Resistance (34 page)

28
. Lucjan Dobroszycki, “Polish Historiography on the Annihilation of the Jews of Poland in WW II: A Critical Evaluation,”
East European Jewish Affairs
23.2 (1993): 47.

1
. Rytel's wartime experiences are described on pp. 267–271 in
This One Is from My Country
, in Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zofia Lewinowna,
Ten Jest Z
Ojczyzny Moje
(Krakow: Wydawnictwo Znak, 1969). I interviewed Zygmunt Rytel in the Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw in 1978.

2
. Rytel's rescue of Jews for which he was recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous among the Nations, on January 24, 1967 (
Encyclopedia of the Righteous among the Nations
[Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2004], 689).

3
. From now on whenever I quote Z. Rytel, what he says is based on the interview I conducted with him in 1978; for a description of Yad Vashem and the distinctions it offers, see Tec,
When Light Pierced the Darkness
, 3–4.

4
. When pursuing his resistance activities, Rytel relied on the Polish Socialist Party (PPS).

5
. For the Third Reich, the decimation of the Polish elites was a top priority. Hence, the murder of the Polish elites was systematic. See Ian Kershaw,
Hitler: 1936-1946 Nemesis
(New York: Norton & Co., 2000), 2:241, 245. See also Saul Friedlander,
The Years of Extermination
(New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 12–13.

6
. This Law was introduced in German-occupied Poland on October 15, 1941. See Tec,
When Light Pierced the Darkness
, 22–24. See also Lucy S. Dawidowicz, ed.,
A Holocaust Reader
(West Orange, N.J.: Behrman House, Inc., 1976), 67.

7
. For an illustration of what life was like for the Jews in the forbidden Christian world, see Nechama Tec,
Dry Tears: The Story of a Lost Childhood
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1982).

8
. Symon Rudnicki,
Ruwni ale nie zupelnie
(Equal but not quite) (Warsaw: Biblioteka Midrasha, 2008), see specifically 153–156.

9
. Ibid., 124.

10
. Nechama Tec,
Resilience and Courage
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2003), 206–207.

11
. Israel Gutman and Shmuel Krakowski,
Unequal Victims: Poles and Jews during World War II
(New York: Holocaust Library, 1986), 29.

12
. Ian Kershaw,
Hitler: 1936-1946 Nemesis
(New York: Norton & Co., 2000), 245.

13
. Tec,
Resilience and Courage
, 21.

14
. For a historical overview of initial Jewish destruction in the freshly conquered Eastern territories, see Hilberg,
Destruction of the European Jews
, 191–219. Martin Gilbert, in
The Holocaust
(New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1985), 154–212, concentrates on Eastern Europe in 1941; he includes descriptions of Jewish reactions to these initial assaults.

15
. Ibid., 244.

16
. Ibid., 244, 245.

17
. Tec,
Resilience and Courage
, 21.

18
. Ibid., 22.

19
. Ibid.

20
. Tec,
Dry Tears
, 154, 155.

21
. Unless otherwise specified, when I describe or quote, it is based on the personal interview I conducted with Bleichman in 1996 in New York.

22
. On how the Soviet government responded to this situation, see Tec,
Resilience and Courage,
272–273.

23
. Ibid., 282–283.

24
. Jan Karski,
Story of a Secret State
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944), 233–237.

1
. Artur Eisenbach, “Wstep,” in Emanuel Ringelblum,
Kronika Getta Warszawskiego
(Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto) (Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1983), 5–27. Nechama Tec, “Unheralded Historian Emanuel Ringelblum,”
Yalkut Moreshet
75 (April 2003): 32–37.

2
. Eisenbach was married to Ringelblum's sister.

3
. This is my translation from the Polish of Artur Eisenbach's essay: “Wstep,” in Ringelblum,
Kronika
.

4
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 11–12.

5
. David Engel, “Writing History as a National Mission: The Jews of Poland and Their Historiographical Traditions,” in
Emanuel Ringelblum, the Man and the Historian
, ed. Israel Gutman (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 2010), 119–120; Barbara Engelking, “Moral Issues in Emanuel Ringelblum's Writings from World War II,” in ibid., 227.

6
. Recent publication deserves closer reading in Gutman, ed.,
Emanuel Ringelblum, the Man and the Historian
.

7
. J. Noakes and G. Pridham, eds.,
Nazism, 1919-1945
, Vol . 3,
Foreign Policy, War and Racial Extermination
(Exeter, Devon: University of Exeter, 1988), 1050–1053 (quote on 1052).

8
. Trunk,
Judenrat
, xxv-xxxv.

9
. Ibid.

10
. Ibid. Except for a few clerical positions, women are conspicuously absent from most Judenrat positions.

11
. Ibid. 20–21.

12
. Jean Amery,
At the Mind's Limits: Contemplations by a Survivor on Auschwitz and its Realities
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980), 21–40; Terrence Des Pres,
The Survivor
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 53–71.

13
. Personal communication, Israel Gutman.

14
. This is my free translation of Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 67.

15
. Ringelblum,
Polish-Jewish Relations
, 42.

16
. Jacques Adler,
The Jews of Paris and the Final Solution
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 5–9; Calel Perechodnik,
Am I a Murderer
(Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1996), 8.

17
. Raul Hilberg, Stanisław Staron, and Josef Kermisz, eds.,
The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow
(New York: Stein and Day, 1982), 200–220.

18
. See Hilberg,
Destruction of European Jews
, 166–168, 174.

19
. Chaim Kaplan was particularly critical of the Judenrat, see
Scroll of Agony
, trans. and ed. Abraham I. Katsh (New York: Collier, 1973), 337–339. See also Philip Friedman, “Social Conflicts in the Ghettos,” in
Roads to Extinction
, 145–150; Israel Gutman,
Jews of Warsaw
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1982), 78; Hersh Smolar,
The Minsk Ghetto
(New York: Holocaust Library, 1989), 53.

20
. Friedman, “Social Conflicts in the Ghettos,” 150.

21
. Ibid. 144–145. See also Alan Adelson and Robert Lapides, eds.,
Łód
ź
Ghetto: Inside a Community under Siege
(New York: Viking, 1989), 175; Lucjan Dobroszycki, ed., The Chronicle of the
Łód
ź
Ghetto: 1941–1944 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1984), 93.

22
. Yitskhok Rudashevski,
The Diary of the Vilna Ghetto
(Israel: Ghetto Fighters' House, 1973), 67, 31, 32, 33. For more information, see the more recent publication of material from Rudashevski's diary in Laurel Holliday, ed.,
Children in the Holocaust and World War II
(New York: Washington Square Press, 1995), 137–183.

23
. Sara Zyskind,
Stolen Years
(Minneapolis: Lerner Publications Co., 1981), 42–44.

24
. Tec,
When Light Pierced the Darkness
, 52–69.

25
. Marc Dworecki, “The Day to Day Stand of the Jews,” in
The Catastrophe of European Jews
, ed. Yisrael Gutman and Livia Rothkirechen (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1976), 367–399.

26
. Charles G. Roland,
Courage under Siege
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1992); Dawid Sierakowiak,
The Day of Dawid Sierakowiak: Five Notebooks from the Lodz Ghetto
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1996). These are examples of books that discuss starvation and hunger in ghettos. They can be further multiplied.

27
. Adina Blady Szwajger,
I Remember Nothing More
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 1990).

28
. Rudaszevski,
Diary of the Vilna Ghetto
, 65.

29
. Tec,
Resilience and Courage
, 39–40.

30
. Hilberg,
Destruction of the European Jews
, 174.

31
. Lucy Dawidowicz coined the phrase with publication of her book:
The War against the Jews
(New York: Holt, Rinehart, Winston, 1975).

32
. See Tec,
Resilience and Courage
, 163–166.

33
. Dobka Freund-Waldhorn, personal interviews, Kvar Shmariahu, Israel, 1995, 1996.

34
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 347.

35
. Ibid.

36
. See “Historical Perspective: Tracing the History of the Hidden Child Experience” in Jane Marks,
The Hidden Children
(New York: Ballantine, 1993), 273–291.

37
. According to an additional source, the Germans received 2,613 calories per day, the Poles 669 calories, and the Jews 184 (Gutman,
Resistance
, 86).

38
. For descriptions of welfare activities in the Warsaw ghetto, see Gutman,
Resistance
, 62–70.

39
. Slapakowa had to interrupt her research because she was deported to Treblinka, where she was gassed. See Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 473–474.

40
. Yad Vashem, JM/25/5. My translation from Polish.

41
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 462–463.

42
. Ibid.

43
. Ibid., 393.

44
. Ibid.

45
. Ibid., 395.

46
. Ibid., 402.

47
. Ibid., 507.

48
. Gutman,
Resistance
, 47.

49
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 470.

50
. Yisrael Gutman, “Adam Czerniakow—The Man & Destiny,” in
The Catastrophe of European Jewry
, ed. Y. Gutman and L. Rothkirehen (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1976), 451–489; Raul Hilberg, Stanislaw Stram and Josef Kermicz,
The Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow
(New York: Stein & Day, 1982).

51
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 447–448.

52
. Ibid., 451.

53
. Ibid., 452.

54
. Ibid., 453.

55
. Ibid., 431.

56
. Ibid., 409. This comment seems surprisingly cold, surprisingly unfair.

57
. Ibid., 409.

58
. Ibid., 23.

59
. Ibid. Contrary to the previously established pattern, during the big deportations all documents showing working affiliation with shops failed to protect the Jews who had them.

60
. Ibid. Remba was deeply touched by the fate of Korczak and his orphanage, which he described in Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 603–607.

61
. Ibid., 404.

62
. Introduction to
Kronika
, by Anthony Eisenbach, 18.

63
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 421.

64
. Gutman, ed.,
Emanuel Ringelblum, the Man and the Historian
, 34. Ringelblum is emphasizing in his comment that the Jewish underground, the Jewish Military Union (ZZW), was a group which politically was more to the right than Ringelblum's group (ZOB).

65
. Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, 273–274.

66
. Ibid., 202–203.

67
. Ibid. Most references to Lejkin's assassination assume that his killer was not identified. I. Gutman suggests that the Jewish underground, ZOB, ordered Lejkin's killing. See Gutman,
Resistance
, 169.

68
. Youths cooperated greatly and successfully (ibid., 126–130).

69
. Tec,
When Light Pierced the Darkness
, 22. Also Nechama Tec, “Life in the Ghetto,” in
Resilience and Courage
, 338–339. This is an example of how one Jewish woman was murdered because she failed to follow this law. The Holocaust literature is filled with such sad examples.

70
. The Jews did not prepare for withdrawal (ibid., 199).

71
. The young relied too much on the view of the older generation. For an enlightening discussion of these issues, see Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 500–503.

72
. Gutman,
Resistance
, 195.

73
. Ringelblum,
Kronika
, 441.

74
. Gutman,
Resistance
, 152–153.

75
. Ibid., 199.

76
. Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, 287.

77
. Gutman,
Resistance
, 183. Gutman refers to “Zuckerman as saying that the revolt in January made possible the ghetto uprising in April.”

78
. Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, 349–350.

79
. Gutman,
Resistance
, 204.

80
. Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, 310.

81
. Ibid., 204.

82
. Joseph Kermish in Ringelblum,
Polish-Jewish Relations
, 302.

83
. Ibid., 304–305.

84
. Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, 357.

85
. Ibid., 196–197.

86
. General Stroop was imprisoned with an AK officer Kazimierz Moczarski, who was eventually released from prison. In contrast, General Stroop was convicted and hanged on March 6, 1952, for the crimes committed against the ghetto and its inhabitants. For more information, see
The Stroop Report: The Jewish Quarter of Warsaw is no more!
(New York: Random House, 1979). See also Kazimierz Moczarski,
Rozmowy Zkatem
(Warsaw: Panstwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1978). Moczarski collected the material from Stroop while the two shared the prison cell in Warsaw.