Isaac's Army (68 page)

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.

C
HAPTER
20: J
OANNA AND THE
T
ERRIFYING
M
R
. G
LASER

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.

C
HAPTER
21: T
HE
R
IGHT
O
PTION

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.

C
HAPTER
22: S
IMHA
P
LAYS
S
HEPHERD AND
E
DELMAN
P
LAYS
G
OD

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 Us
(New York: Picador, 2003), p. 120.

16
some sixty to seventy thousand people
Gutman,
Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943
, p. 204.