I am in Warsaw, Poland in 1939. There is war brewing. Its angry voice moves swiftly through the wind and is fed into the minds and hearts of angry people all over the globe. Germany has invaded Poland, signaling the beginning of World War Two. One by one the Jews see their rights and privileges being taken away. The Nazi cancer begins to spread.
I move briskly through the streets of Jerusalem Boulevard, trying to make it to my friend’s house before curfew at seven o’ clock. I pause as I see a Polish soldier thrown out of one of the many taverns of the city, roaring loudly. He swears at me, for I look Jewish. I hurry on. As I rush I reflect on what has just happened. My family has lived through five major pogroms and countless minor ones. I have no attachment to the land. I stay only to educate the next generation of Jews in this land, that they might know contentment as well. I am a Zionist. I teach at a Zionist farm at day and go to Zionist meetings at night.
I arrive at my friend Tosia Alternam’s house out of breath. She smiles at me as I flop down on a couch. I take off my black coat, which has a recent edition of a six cornered black star with the German word Jude on it. I look around the room to see if anyone else has arrived yet. I smile at Mordechai Anteleiwitz, and he nods in acknowledgement. Suddenly, the doorbell rings. Emmanuel Ringelblum comes in. As he nods to each of us, I notice something unusual in his usually calm expression. Is it anxiety, or is it fear?
As he starts talking, we all stop what we were doing a moment ago and listen intently.
He covers what has happened in the invasion of Poland, what can be expected of the Nazis, and what has happened to Jews before. “In conclusion,” he says, “We might have a heritage right here. People thousands of years from now might speak our names. We might all die, but if we record these atrocities committed to us by the Nazis, our souls will live on. We must keep chronicles of these events”. We all agree.
The next week we move into the ghetto. My God, there are so many people there. People have to sleep in the streets, as there is no room in the houses. The rations are below starvation level. It is not uncommon to see the corpse of an emaciated man or woman on the street corner. In these days we think that nothing can get worse. How wrong we are.
A year passes, and then two, and then another one. Life is a day to day struggle to survive. Wild children roam the streets, hungry for the smallest morsel of food. People are dying by the thousands every month.
We hear of Babi Yar, “Grandmother’s Pits”. Men, women, and children alike are forced to dig their own graves, and then shot in the back of the head by the Nazis. In three days 33,000 people die.
The Germans begin deporting people to Treblinka. Is death really so bad? The only alternative is starvation. Palestine is a dream, a destination which can only be arrived at through death. Through all of this we keep our journals. Many days I force my hand to write just one more sentence, just one more.
Mordechai Anteleiwitz rises as a leader. We know that a fight is coming with the Nazis, and we know that he will lead. He is a great builder of morale. He is the one that urges us to live one more day. We form underground headquarters in Mila 18. There is always music and dancing there.
On January 18, 1943, a great shot for freedom is fired. We run the Germans out of the Ghetto! We slaughter them in their footsteps! It marks a turning point in the history of the Jewish people. We fly the Star of David over the ghetto. It is truly living Zionism.
Each day we run the Germans out of the Ghetto. Ammunition is getting low. We begin to hide our journals, in order to preserve them for future generations. We have a Passover seder. This night truly is different from all others. We remember Masada and Betar and Jerusalem! We remember Shimshon bar Kochba and Giora and Eliezer! We know that tonight we are truly free.
We know that to worship God is to drive the Nazis out! On this night, we are really and truly free!
Through all of this we continue to drive the Germans out. More than three hundred have died of a Jewish bullet so far. We have held out for more than a month, where the whole of Poland only held out for fifteen days. We know true freedom. We defeat tanks, yet the Nazis can’t even get a foothold in the ghetto.
The Germans capture Mila 18. I am away on a mission, and they capture it. They pump poison gas in the openings. Tosia and I escape, but they take Emmanuel and Mordechai. As we go under the wall to the Aryan side, we know that we must preserve a legacy.
Now I am here in Palestine. I live in the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz in Acre. I work hard trying to preserve Emmanuel Ringelblum’s dream of preserving the history of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It is strange, isn’t it, how the height of man’s inhumanity to man also results in one of man’s greatest moments?
Shira ben-Dror
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