Jews had will to resist Nazis

Irwin Block

The Gazette,
April 17, 2003

During celebrations of Passover, a Jewish fighter recalls the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 19, 1943, and the several hundred young and idealistic men and women who rose up against the German army When Boruch Spiegel thinks back to those days 60 years ago, he feels tremendous pride, but also enormous pain.
Spiegel is one of about 10 Jews still living of the several hundred, with a few small weapons and a powerful will to resist, staged the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 19, 1943.

In his modest Côte St. Luc duplex, its walls covered with photos of comrades and family, Spiegel was gearing up this week for a return trip to Poland to commemorate the event.

"Do you know how lucky I am?" he asked as he served coffee and dark chocolate at his kitchen table.

"I am 83 years old and I am going back to Poland with my granddaughter. Do you know what this means? I can't believe it.

"We thought we would survive a day, a few days," he said as he recalled the time when young and idealistic Jews took on the German army at the height of its power as it was about to begin a final liquidation of the ghetto, reduced to 60,000 people from about half a million.

It was the first urban revolt against the Nazis in Europe. Though it lasted but 33 days, the uprising shocked the German army to its jackboots, accustomed as the military was to Jewish obedience in the face of overwhelming force and brutality.

And the uprising sparked and inspired other acts of rebellion.

Spiegel, who worked with his father making leather spats, was a member of a youth group called Tsukunft (Future), part of the Jewish Labour Bund. Along with other idealistic youth in the ghetto, including his late wife, Chaika, who died last year, they believed the Jews had to resist.

Jews had been forced into a tiny area of Warsaw, and those without savings or skills were the first to perish. "The worst part is the hunger, and the first victims are the weak, the children," Spiegel said with a look of pain on his brow.

When the Germans began deportations to the east, which many understood meant to their death, Jewish socialists, Zionists on the left and right, and Communists decided to fight back. The result was the formation of the Jewish Fighting Organization.

The turning point in its plans to resist came on Jan. 18, 1943, when German troops surrounded the Warsaw Ghetto in an attempt to get to Jews who were hiding and ready to resist.

The Jewish fighters attacked in five uncoordinated actions, killing or wounding about 50 German soldiers and seizing some of their weapons.

Three days later, the Germans halted the deportations, a move that electrified the ghetto.

"We showed we can resist," Spiegel recalled with great relish.

The Jew was no longer a defenceless target and the Jewish underground fighter was born. The organization launched a concerted but dangerous effort to add to the 50 or so weapons first supplied by the Polish underground by buying them in the so-called Aryan parts of Warsaw and smuggling them back in.

Money was needed, and the fighters had to shake down those Jews who had jewels or other valuables that could be traded for weapons.

It's a subject Spiegel prefers not to discuss in detail. "We didn't kill anybody, but it was not pleasant," is all he would say.

The actual revolt was precipitated by the sudden arrival of German troops on the eve of Passover, April 18, 1943, for what looked like the final roundup.

Most of the fighters knew they were doomed from the start, Spiegel recalled.

"We didn't have enough weapons; we didn't have enough bullets. It was like fighting a well-equipped army with firecrackers. And none of us had military training. We were not brought up in our organizations to handle guns. We didn't believe in it.

"At first they showed me a gun, I was afraid to look at it. There was a tiny safety catch on it and I thought, 'What if it goes off in my pocket?' "

But the young fighters felt they had to resist to reclaim Jewish honour and stand up to the beast. Spiegel slept with a gun beside his head.

"They treated us like a piece of garbage. You could do with a Jew whatever you wanted. The Jew was nothing. All of a sudden the Jews stood up to say, 'Hey, the Jews are human beings.'

"Dignity. Dignity. I saw the Germans running and they were no better than the Jews. They were no longer supermen!

"We never had a chance of winning, but the results were more than we expected."

The Germans soon changed tactics, deciding to burn the ghetto.

Most of the fighters perished, including the left-Zionist leader, Mordecai Anielewicz, among a group at uprising headquarters that killed themselves rather than fall into German hands. But more than 60 fighters, including the Spiegels, escaped through the grimy sewers and joined partisans in the forest.

The Spiegels participated in the Polish revolt in Warsaw in 1944 - as the Soviets waited outside the city without helping the Polish patriots - and survived until the city was liberated.

The Spiegels later sought refuge in Sweden and came to Canada.

Spiegel is one of six veterans of the Jewish Fighting Organization who appear in a powerful new documentary on the uprising by Toronto filmmaker David Kaufman, to be shown Saturday on History Television.

Spiegel sums up the revolt this way: "We showed we can resist. We started to believe in ourselves. We never thought about winning, but we could resist."

On Saturday at 6:30 p.m., David Kaufman's From Despair to Defiance, The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, is to be shown on History Television.

On Sunday at 2 p.m., the Montreal Workers Circle (Arbeiter Ring) commemorates the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising with concentration-camp survivor Lilka Majnzer of Los Angeles (in Yiddish) and Yoninah Orenstein, granddaughter of Boruch Spiegel (in English), at the Gelber Centre, 5151 Côte Ste. Catherine Rd.

On April 28 at 7:30 p.m., the Montreal Holocaust Memorial Centre and Federation CJA are sponsoring a Holocaust Commemoration, focusing on uprising and resistance themes, at Congregation Tifereth Beth David Jerusalem, 6519

Baily Rd., Côte St. Luc.
iblock@thegazette.canwest.com
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