By New Worker
correspondent
SZMUL
ZYGIELBOJM was a Jewish socialist political activist – a Bundist – in Poland in
the 1930s who went on to become a representative of the Jewish community in
Poland under Nazi occupation.
His
activities meant he had to flee to London where he was a part of the Polish
government in exile.
He
was a man on a mission, a desperate mission to communicate to the western
powers what was going on in the Warsaw Ghetto, in the death camps and what was
about to happen with the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and to plead for intervention
and for rescue.
But
his words fell on deaf ears. Those conducting the war on the Allied side had
their own plans and agendas and did not want to hear the horror stories of what
was happening to Zygielbojm’s comrades and community.
So
he committed suicide as an act of protest, to draw attention to the plight of
Jews and others under Nazi occupation, leaving a letter that is a remarkable
political statement.
Today
he is remembered and honoured around the world for his sacrifice. In May 1996,
a plaque in memory of Zygielbojm was dedicated on the corner of Porchester Road
and Porchester Square in London, near Zygielbojm's home while in London.
And
last weekend, to commemorate the anniversary of his death on 12th May 1943
members and supporters of the Jewish Socialist Group packed into a meeting room
in London near Euston Station for a moving evening of memories, poetry and
song, chaired by Julia Bard.
David
Rosenberg, who had done most of the organising for the event, opened with a
brief account of the Warsaw Ghetto and the uprising and Szmul Zygielbojm’s
efforts to secure a rescue.
Speakers
included two veterans of those terrible struggles. Wlodka Blit Robertson was
eight-years-old in 1940 when her family was forced to move into the Ghetto that
the Nazi occupiers had created to house all the Jews in Warsaw and others from
other parts of Europe.
She
spoke of life in that ghetto: the random beatings, shooting and hangings and
also the incredible level of social activity inside, with self-help committees,
cultural groups – and active resisters.
Communists,
socialists, Bundists and anarchists worked together – all sectarianism vanished
in the struggle to survive. Food and messages were smuggled in – including
information about what was really happening in the “work camps” they had been
told they would soon be sent to.
Many
children were involved in the smuggling – they could get through smaller gaps –
and many were simply shot out of hand if they were discovered.
Wlodka
was lucky – her family were able to get her smuggled out with false
identification documents – to live with a non-Jewish family on the “Aryan side”
of the wall.
The
young people on the inside realised that whatever they did they were doomed and
decided they would prefer to die resisting and so they organised the uprising,
which took the Nazis by surprise but drew down a terrible revenge as the whole
area was torched.
Wlodka
could see the fires from the outside, knowing her friends and family were on
the inside.
“There
was billowing smoke; people were running out of buildings and being shot. A
woman jumped from the window of a burning building; there were bits of burning
paper everywhere. She was shot too. A terrible moment,” Wlodka said.
The
family sheltering Wlodka became afraid of being caught harbouring a Jewish
child. So the underground resistance moved her to a different family, in a
rural area, and did not tell them she was Jewish, though she thinks they
guessed.
Esther
Brunstein, a survivor of the camps, told the gathering in London of her
memories of Szmul Zygielbojm, who was her school-friend’s father when they
lived in Lodz.
Robert
Szaniawski, the Press Councillor at the Polish Embassy, who also is responsible
for Polish-Jewish relations, told the meeting that Szmul Zygielbojm was “a man
of honour and a member of the Polish government in exile”.
He
recounted the events that left Zygielbojm feeling helpless as all his comrades
in Poland were being killed; he wanted to be with them.
Now
he is commemorated with a plaque and annual ceremonies in Warsaw. A museum of
Jews in Poland is to open soon.
The
speeches were interspersed with traditional songs from the Polish Jewish
community under occupation sung by Rachel Weston, accompanied by Carol Isaacs
on the accordion. Most of the audience joined in and sang along with the
familiar strains.
It
was a moving meeting, commemorating terrible events but it was never heavy or
mawkish but inspiring instead, especially the accounts of the two veteran women
who retain their vitality and their humour.
Zygielbojm’s
suicide letter
May 11, 1943
To His
Excellency The President of the Republic of Poland, Wladyslaw Raczkiewicz Prime Minister, General Wladyslaw Sikorski
President, Mr Prime Minister, I take the
liberty of sending you my last words and through your intermediary to the
Polish Government and to the Polish people, to the governments and peoples of
all Allied States and to the conscience of the world. From the latest reports
received from Poland it is clear that the Germans are now destroying with
terrible ferocity the remaining Jews still living there.
Within the ghetto walls the last act of
tragedy, unprecedented in history, is now being played: The responsibility for
the crime of murdering the whole Jewish population of Poland rests in the first
place upon the murderers themselves but indirectly it rests also upon all
humanity, the governments and peoples of the Allied States which have not yet
undertaken any concrete action to stop this crime.
By passively watching the extermination of
millions of defenceless children, women and men being tortured to death, those
countries become accomplices of the murderers. I also wish to declare that
although the Polish Government has contributed to a large extent towards
influencing world opinion, it has done nothing commensurate with the scale of
the drama now taking place in Poland.
Out of some 3,500,000 Polish Jews and 700,000
Jews deported to Poland from other countries, only 300,000 remained alive in
April 1943, according to information from the leader of the underground Bund organisation
transmitted to us by the Government's Delegates. And the extermination
continues without pause. I cannot remain silent.
I cannot go on living when the remnants of the
Jewish people in Poland of whom I am a representative are being eliminated. My
comrades in the Warsaw ghetto died with arms in hand in their last heroic
stand. It was not my destiny to perish as they did and with them. But I belong
to them and to their mass graves.
By my death I want to express my strongest
protest against the passivity with which the world looks on and permits the
extermination of the Jewish people. I know how little human life means in our
times but since I could do nothing when alive, perhaps by my death I can help
destroy the indifference of those who could save, perhaps at the last moment,
those Polish Jews who are still alive.
My life belongs to the Jewish people in Poland
and that is why I am giving it to them. My wish is that the remnants of the
several million Polish Jews may live to see liberation in a world of freedom
and socialist justice, together with the Polish people. I believe that there
will be such a Poland and that such a world will come. I am certain that you,
Mr President and Mr Prime Minister, will transmit my words to all to whom they
are addressed and that the Polish Government will immediately take appropriate
action in the diplomatic field for the sake of those who are still alive. I
send my farewell to everyone and everything that I hold dear and that I have
loved.
