The Bravest Battle Read online

  THE

  BRAVEST

  BATTLE

  BOOKS BY DAN KURZMAN

  Kishi and Japan

  Subversion of the Innocents

  Santo Domingo: Revolt of the Damned

  Genesis 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War

  The Race for Rome

  The Bravest Battle

  Miracle of November: Madrid's Epic Stand 1936

  Ben-Gurion: Prophet of Fire

  Day of the Bomb: Countdown to Hiroshima

  A Killing Wind: Inside Union Carbide and the Bhopal Catastrophe

  Fatal Voyage: The Sinking of the U.S.S. Indianapolis

  DAN KURZMAN

  THE

  BRAVEST

  BATTLE

  The Twenty-eight Days of the

  Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

  To Stephen and Joel

  whose generation, hopefully, will not forget

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I am deeply indebted to Florence Knopf for lending her exceptional talent to the refinement of this work. Miss Knopf is an editor with an eye for the smallest literary defect, and her suggestions invariably proved sound and wise. Confronted with a mountain of information that had to be compressed into a book of reasonable length, I might never have completed this task without her help.

  Yehiel Kirshbaum skillfully translated sections of scores of books published in Polish, Hebrew, Yiddish, Spanish, and German, and also conducted research for me. Each translation came with enlightening comments and observations, since Yehiel, who was himself trapped in a Warsaw Ghetto bunker when the uprising broke out, saw at first hand what was happening. During the revolt he managed to escape with his parents, who bribed their way to safety.

  I am also especially grateful to Miriam Rimer, who interpreted Hebrew for hours at a time during many exhausting interviews; to William Targ, my editor at Putnam's, for his sensitive editorial advice; and to Berenice Hoffman for her valuable counsel.

  I wish to express my appreciation as well to Maty Grunberg for her fine translations from Hebrew; to Ulrike Burger, who interpreted for me in Germany; and to Alfred Chlapowski, who interpreted in Poland; to Dr. Joseph Kermish and Shmuel Krakowski, of Yad Vashem, and Yitzhak Zuckerman, Zivia Lubetkin, and Simcha Rotem (Rathajzer), for checking the final manuscript for inaccuracies; to Miriam Novitch, of Beit Lohamei Haghetaot, for helping ►ne to understand; to Ruth Aley, my agent, for her boundless work on nay behalf; to Frank Kurtz, for copy editing the manuscript with dedication and skill; and to Denise Philip, for typing the manuscript swiftly and virtually without error.

  Among those who furnished me background information or in other ways facilitated my research were:

  Ora Alcalay-head librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Yitzhak Arad-board chairman, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Shaul Bar-Schlomo---interpreter, Hebrew

  Wladyslaw Bartoszewski-Polish writer

  David Bass-librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Perla Bauman-librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Wieslaw A. Bednarozuk-press secretary, Polish Embassy, Washington, D.C.

  Petra Borrock-interpreter, German

  Gerhard Buck-archivist, Bibliothek Mr Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart

  Erni Deicher-archivist, Bibliothek fur Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart

  Reinhard Dietrich-judge, Hamburg

  Gabriele Franz-archivist, Bibliothek fur Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart

  Elmar Frischeisen-state prosecutor, Ludwigsburg

  Marian Fuks-deputy director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

  Helge Grabitz-state prosecutor, Hamburg

  Erwin Grosse-state prosecutor, Hamburg

  Clara Guini-librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Werner Haupt-vice-director, Bibliothek fur Zeitgeschichte, Stuttgart

  Anton Hock-vice-director, Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, Munich

  Zymunt Hoffman-deputy director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

  Maurycy Horn-director, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

  Kazimierz Iranek-Osmecki-Polish writer

  Bronya Klibanski-archivist, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Andre Klos-press attache, Polish Embassy, Cologne

  Christopher Kornornicki-executive editor, Interpress, Warsaw

  Andrzej Konopacki-deputy director, Polish Foreign Ministry, Warsaw

  M. Kuhlmann-state prosecutor, Hamburg

  Tadeusz Kur-Polish journalist

  Chaim Lazar-Israeli writer

  Yitzhak Len-librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  M. Liczmanski--official, Polish Foreign Ministry, Warsaw

  Czeslaw Lisowski-official, Interpress, Warsaw

  Eugene Lubomirski-official, Sikorski Museum, London

  Ludwik Lubomirski--official, Radio Free Europe, Munich

  Czeslaw Madajczyp-professor, Institut d'Histoire de l'Academie Polonaise des Sciences, Warsaw

  James J. Mandros-press attache, U.S. Embassy, Warsaw

  Irene Marchewicz-executive editor, Interpress, Warsaw

  Leon Penner-lawyer who prosecuted General Jurgen Stroop

  Czeslaw Pilichowski-director, Main Commission for the Investigation of Nazi Crimes in Poland, Warsaw

  Dr. Ruckerl-chief prosecutor, Central Agency for Prosecution of Crimes Stemming from Nazi Times, Ludwigsburg

  losi Rufeisen-interpreter, Hebrew

  Ruta Sakowska-researcher, Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw

  Karl-Heinz Schaper-librarian, Der Spiegel, Hamburg

  Rolf Sichting-state prosecutor, Stuttgart

  Franz Stroop-brother of General Jurgen Stroop

  Janusz Tazbir-professor, Institut d'Histoire de I'Academie Polonaise des Sciences, Warsaw

  Ludwig Tiibbens-nephew of Walther Caspar Tobbens

  Vered Wahllen-librarian, Yad Vashem, Jerusalem

  Henryk Walenda-editor in chief, Dziennik Lodzki, Lodz

  Helena Walewski-wife of Richard Walewski, ZZW fighter

  Wolfram Weber-state prosecutor, Ludwigsburg

  Simon Wiesenthal-Nazi hunter

  Hermann Weiss-archivist, Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, Munich

  Christa Wichman-librarian, Wiener Library, London

  Eli Zborowski-president, American Federation of Jewish Fighters, Camp Inmates, and Nazi Victims

  Anton Zirngibl-official, Institut fur Zeitgeschichte, Munich

  Kazimierz Zygulski-Polish professor of sociology

  Characters in the drama of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising who kindly agreed to let me interview them include the following (identified by the positions they held at the time):

  Gustaw Alef-Balkowiak-People's Guard officer

  Marek Arczynski-Polish official of Zegota

  Rachel Auerbach-Jewish writer on the Aryan side of Warsaw

  Josef Barski-director of CENTOS, Jewish children's institute

  Adolf Berman-Jewish leader on the Aryan side of Warsaw

  Meir Bieliscki-ghetto resident

  Adolf Josef Cedro-ghetto resident

  Aharon Chmielnicki (Karmi)-ZOB fighter

  Adam Ciolkosz-Polish Socialist Party official

  Alphons Czapp-German policeman

  Antoni Czarnecki-vicar of All-Saints Church in the ghetto

  Anna Czuperska-Sliwicka-Polish Home Army officer

  Marek Edelman-commander in the ZOB

  Felicia Frenkel-ghetto resident

  Kalman Friedman-ghetto resident

  Yitzhak Gitler (Ben-Moshe)-ghetto resident

  Masha Glytman (Putermilch)-ZOB fighter

  Stefan Grajek-ZOB fighter

  Israel Guttman-ZOB fighter

  Adam Halperin (Harten)-ZZW fighter

  Ruth Heiman-ghetto resident

  Simcha Holzberg-ghetto resident

  Henryk Iwanski-capta
in in the Polish Home Army

  Tadeusz Jaegermann-Polish Home Army officer

  Noemi Judkowski-ghetto resident

  Feliks Kanabus-Polish doctor

  Maria Kann-Polish writer who helped the Jews

  Tadeusz Kern-Jedrychowski-Polish Home Army officer

  Franz Korner-General Stroop's driver

  Emilka Kosower (Rosenzwieg)-Jewish partisan in the Home Army

  Henryk Kotlicki-Polish PPR officer

  Henryk Kroszczor-hospital superintendent in the ghetto

  Leopold Kummant-Polish Home Army officer

  Maria L.-ghetto resident

  Michael L.-ghetto resident

  Heinrich Lauts-director of brush factory

  Zivia Lubetkin-commander in the ZOB

  Miriam Medrzycki-ghetto resident

  Zbigniew Mlynarski-Polish Home Army partisan

  Kazimierz Moczarski-Polish Home Army officer and journalist

  Leon Najherg-ghetto fighter

  Matis Nasberg-ghetto resident

  Ze'ev Yachter-ghetto resident

  Pnina Paper (Frimer)-ZOB fighter

  Jurek Plonski-ZZW fighter

  Yehoshua Prechner-ZZW fighter

  Jacob Putermilch-ZOB fighter

  Simcha Rathajzer (Rotem)-ZOB fighter

  Moshe Ring-ghetto resident

  Anna Rochman-ghetto resident

  Irena Rojek-ghetto resident

  Henryk Rolirad-Polish Home Army officer under Iwanski

  Yaacov Rosen-ghetto resident

  Israel Rotbalsam (Rom)-doctor in the ghetto

  Wanda Rothenberg-ZOB fighter and sister of Pola Elster

  Zymunt Rytel-Socialist partisan

  Hela Schipper-ZOB fighter

  Hella Schmetkort-wife of German Sergeant Major Bernard Schmetkort

  Fela Shapsik (Finkelstein)-ZZW fighter

  Zymunt Sliwicki-Polish Home Army officer

  Antoni Slupik-colonel in the Polish Army

  Sewek Toporek-ghetto resident

  Jonas Turkow-Yiddish actor in the ghetto

  Leon Wanat-Polish teacher

  Henryk Wasser-ZOB fighter and Emmanuel Ringelblum's secretary

  Stanislas Weber-major in the Polish Home Army

  Lewi Zlocisty-ghetto resident

  Yitzhak Zuckerman-deputy commander in the ZOB

  CONTENTS

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  PREFACE

  PROLOGUE

  The Eve

  The First Day

  The Second Day

  The Third Day

  The Fourth Day

  The Fifth Day

  The Sixth Day

  The Seventh Day

  The Eighth Day

  The Ninth Day

  The Tenth Day

  The Eleventh Day

  The Twelfth Day

  The Thirteenth Day

  The Fourteenth Day

  The Fifteenth Day

  The Sixteenth Day

  The Seventeenth Day

  The Eighteenth Day

  The Nineteenth Day

  The Twentieth Day

  The Twenty-first Day

  The Twenty-second Day

  The Last Days

  EPILOGUE

  NOTES

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  PREFACE

  The daily sufferings of the Warsaw Ghetto during World War II have been the subject of a number of fictional and nonfictional works. But this is the first attempt at a full-scale account of the twenty-eight-day armed uprising that grew out of such conditions.

  The uprising, when dealt with at all in other books, has usually been telescoped into a few climactic pages. And many of these brief accounts are based more on legend than on firsthand testimony and original documentation. Those few works that do concentrate on the uprising itself are either short, skeletal summaries or records of individual experiences.

  Yet the military encounter was one of the most stirring, impossible, and important battles in history. Seldom, if ever, before has a single armed conflict produced greater heroism or more explosive political consequences. Indeed, this conflict, an enduring symbol of resistance to man's inhumanity to man, reverbrated far beyond the pale that enclosed it.

  Although groups of Jews have at various times revolted against their persecutors, the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, more than any other event, symbolically ended two thousand years of Jewish submission to discrimination, oppression, and finally, genocide. It signaled the beginning of an iron militancy rooted in the will to survive, a militancy that was to be given form and direction by the creation of the state of Israel.

  To understand fully that nation's mood and mentality, its pride and policies, and thus the tensions shaking the Middle East and the world today, it is necessary to know the story of the uprising, to glimpse the anguish, the euphoria, the eternal hope of the ghetto defenders, young men and women in love with life yet determined to fight to the death.

  For twenty-eight days (according to official German calculation, but actually longer) some fifteen hundred fighters, armed with little more than pistols and homemade bombs and supported by about sixty thousand civilians passively resisting in hidden bunkers, fought off several thousand Nazi soldiers equipped with rifles, artillery, tanks, armored cars, flamethrowers, and aircraft. Whole nations fell under the German yoke in a far shorter period.

  This battle lasted as long as it did because, essentially, there was no room for bargaining on either side. The Germans, led by SS Major General Jurgen Stroop, were bound by Nazi ideology to murder all captured Jews, either on the spot or in death camps. The Jews, most of them led by Mordechai Anielewicz, were bound by a pact of honor to die by their own hands rather than surrender. This was truly a battle to the death. And it took time to root out and kill tens of thousands of people.

  But not every Jew was a hero as he faced death. One of the great tragedies of the ghetto, as in the concentration camp, was not simply that so many died but that the pressures exerted on the condemned were so overwhelming that some turned into beasts in the insane struggle for survival. Thus from the ghetto cauldron emerged not only the bravest and most altruistic but the greediest and most cowardly, the best and worst in the most exaggerated degrees. The wonder of the Warsaw Ghetto was that under genocidal circumstances the worst represented such a small part of the total. General Stroop attributed many of his difficulties to the willingness of so few Jews to betray their people, even when offered the chance to survive.

  The ghetto tested not only the Jewish soul but the Polish heart. A relatively small number of Poles risked their lives to save the Jews, and some, indeed, died in the effort. Another small group of Poles betrayed the Jews and even killed them. The great mass of Poles, traditionally anti-Semitic, were indifferent, and watched the extermination of the Jews with greater curiosity than sympathy. Thus the Poles played no small role in strengthening the argument for Zionism.

  In this book, which took more than two years to research and write, I have tried to tell the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising through the participants, focusing in particular on General Stroop and Mordechai Anielewicz. The research task was difficult, not because sources of information were lacking but because they were so scattered, with each witness or document able to throw light on only limited aspects of the revolt.

  To get as much of the full story as possible I interviewed approximately five hundred people, including most of the surviving fighters, more than one hundred civilians who lived through the uprising, and scores of Germans and Poles who were involved. I tracked these people down in Israel, the United States, Poland, West Germany, and Austria.

  I also studied several thousand documents in these countries, dealing with every facet of the subject, and consulted about three hundred books and countless periodicals, many in Hebrew, Yiddish, Polish, German, French, and Spanish, as well as in English.

  From this sea of information I fashioned a daily account of the fighting. Since even many of the participants could not recall dates, places,
and similar details, I compared verbal accounts with those given in various diaries, memoirs, and other documents in order to reconstruct events accurately. Sometimes I could determine the date of a particular incident only through a long and tedious process of cross-matching and elimination.

  Nothing has been fictionalized. All quotations and descriptions, as well as thoughts attributed to characters in this book, come from the writings of the persons involved, from personal interviews with them, or from the records of individuals to whom these persons told their stories. Sources for each section of each chapter, specifically including those of all dialogue and other quotations, are indicated in the Notes.

  I first became interested in writing the story of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising while researching another book, Genesis 1948: The First Arab-Israeli War. Some of the people I interviewed for that work had lived in the Warsaw Ghetto and reminisced about the uprising there. My interest grew while I was working on my next book, The Race for Rome, which included material on the destruction of the Roman Jews. After conducting some preliminary research on the uprising, I decided to undertake this project.

  I was convinced that the facts were so dramatic, so moving in themselves, they did not need embellishment. My problem was how to bring these facts together, how to impose order on so much raw reality, how to write a humanized history, intended for the general public as well as for scholars, while keeping the details from submerging the central importance of the story-the ways people in desperate conditions acted individually and in concert to express their common humanity and their personal and communal dignity.

  It was a melancholy experience visiting the site of the Warsaw Ghetto thirty years after the uprising. The area has been rebuilt, and no hint of the destruction remains. Only a statue commemorating the battle and a large stone at the spot where Mordechai Anielewicz died bear witness to the disappearance of the largest Jewish community in Europe. A small section of the wall that enclosed the ghetto remained as a further reminder until 1975, when the Polish government, which wants the Jewish uprising to be known as a Polish revolt, removed it to make room for a sports arena.

  I asked a passerby where the wall had stood. He did not know there had been one. And the synagogue had been locked because too few Jews had been attending services. But the Yiddish theater was giving a performance. If only ten people were in the audience, the show would go on.