{"id":1901,"date":"2013-04-19T19:22:52","date_gmt":"2013-04-19T19:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cjhblog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2013\/04\/19\/remembering-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-april-19\/"},"modified":"2018-06-27T16:43:49","modified_gmt":"2018-06-27T16:43:49","slug":"remembering-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-april-19","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.cjh.org\/index.php\/2013\/04\/19\/remembering-the-warsaw-ghetto-uprising-april-19\/","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Remembering the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (April 19, 1943)<\/strong>
On its Seventieth Anniversary<\/strong>
<\/span>by David P. Rosenberg, M.P.A., Reference Services Research Coordinator, Center for Jewish History<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n

In April of 1943, news of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising reached the Vilna Ghetto, and Hirsh Glick wrote the song \u201cZog Nit Keyn Mol\u201d(\u201cNever Say\u201d). It soon spread not only throughout the Vilna Ghetto, but also to other ghettos and concentration camps. Sung to a marching tempo, the song begins:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

Never say you\u2019ve come to the end of the way,
<\/span>Though leaden skies blot out the light of the day.
<\/span>The hour we all long for will surely appear,\u2014
<\/span>Our steps will thunder with the words, \u201cWe are here!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

This translation is from Yes We Sang! Songs of the Ghettos and Concentration Camps<\/em><\/a>, which is available here in the reference collection of the Lillian Goldman Reading Room<\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

The uprising was the largest single revolt by Jews during the Shoah (source<\/a>), and it started on April 19th. I was intrigued by the question of how news of it reached the Vilna Ghetto and the American people, so I decided to do some research. I recently read an article on the documentary Reporting on the Times<\/em>, which is premiering at this year\u2019s Tribeca Film Festival<\/a> (see \u201c\u2018Reporting on the Times\u2019<\/em> Calls Out New York Times<\/em> Holocaust Coverage\u201d<\/a>), so I searched the New York Times<\/em>\u00a0using database access provided in the Reading Room.\u00a0<\/p>\n

On April 23, 1943, the Times published a skimpy, four-paragraph article that states \u201c\u2026the ghetto populace is resisting deportation of the city\u2019s remaining 35,000 Jews.\u201d It states that the resistance was \u201ccosting the Germans many lives.\u201d Despite the fact that it speaks about the Jews in terms of \u201cliquidating the ghetto\u201d and \u201cdeportations\u201d in the credit of the paper, the final paragraph of the article says that \u201cPolish circles here believe 1,300,000 Polish Jews already have perished under the German occupation.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

According to the article about the documentary\u00a0Reporting on the Times<\/em>, the \u201cfilm points to a story published in the paper July 29, 1942, about the liquidation of the Warsaw Ghetto. The story bore the headline \u2018Warsaw Fears Extermination,\u2019 was published on Page 7, and was not even a stand-alone story, instead consisting of a handful of paragraphs nestled next to an ad for Emerson spinet pianos.\u201d<\/p>\n

A U.P. article from May 7, 1943 is more forthcoming. It reads: \u201cThe Jews, fighting against annihilation by the Nazis were reported using bedsteads as bunkers and fighting with arms smuggled into the ghetto.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The next article I found was from May 15th. In it, Rabbi Irving Miller\u2014acting as secretary general of the World Jewish Congress\u2014reports that \u201cAll Jews in Warsaw\u2019s ghetto have been \u2018liquidated\u2019 according to Poles\u2019 reports\u2026\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The World Jewish Congress did publish a monograph titled \u201cLest we forget; the massacre of the Warsaw ghetto. A compilation of reports received by the World Jewish Congress and by the Representation of Polish Jewry<\/a>.\u201d To my surprise, this was published in August of 1943. Page 38 reads in part:<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

The manner of the German attack showed that they expected armed resistance. The struggle began and the Germans suffered relatively large losses. There was talk of several killed, a large number of wounded, and the loss of ammunition and military equipment\u2026The first German attack was repulsed within a few hours\u2026The Germans therefore changed their tactics\u2026burned block after block of houses in the outer streets of the ghetto\u2026The German attack was very cowardly\u2026<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Daring to resist : Jewish defiance in the Holocaust<\/em><\/a>\u00a0has a touching letter from Mordechai Anielewicz, a 23-year-old commander to Yitzhak Zuckerman. Zuckerman would escape the ghetto through the sewers and helped to secure arms. In the letter, Anielewicz pleads with Yitzhak: <\/span><\/p>\n

\n

We are now switching to guerrilla warfare\u2026 We know the pistol has no real value and we rarely use it. We need grenades, rifles, machine guns and explosives.<\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Zuckerman became a founder of the Ghetto Fighters Kibbutz in Israel, where he died in 1981.<\/p>\n

The collections here at the Center hold additional resources about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, including:<\/span><\/p>\n