gestapo agents” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 78.
33 “Gancwajch is turning into a regular Maecenas” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum, p. 271.
34 “The new arrivals would have nothing to do with Ghetto Jews” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 88.
35 “They still talk about unser Fuehrer” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 288.
CHAPTER 22: SIMHA PLAYS SHEPHERD AND EDELMAN PLAYS GOD
1 “It was heaven on earth” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
2 Its one-hundred-odd Jews were required to wear Ibid.
3 “My relatives were religious Jews” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 14.
4 “Every morning I would go to the peasant’s house, where I ate my fill” Ibid.
5 “I was haunted by the idea that people in the Ghetto were suffering” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
6 “All Jewish persons living in Warsaw, regardless of age and sex” Paulsson, Secret City, p. 73.
7 whose upper floors had traditionally housed dentists and denture manufacturers Engelking and Leociak, Getto Warszawskie, p. 474, annex.
8 Zamenhof in front of Teperman and Morgensztern’s bakery Ibid.
9 “If they intended to kill us, they wouldn’t feed us so much” Marek Edelman, I Juz nie Bylo jak Przedtem, Gazeta Wyborcza, April 22, 1999.
10 “When will we be given the bread?” Gutman, Resistance, p. 137.
11 “In this way, even the most rebellious elements in the Ghetto” Edelman, I Juz nie Bylo jak Przedtem, Gazeta Wyborcza, April 22, 1999.
12 “We didn’t know where people were being taken” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
13 “He was a strong, well-built, athletic, handsome young man” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 101.
14 that ultimately damaged 6,930 locomotives and 19,058 railcars Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 67.
15 held Dienstausweis identity papers Michal Grynberg, ed., Words to Outlive U
s (New York: Picador, 2003), p. 120.
16 some sixty to seventy thousand people Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943, p. 204.
17 “I had a hard rule. I only rescued those I knew” Edelman, I Juz nie Bylo jak Przedtem, Gazeta Wyborcza, April 22, 1999.
18 “In order to pull someone out of the lines” Krall, Shielding the Flame, p. 43.
19 “They weren’t all sons of bitches” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
20 “People—your friends, your neighbors, your co-workers” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.
21 “Mostly I was hiding on the roof” Ibid.
22 “Street by street, building by building, they were emptying the Ghetto” Ibid.
23 “Do not be deceived! You are being taken to death and extermination” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 102.
24 “Everybody’s eyes have a wild, crazy, fearful look” Lennart Lindskog, Living Testimony: Marek Edelman, Torah.org, online at http://www.torah.org/features/firstperson/livingtestimony.html.
25 “They held her by the hands and legs” Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 98.
CHAPTER 23: ONE GUN
1 “I was accompanying Abraham Schneidmel” Rudi Assuntino and Wlodek Goldkorn, Straznik: Marek Edelman Opowida (Krakow: Znak, 2006), p. 54.
2 “You can’t shoot from two fingers” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
3 “He looked like a nobleman” Ibid.
4 “didn’t know the Zionists, didn’t trust the Communists” Ibid.
5 “I don’t believe [it will be] a whole wagonload, but we’ll get something out of this” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 105.
6 “He said that I should wait by a phone” Assuntino and Goldkorn, Straznik, p. 55.
7 11-92-28 Ibid., p. 55.
8 “Suddenly I saw a large mob on the street below” Assuntino and Goldkorn, Straznik, p. 55.
9 80 degrees even after dark Engelking and Leociak, Getto Warszawskie, p. 683.
10 “There wasn’t a single Jew on Valiant” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 200.
11 the bullet entered one cheek Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943, p. 239.
Isaac's Army Page 48
