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Chajka Klinger
I AM WRITING THESE WORDS TO YOU
e Original Diaries, Będzin 1943
is publication has been supported by the
Israel Lottery Council for Culture & Arts.
is book was published under the auspices of the
Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland,
generously supported by the Aaron Gutwirth Fund and the
Danek Gertner Yad Vashem Scholarship.
Chajka Klinger
I AM WRITING THESE
WORDS TO YOU
THE ORIGINAL DIARIES, BĘDZIN 1943
Edited by Avihu Ronen
Translated from the Polish by Anna Brzostowska and
Jerzy Giebułtowski
e Center for Research on the Holocaust in Poland
Moreshet, e Mordechai
Anielevich Memorial
Holocaust Study and
Research Center,
Givat Haviva
Chajka Klinger
Eleychem Ani Kotevet
Language Editor: Evelyn Grossberg
Production Editor: Dania Valdez
Typi s t : Paulina Sznajder
Unless otherwise indicated the photos in this book are from
the Ronen family collection.
is book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form,
without written permission from the publisher.
Responsibility for the opinions expressed in this publication
is solely that of the author.
© 2017 All rights reserved to Avihu Ronen, Yad Vashem and Moreshet.
First published in Hebrew by Yad Vashem and Moreshet, 2016
Yad Vashem
P.O.B. 3477, Jerusalem 9103401, Israel
publications.marketing@yadvashem.org.il
Moreshet
Givat Haviva, D.N. Menashe, 3785000 Israel
moreshet@givathaviva.org.il
ISBN 978-965-308-548-0
Typesetting: PageUp
Printed in Israel by xxx
Contents
Introduction by Avihu Ronen:
e Diaries of Chajka Klinger . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7
Part One: Prologue
—
Coming Back to Life . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25
Part Two: e Final Deportation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33
Part ree: Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground
in Będzin, 1940–1943 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80
Part Four: Supplements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 128
Part Five: e Hagana in Warsaw . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 144
Part Six: Eulogies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
e Fall of the Fighters’ Bunker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 159
Dawid Kozłowski . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165
Cwi Brandes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 175
Part Seven: e Potasz Testimony . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 181
Part Eight: Epilogue
—
Like Leaves Detached from eir Old
Mother Tree . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 185
Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 195
Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 201
Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 203
7
Introduction: e Diaries of
Chajka Klinger
Avihu Ronen
“e avant-garde must die where its people are dying.” is
statement by Chajka Klinger is a sharp reection of the unique view
of the ghetto uprising documented in her diaries.
Chajka Klinger’s diaries are a source of primary importance
for an understanding of the activities of Jewish youth movements
during the Holocaust, the development of the Jewish Fighting
Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB) in Będzin and
in Warsaw, the character of Mordechai Anielewicz, the relations
between the underground organization and the Judenrat (Jewish
council), and the Jews’ reactions to the destruction.
e diaries, which were written in hiding near Będzin in the
summer and autumn of 1943, were among the rst comprehensive
documents about the defense of the ghettos to reach the outside
world from occupied Poland during World War II. However, only
some parts of the diary were published, and they were censored
aer Chajka Klinger committed suicide in 1958.
e story of Chajka Klinger’s life and her diaries have been
described in detail in the book Nidonah le-hayim (Condemned
to Life).1 is book presents the diaries as they were written with
only minimal background material. ose who are interested in
1 Avihu Ronen, Nidonah le-hayim: Yomanah ve-hayeha shel Haikeh Klinger
(Hebrew) (Haifa: University of Haifa Press; Tel Aviv: Yedi’ot Aharonot: Sifre
Heme d, 2 011).
8 • I Am Writing These Words To You
additional information are, of course, invited to read the more
detailed book.
Chajka Klinger
Chajka Klinger was born on September 25, 1917, in the city of
Będzin in the region of Zagłębie Dąbrowskie to a poor Hasidic
family that barely supported itself through a grocery store run by
Chajka’s mother, Perla (Schwinkelstein) Klinger. Her father, Leibel
Klinger, spent his life studying Torah. Despite her background,
Chajka was accepted into the bilingual Furstenberg Gymnasium
in Będzin, and there became uent in several languages, including
Polish, Yiddish, Hebrew, and German. During the 1930s, she joined
the local branch of Hashomer Hatzair, a Zionist-Socialist youth
movement, and quickly became a group leader and a member of
the local leadership. In 1938, she joined her comrades in Kalisz to
train and prepare for immigrating to Israel.
In September 1939, with the outbreak of the war, Chajka and
her boyfriend, Dawid Kozłowski, attempted to escape from Poland
but failed and returned to Będzin. Later, when they wanted to set
out for Vilna, which apparently would have enabled them to leave
for Israel, they received instructions from the central leadership
of Hashomer Hatzair to remain in Będzin and to revive the youth
movement there.
From early 1940, Chajka became a central gure in the
renewed Hashomer Hatzair branch in Będzin and the associated
branches in the Zagłębie area. Together with Dawid and the
Pejsachson sisters, Lea and Idzia, she assumed local leadership
of the organization. In the summer of 1942, she took part in the
establishment of the ŻOB of Będzin. As a devoted supporter of
the idea of self-defense, Chajka became one of the prominent
activists in the underground. She uncompromisingly rejected any
rescue plan suggested by representatives of other movements, but
the plans for self-defense in Będzin failed and she lost most of her
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 9
close comrades including Dawid, whom she had married a short
time before.
At the beginning of the last deportation of the Będzin Jews on
August 1, 1943, Chajka was in an underground bunker, planning
to ght. e bunker was discovered and a handgun was found
in Chajka’s purse. She was taken for interrogation and severely
tortured by the Gestapo. Witnesses testify that she returned to
her friends covered in dark bruises from the beatings she had
received, and these remained on her body for the rest of her life.
It appears that the Germans spared her life as she was slated to
be sent to Auschwitz. But adhering to her rm decision (“I will
not go to Auschwitz”) and with the help of friends, she managed
to escape from the detention camp and reached a hiding place in
the village of Dąbrówka. She remained there for several months,
under the protection of two Polish families, the Kobylecs and the
Banasiks.
During this period, Chajka recorded her recollections of the
Hashomer Hatzair movement and the underground in Będzin. She
had actually been chosen to perform that role earlier, when she had
been “condemned to life,” that is, she had been chosen to survive
the ghting and to document the stories of her friends for the sake
of history. Her accounts of this period are studded with comments
about committing suicide, and apparently the act of writing and
the need to convey her testimony are what kept her from ending
her life then.
At the end of December 1943, Chajka and a few other
survivors from the underground managed to cross the Slovakian
border. ey were welcomed by local underground activists under
the leadership of Yaakov Rosenberg (later: Ronen), a member of
Hashomer Hatzair. Chajka and Yaakov eventually fell in love.
In Slovakia, Chajka took part in an underground gathering
of local Hashomer Hatzair members and told them about the
Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the destruction. It was the rst they
had heard of these events and they were shocked. In January
10 • I Am Writing These Words To You
1944, she was smuggled into Hungary and joined the members of
her movement in Budapest. ere, too, she delivered her alarming
report. It should be noted that although Chajka’s accounts shocked
her listeners both in Slovakia and in Hungary, her comrades
rejected her proposals to organize a Jewish revolt like the ones in
the Polish ghettos and preferred to prepare rescue missions. One
of them later stated ironically, “I don’t want a kibbutz in Israel to
be named aer me
—
I want to live in one.”
As she was the rst survivor of the Hashomer Hatzair
leadership in occupied Poland and as her diaries provided a
primary source of information about the development of the
defense concept, great eorts were made to bring Chajka to Eretz
Israel (Mandatory Palestine). In March 1944, using one of the
small number of immigration certicates that could be obtained in
Hungary, she le legally for Eretz Israel. She crossed the Balkans,
traveled through Istanbul, Syria, and Lebanon, and nally arrived
in Haifa.
Upon her arrival in Eretz Israel, she spoke at special meetings
of Jewish organizations in Eretz Israel (t he yishuv) and she reported
on the deportations and the underground units in Będzin and in
Warsaw. As the rst witness of the Jewish resistance in the ghettos
to reach Eretz Israel and as a survivor of the deportations, Chajka
aroused deep horror in those who heard her reports. She, for her
part, did not withhold her criticism. In particular, she stressed
the inadequacy of the eorts of the Jewish yishuv in assisting
the youth movement ghters, the process of radicalization to the
le that the Hashomer Hatzair movement underwent during the
war, and the cooperation with the Germans, as she viewed it, by
Zionist activists in Poland who were members of the Judenräte. As
a result of these claims, Chajka came into conict with the leader
of Hashomer Hatzair, Meir Yaari, who rejected her claims about
the lack of support from the yishuv and demanded clarications
about the positions of Hashomer Hatzair in the ghettos, which
Chajka could provide only sparingly.
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 11
In 1944 she married Yaakov Rosenberg and the two settled
in his kibbutz
—
Kibbutz Haogen. Chajka began to adjust
to kibbutz life, and simultaneously began to prepare for the
publication of the diaries that she had written while in hiding
in Poland. She never completed this project, and at a certain
stage, apparently aer the birth of her rst son, Zvi, she decided
not to continue with her writing. During the following years,
she gave birth to two more sons, Avihu and Arnon, worked in
various facilities (the kibbutz factory, the clothing department,
and others) and attempted to shut out the past as best she could.
However, sections of chapters from her writings were published
in a range of journals and collections, and she was apparently
not satised with the way they were edited, shortened, and
censored. In 1958, Chajka no longer had the strength to go on.
She took her own life on the eenth anniversary of the Warsaw
Ghetto uprising.
e Notebooks
Chajka’s diaries were written during a period of about three-and-
a-half months. She began her diary on August 25, 1943, a day or
two aer she had escaped from the detention camp at Będzin. e
nal documented date in the diaries is December 17, 1943, about
ten days before she crossed the border into Slovakia. During that
period, she recorded her memories in nine school notebooks or
parts of notebooks. ese are now preserved in the the Moreshet
Archive of the e Mordechai Anielevich Memorial Holocaust
Studies and Research Center located at Givat Haviva. (D.2.211) and
include 222 handwritten pages in Polish.
e notebooks, which have been identied with certainty as
having been written in Będzin in 1943, are made up of a number of
main parts, which do not necessarily correspond to the structure
of the notebooks themselves. is is due to the underground
conditions under which they were written. e notebooks and
12 • I Am Writing These Words To You
pages were apparently numbered post factum, and some of this was
not done by Chajka herself.
1. Coming Back to Life: Chajka’s immediate thoughts aer
her escape from the detention camp in Będzin (half of
Notebook I
—
ten pages).
2. e Final Deportation from Będzin that began on August
1, 1943; e underground’s attempts at defensive actions;
Chajka’s interrogation and torture by the Gestapo; and
her short stay in the detention camp (continuation of
Notebook I, Notebook II, Notebook III, half of Notebook
IV
—
sixty-ve pages).
3. e History of Hashomer Hatzair and the ŻOB in Będzin
during World War II: Winter 1939–Summer 1943
(continuation of Notebook IV, Notebook V, Notebook
VI, most of Notebook A
—
sixty-ve pages).
4. “Supplements”: Short essay segments. Among them:
Hashomer Hatzair conferences in Zagłębie and the
development from a youth movement to a ghting
organization (continuation of Notebook A
—
ten pages).
5. “e Hagana in Warsaw”: A description of the ŻOB and
the Warsaw Ghetto uprising (Notebook VII
—
thirty
pages).
6. Eulogies for Her Friends: e ghters in the Dror
bunker (Frumka Płotnicka, Baruch Gaek), Dawid
Kozłowski, and Cwi Brandes (Notebook B
—
thirty-
eight pages).
7. Testimony of Abraham Potasz regarding the destruction
of the ghters’ bunker (Notebook P
—
four pages).
ere are two additional notebooks (or two parts of the same
notebook). It is not clear when they were written. Perhaps she began
writing them in Będzin, but completed them only later, upon her
arrival in Eretz Israel. It is assumed that they were written between
the end of 1943 and the spring of 1944:
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 13
8. An essay concerning the fate of the adult group of
Hashomer Hatzair during the war years (Notebook D
—
seventeen pages).
9. An essay concerning the role of women in the ghting
organizations (Notebook E
—
een pages).
ree other notebooks, also written in Polish, were identied as
parts of the second version, which was written in Kibbutz Haogen
in 1944:
10. A description of Hashomer Hatzair in Będzin during the
war (OGEN I Notebook
—
seventy-seven pages).
11. A description of the ŻOB in Będzin (OEGN II Notebook
—
sixty-one pages).
12. A description of the activities of the ŻOB in Będzin
(Notebook C
—
20 pages).
e Diaries: Chajka and the Idea of Jewish
Defense in the Ghettos
e diaries focus on one main theme, which was the essence of
Chajka’s beliefs and actions: the idea of Jewish defense in the
ghettos. Around this axis she constructed the story of the Jewish
ŻOB in Będzin and in Warsaw, the role of Hashomer Hatzair in
this framework, and her personal experiences as a ŻOB activist.
As a devoted member of Hashomer Hatzair, Chajka zealously
adopted its radical views , which were an integration of revolutionary
Marxism, Zionism, and romanticism. As such, she viewed
Hashomer Hatzair as an avant-garde movement, which would later
lead the Jewish nation to a social and national revolution. ese
views are reected in the way she describes the transformations of
the movement during the war.
During the rst period of the war (end of 1939–mid-1942),
when all possibilities of immigrating to Eretz Israel were blocked,
Chajka and her comrades saw their main objective as educating
14 • I Am Writing These Words To You
abandoned Jewish youth for the future implementation of their
ideals. eir educational activities were most successful and at
their peak included some 2,000 Jewish youth. e center of their
activity was an agricultural farm near Będzin, which they ran
in cooperation with other pioneering (chalutzic) Jewish youth
movements.2 ese well-planned activities, which even then bore
a semi-underground character, were enabled, inter alia, by the
special conditions created in Zagłębie, which had been annexed to
the German Reich as part of East Upper Silesia (Ostoberschlesien).
Until the autumn of 1942, no ghettos were established in this region
and the Jews were employed in a special economic organizational
framework of the SS called the Schmelt Organization.3 Another
unique feature of the Jews in Zagłębie during the war was the
existence of a strong regional Judenrat, with Moshe Merin at its
head. e central Judenrat located in Sosnowiec was responsible for
some 95,000 Jews in thirty-ve communities. Merin, a controversial
gure, attributed some of the special conditions that prevailed in
Zagłębie to his policies, but Chajka and her comrades saw him as
a collaborator.
However, with the beginning of the deportations to Auschwitz
(May 1942), the educational activities became meaningless. Under
the inspiration of Mordechai Anielewicz, who was then in the
area (end of August 1942), members of Hashomer Hatzair along
with their comrades from other Zionist youth groups established
a ghting organization, which was apparently subordinate to the
ŻOB in Warsaw. Chajka, who was a dominant activist in both the
farm and the ghting organization, and even personally entertained
Mordechai Anielewicz, documents this development in her diary,
as a dramatic turning point for the Jewish youth in Poland.4
e ŻOB in Zagłębie was composed only of representatives
2 Notebook IV, pp. 92–99.
3 Dienststelle des Sonderbeauragten des RFSS und Chef der Deutschen Polizei für
fremdvölkischen Arbeitseinsatz in Oberschlesien.
4 Notebook V, pp. 104 –110 and Notebook VI, pp. 111–112.
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 15
of the pioneering youth movements (Hechalutz) of the region:
Hashomer Hatzair, Dror, Gordonia, Hanoar Hatzioni, and
Hashomer Hadati. ere was also a small group of underground
communists who were not part of the organization, and members
of the right-wing Beitar movement were excluded as well. It is
estimated that the organization included about 200 members,
who were divided into smaller groups according to their youth-
movement aliations. e importance of the ŻOB in Zagłębie
was due to its ties to the Warsaw organization, as well as to the
Hechalutz Center (the coordinating organization of pioneering
youth movements) in Geneva. Information, organizational
plans, and weaponry were carried from Warsaw to Będzin by
underground couriers, while those in Będzin could send postcards
and letters to Geneva with information about the activities of the
ŻOB in Warsaw. is is all described in Chajka’s diaries as she was
not only a central activist, but also was responsible for some of the
communications with Geneva.5
Another unique aspect of the organization in Zagłębie was the
fact that it was able to consider feasible rescue plans for the rescue of
its members; such possibilities did not exist in other Polish ghettos
during the period of the deportation and extermination of the
Jews. e main rescue plan, beginning in January 1943, involved
obtaining South American passports by way of Geneva. e bearers
of these passports would then be arrested by the German police and
sent to detention camps for foreign citizens (Internierungslager),
where, or so it was hoped, they could survive until the end of the
war. Two small groups were successful in leaving Zagłębie in this
way, but following the Gestapo’s intervention, the program was
tragically stopped on June 19, 1943. is failed aair is discussed
5 Notebook A, pp. 23–26, 30. See Avihu Ronen, ed., “Saba Meir Yachol le-hiyot
ge’eh be-nechadav: Michtavim me-Bendin le-Schwitzerland January–July 1943”
(Hebrew) Ya lku t More she t 92–93 (2013), pp. 317–327; Avihu Ronen, “e Cable
at Vanished: Tabenkin and Ya’ari to the Last Surviving Ghetto Fighters,” Ya d
Vashem Studies, vol. 41, no. 2 (2013), pp. 95–138.
16 • I Am Writing These Words To You
in Chajka’s diaries, in which, as noted, she absolutely rejected any
rescue plans.6
e ŻOB in Zagłębie, like other Jewish ghting organizations
in the ghettos of Poland, faced fundamental diculties: the lack of
weapons, the lack of training for underground activity, the absence
of signicant contact with other Polish underground groups, and
the strict objections to its activities on the part of the Judenrat. In
consequence, the Będzin underground suered many failures: their
female couriers were captured on their way back from Warsaw; the
Judenrat betrayed two leading Hashomer Hatzair activists from
Sosnowiec to the Gestapo (Cwi Duński and Lipek Minc); and two
groups of ten ghters each who set out to join the partisans were
killed in an ambush aer their Polish contact betrayed them to the
Germans. e organization never had more than 15 handguns
—
a
number of them out of order
—
some explosives and grenades, but
not even a single rie.
Nonetheless, in the wake of the uprising in the Warsaw
Ghetto, Chajka and her comrades adhered to their aspiration of
self-defense. ey even ignored the instructions they received in
June–July 1943 from Warsaw and from Eretz Israel not to engage
in any further ghting in the ghetto but to save themselves.7
e Będzin group was rm in its decision to continue ghting.
In her diaries, Chajka emphasizes the concept of defense in the
ghettos again and again, an objective she held to even though
all the surrounding circumstances impeded armed resistance. It
also became clear to her later that most of the Jewish people did
not view resistance positively, fearing that it would accelerate the
extermination of the Jews.8
Indeed, the many preparations for defense in Będzin achieved
very few results. At the time of the last deportation from Będzin
6 Notebook A, pp. 28–32.
7 See Ronen, “e Cable at Vanished,” pp. 95-138.
8 Notebook IV, pp. 83–85.
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 17
(August 1–7, 1943), in which about 700 German policemen and
soldiers took part, only one bunker resisted, with seven members
of the Kibbutz Dror, who were all killed during the ghting. In
Chajka’s bunker there were two handguns, one of them in Chajka’s
purse, and as mentioned above, for which she was interrogated and
tortured by the Gestapo.9
e diaries, written in retrospect aer the deportation
and the attempts at defense, bear the marks of Chajka’s self-
examination in her hiding place. eir unique character is due
to the extreme circumstances under which they were written. At
the time she wrote them, Chajka thought that she was the last of
the Hashomer Hatzair leadership in Warsaw and in Będzin who
had survived, as most of her comrades had been killed during acts
of resistance against the Germans. It was Chajka who had earlier
reported their deaths to Eretz Israel (via the postal connection
with Switzerland). e diaries also bear the impact on Chajka as
being “condemned to life,” the one who had survived to document
the dead.
Her feelings of mourning, deep loneliness, and responsibility
cast their shadows over her accounts. She tried to document the
story of the underground and the destruction without “a single
word of exaggeration,” and to present “the naked truth.” But she
also tried to create a memorial to her dead friends, whom she viewed
through the prism of an image of the heroes of the revolutionary
books she had read. Chajka’s mode of writing swings between two
poles: from sharp narrative without compassion as events develop
to a narration of the deaths of her close friends in Warsaw and in
Będzin. us the Jewish revolt is simultaneously portrayed as both
a great historic act and a story of failure and human weakness.
Chajka’s piercing descriptions do not spare anyone: the
Judenrat, which feared the hasty acts of the youth movements
9 Notebook III, pp. 65-69.
18 • I Am Writing These Words To You
and warned them to stop their underground activities;10 the
Jewish police who handed over the members of the underground
to the Gestapo;11 the Jews who obeyed orders passively and
obediently; the mothers who took leave of their children in order
to gain another hour of life;12 the traitor in the Warsaw Ghetto
underground who betrayed his comrades and revealed the name
of the Hashomer Hatzair leader to the Germans;13 the members
of the ŻOB in Będzin who again and again became involved
in amateur activity that ended in disaster;14 the leadership in
Eretz Israel that was indierent to the suering of their people
in Poland;15 the Jews of the United States, satiated and apathetic
regarding the distress of their brothers and sisters in Poland;16 and
the Polish underground, which did not aid the Jewish ghters.17
In contrast, Chajka presents the romantic ideal of her friends
who were killed in battle, although she does not even spare them,
including Mordechai Anielewicz, from criticism.
Chajka does not spare herself from criticism either. In
tormented detail, she outlines her suerings in the bunker, the
torture of interrogation, and her encounter with the empty and
desolate ghetto. But she expresses, in particular, deep feelings of guilt
for having survived. She, who had directed her life for so long toward
dying for the ideal that she had adhered to, remained alive yet alone,
and only the act of writing justied her continued existence.18 ese
feelings of guilt remained with her for the rest of her life.
Despite this attitude, or perhaps because of it, her diaries
include a great deal of unique and accurately detailed testimonies
10 Notebook A, p. 17.
11 Notebook A, pp. 18–22.
12 Notebook III, p. 65.
13 Notebook A, p. 12.
14 Notebook B, pp. 30–31.
15 Notebook II, pp. 10–11.
16 Notebook II, p. 8.
17 Notebook VII, p. 37.
18 Notebook I, pp. 1–10.
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 19
that oer today’s historians important insights into the special
character of the ghetto defense and the reactions of the Jews
in general.
Style of Writing
Chajka’s writing is systematic, and the structure of its sections is
clear, as should be apparent from the detailing of the notebooks
above. At the beginning of the diaries, she writes in great detail
about the nal weeks of the Będzin ghetto from her own personal
standpoint. She then goes on to describe the history of Hashomer
Hatzair and the ŻOB in Będzin chronologically. She adds a special
piece about the Warsaw Ghetto uprising, assuming that none of
the Hashomer Hatzair leaders from Warsaw are still alive. Finally,
she deals with a number of issues that she views as unique
—
a
sort of collection of short essays
—
which she perhaps considered
elaborating on later in the diaries.
However, the attempt to express the intensity of the historical
experience was much more important to her than a chronological
detailing of the facts. Chajka almost never cites the dates of the
events she experienced, except for a number of references to the
entry dates in her diary. Moreover, most of the names she mentions
are not complete. She refers to her comrades using their rst
names, as if indicating a deep relationship, whereas she refers
to the members of the Judenrat using their initials (for example,
M. M. for Moshe Merin). Perhaps this was also a precautionary
measure in case the diaries fell into the wrong hands.
Her handwriting is rounded and clear, but in certain sections,
whether owing to the unlined notebook paper, or to the painful
content of the subjects she is writing about, the writing slopes
downward as if there is not enough paper, or perhaps she seeks to
rid herself quickly of the pain of the recent past.
e language she uses in her diaries consists of many layers.
In the Polish text, there are expressions that appear in three
20 • I Am Writing These Words To You
other languages in which Chajka was uent: Hebrew, Yiddish,
and German. When writing Hebrew and Yiddish, she switches
between Latin and Hebrew script. Hebrew is used to indicate youth
movement institutions (e.g., asefa [meeting, assembly], bogrim [the
adults]); or for important expressions, perhaps even sacred in her
eyes (like Hashomer Hatzair or hagana [defense]). She uses Yiddish
to express feelings or to characterize situations and Jewish types
(e.g., moiserim [informers], amai haartzim [the ignorant]). German
was used for names of institutions or actions by Germans, but also
for the language of perpetrators, to recreate them exactly as they
sounded.
Another aspect of Chajka’s writings is cultural in nature. She
mentions the titles of many books, and sometimes even the names
of their protagonists, on the assumption that the educated reader
will be able to identify them. Salient among these are examples of
the revolutionary literature of the 1930s (e.g., La Condition humaine
by André Malraux) as well as of Polish (Płomienie by Stanisław L.
Brzozowski), German (Die vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh by Franz
Werfel), and Yiddish literature.19 Additionally, her descriptions are
based on wide-ranging historical knowledge and Marxist analyses.
ese too are usually brief, again with the assumption that the
future readers of the diaries will share her cultural world.
e Wanderings of the Diaries
As mentioned above, Chajka wrote a second version of her diaries
in preparation for their publication in 1944. e 1944 version is
dierent from the original diaries and is an expanded chronological
narrative of the history of Hashomer Hatzair and the ŻOB in
19 André Malraux, La Condition humaine (Paris: Gallimard, 1933); Stanisław
Brzozowski, Płomienie (Polish) (Lwow: Połonieckiego, 1908); Franz Werfel, e
Forty Days of Musa Dagh, translated from German by Georey Dunlop (New
York: Modern Library, 1934).
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 21
Będzin. It opens with the beginning of the war on September 1,
1939, and ends in the spring of 1943.
In the expanded version, various events receive wider and
more systematic coverage than in the original version, which
was written in haste. ese include the policies of the Judenrat in
Będzin, the character of Moshe Merin, the establishment of the
agricultural farm, the visit by Tosia Altman, the great deportation
of August 1942, the betrayal and execution of the two Hashomer
Hatzair members from Sosnowiec, and the deportation of her
two friends in the leadership, the Pejsachson sisters. Other
events, such as the attempt to join the partisans and the time
spent in the bunker and the detention camps, are not discussed,
perhaps because she stopped writing without completing the
work or because she wanted to integrate the suitable portions
of her original diaries. e tone of the 1944 version is soer
compared with that of the diaries written in 1943. e piercing
and accusatory style she employed when writing in her hiding
place became essentially informative in Eretz Israel and thus also
more acceptable. However, the sharp and critical spirit of the
descriptions did not disappear.
It is not clear why Chajka’s diaries in their second version
were not published in 1944 or 1945. One can assume that her
descriptions did not match the collective memory of the Holocaust
in Israeli society as it was constructed at that time. e diaries did
not conform to the ideal of the brave ghter or to the representation
of the victimization of the Jewish people, nor did they comply with
the impression of the support proered by the Jews of Eretz Israel to
the Jews who were being killed in Europe. Nevertheless, due to the
unique nature of her testimony and, in particular, her descriptions
of the ŻOB, parts of the diaries were published in Israeli newspapers
during 1944–1946, aer being tendentiously edited and censored.20
20 Chajka Klinger, “Linkom ve-lihyot: prakim mi-toch yoman ba-getto” (Hebrew),
Mishmar, September 1, 1944; Chajka Klinger, “Ha-raayon she-hisiir et ruhenu”
22 • I Am Writing These Words To You
In 1955, Chajka’s original diaries were used in election
propaganda by MaKI, the Israeli Communist Party, which
emphasized the pro-Soviet tendencies of Hashomer Hatzair in
Poland and attacked the failure of the Jewish leadership in Eretz
Israel to act during the war. is was done without Chajka’s
permission, and following her insistent demands, the use of her
work for that propaganda was discontinued.21 A year later, in 1956,
a long article by Chajka was included in the Hashomer Hatzair
Book,22 which was based on the expanded version of her diaries.
is article was also tendentious and censored. It omitted her sharp
criticism of Eretz Israel, and even her description of the failures of
the underground as they appeared in the book, became descriptions
of acts of heroism. Chajka complained about this distortion in a
letter to her friend, Chajka Grossman, in 1958.
Only aer her tragic death did Kibbutz Haogen publish the
book, Mi-yoman ba-getto [A Diary from the Ghetto],23 which was to
include all of her diaries. However, the book was negligently edited,
integrating various passages from the diaries by the editor without
noting the proper sources. Most of the material was taken from
the 1944 version, but was edited and censored, sometimes beyond
recognition. Many sections were omitted and other passages were
soened. e editor was especially careful to mask Chajka’s sharp
criticism of the failures of the yishuv in Eretz Israel, in general,
and those of her movement, in particular; her radical positions
in regard to Zionism; her Marxist analysis of the Jewish nation in
distress during the war; and her depictions of the betrayals and the
(Hebrew), Mishmar, March 4, 1945; Chaja Rosenberg, “Chaverot ba-getto”
(Hebrew), Hedim, April 1945, pp. 40–42; Chajka Klinger, “Shney bikurim: kitei
yoman” (Hebrew), Mishmar, April 18, 1947.
21 See Ronen, “e Cable at Vanished,” pp. 95-138.
22 Chajka Klinger, “Ha-shomrim be-bendin al mishmar kvod amam,” in Israel
Rozenzweig and Levi Dror, eds., Sefer Hashomer Hatzair (Hebrew) (Merhavia:
Sifriat Poalim, 1956), pp. 691–705.
23 Chajka Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat Poalim and
Kibbutz Haogen, 1959).
Introduction: The Diaries of Chajka Klinger • 23
failures of the underground. Nevertheless, the book was regarded
as an important source to understand the defensive actions taken in
the ghettos, and researchers have made use of it through the years.
Following the publication of the book, Nidonah le-hayim
[Condemned to Life] by Chajka’s son, Avihu Ronen (2011),24 in
which considerable use is made of the complete original diaries,
there was new interest in publishing the original diaries. is
publication, for the rst time, includes a number of sections as they
were written.
General Comments About the English Edition
All rst and surnames, diminutive forms of rst names (including
the author’s name), and names of localities, as well as any words
in languages other than Polish and Hebrew, were retained in their
original form. eir meaning is claried in square brackets in
the text.
Interspersed throughout the book is a number within square
brackets; each of these numbers refers to the original page number
in the author’s notebooks.
All fragments crossed out by the author in the original diaries
were omitted from the translated text, the premise being that the
nal text should not include what the author wanted to exclude.
Lines marked in the original at the end of paragraphs were marked
in the translation as well.
e terms, Jewish militia and shomer, were used for the
Polish milicja żydowska and szomrowy, respectively. However the
Polish word gmina [(Jewish community), was le in, as well as the
German term Judenrat. For the sake of clarity, we added Street to
Polish names of streets and inserted any punctuation missing from
the original.
24 See Ronen, Nidonah le-hayim.
24 • I Am Writing These Words To You
e Editor
e editor of the diaries is Prof. Avihu Ronen, a historian and
senior lecturer at Tel Hai Academic College and Haifa University,
and the second son of Chajka Klinger. Ronen has published several
books and articles about the youth movements and the Holocaust
period.
Acknowledgments
I would like to thank the following for their great contributions
to the publication of the diaries: Daniela Ozacky-Stern, Director
of Moreshet Archive; the dedicated typist Paulina Sznajder; the
Polish translators Anna Brzostowska and Jerzy Giebułtowski; the
language editor Evelyn Grossberg; the production editor Dania
Valdez; Neta Shapira of the Moreshet Publishing House; and the
publishing house sta of Yad Vashem.
25
Part One
Prologue
-
Coming Back to Life
Notebook I1
[1] ursday, August 26, 19432
So I am alive?! Am I? Aer all those experiences, I have broken free
from that circle, that ambience of death, from the deportation point
and I’m sitting here. Alone with Chawka [Lenczner]3 in a room,
detached from the whole [living] world, in silence and peace. I’m
resting. I’m resting. I’m living.4 Apparently, I have already forgotten
what “life” means in a normal language.
1 Notebook I is a mathematics school notebook. It contains 24 pages, which were
preserved without binding. e handwriting is rm with only few corrections.
Pages 1–10 of Notebook I were typewritten in Istanbul in 1944 and were called
Reshimot A [Papers A], (“Bader Photocopy,” pp. 6–8, Moreshet Archive C.36.3.1).
For more about the “Bader Photocopy,” see below. ese pages in their Hebrew
translation were not included in Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto (1959), but were
published in the memorial booklet of Kibbutz Haogen entitled Chajka (Haogen,
1958).
2 e date is a day or few days aer Chajka Klinger escaped from the evacuation
(liquidation) camp in Będzin.
3 Chawa (Chawka) Lenczner (Rubinowicz) (1912–2015)
—
member of Kibbutz
Dror, survived, and went to live in Kibbutz Yagur.
4 Chajka Klinger and Chawka Lenczner were hiding in some small village
(Dąbrówka) near Będzin in the house of the Banasik family. Mrs. Klara Banasik
was the daughter-in-law of Mr. Kobylec, who took upon himself to hide the whole
group of the chalutz underground
—
about 20 people. Mrs. Banasik’s hiding place
was considered as the best owing to its location in the countryside and to Mrs.
Banasik’s status as the wife of Mr. Banasik, a Volksdeutscher [ethnic German] who
served in the German Army at that time. See “Kobylec, Piotr; Kobylec, Karolina
(wife); Kobylec-Banasik, Klara (daughter); Kobylec, Mieczysław (son); Kobylec,
26 • I Am Writing These Words To You
I am twisting and turning as if in a nightmare because I can
still see the barrack full of people, the elderly and the children.
at screaming before death, those silent complaints and that quiet
waiting for the truck, that is, for death. I can still see the empty,
ruined houses; everything turned upside down, the knocked-over
furniture, such as chairs, stools, eiderdowns, pillows, underwear,
clothes, shirts, and silks. Everything lying discarded on the ground.
e whole Jewish settlement is deserted, terrifying and dead. ere
is emptiness and deathly silence wherever you turn your head.
Emptiness. Once it was such a blissful place: lots of people, laughter
and joy, the cheerful noise [2] of children and now there is this
emptiness. Can you imagine it? A vast area covered with houses, so
close to one another, so squeezed and not a living soul inside. e
houses radiate such absolute, utter horror. And when you go in, you
immediately rush out as if hit by a bullet
—
deathly stuness has
waed over you. It is a corpse; old with a yellow face peeking out
of bed. You want to run away, far away, to the end of the world, but
you cannot, because they are watching you.
Such images haunt and nag at you. Both by night and by day.
And have you already forgotten for a moment the time that we
were on our hands and knees outside the barracks [and] when they
called out four boys? “At last,” you think, relieved. “[ey are being
taken] to be executed.” But they come out carrying the corpse of
Cwi,5 our dear companion and leader.
[3] And when you looked into the distance, you saw that
small house where 12 of your dearest ones died. I’m not thinking
anything. I’m twisting and turning as if in a dream. You must not
Wiktor (son),” in Wladyslaw Bartoszewski and Zoa Lewin, eds., Righteous
among Nations: How the Poles Helped the Jews 1939–1945 (London: Earlscourt
Publications, 1969), pp. 124, 147, 153. It seems that Chajka had the best hiding place
owing to her status as the only survivor of the underground leadership and to her
role in documenting the history of the ŻOB in Będzin and Warsaw. However, if a
neighbor came to the Banasik house, Chajka had to hide in the closet.
5 Cwi Brandes (1917–1943)
—
underground leader in Będzin. See Notebook B,
pp. 32–38.
Coming Back to Life • 27
think. Otherwise you will scream, shout, cry, and pull your hair
out
—
either y into a rage or commit suicide. I think about it a
lot. Why? What do I live for? I have lost everything and everybody
for whom I wanted to live and for whom life was worth living. e
nation is no more. I’ve lost so much time. Why that path and not
another? e path of Hashomer Hatzair.6 I wanted to and I did
come to love the Jewish nation. I abandoned the idea of studying,
and the idea of a career. e departure for hachshara [training] 7
and then to Eretz [land (of Israel); also: country, homeland]. And
now the nation is no more. Seven million Jews deported, murdered,
annihilated.
6 Hashomer Hatzair [Young Guardian] was founded in 1916, as a union of Jewish
scout groups (Hashomer, following the name of the rst Jewish self-defense
organization in Mandatory Palestine) and nationalistic Jewish students (Tzeirei
Zion
—
Youth of Zion). Hashomer Hatzair was heavily inuenced by the German
youth movement Wand erv ög el [Wandering Bird] and adopted some of its
romantic ideas, mainly the concept of Jugendkultur [Youth Culture], the belief
that being young is not only some passing stage of life but rather an autonomous
period when youth has its own pure values and norms in contradiction to the
deteriorated adults’ ways of life. ey followed Martin Buber’s saying, “Youth is
the eternal chance of humanity,” but preferred to ignore the end of the saying:
“and in every generation it is missed again.” During the 1920s Hashomer Hatzair
also adopted revolutionary Marxism, and considered itself as the vanguard of
this movement. is mixed ideology of nationalism, socialism, romanticism and
the scout tradition was most attractive to many young Jews during the 1920s
and 1930s. In 1939 there were about 25,000 members of Hashomer Hatzair in
Poland alone (and about 15,000 more all over Europe). At that time there were
already some 40 Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim in Mandatory Palestine, where
the refugees had settled. e kibbutzim were organized into a central federation
called Hakibbutz Haartzi [the national kibbutzim].
7 Term used by the Hechalutz movements denoting the training period of the
chalutzim [pioneers] before immigrating to Mandatory Palestine. e older
members of the Zionist-socialist youth movements used to organize themselves
as a kibbutz in Poland (and other countries as well), to leave their homes and to
move to a designated location (usually in the countryside), to prepare themselves
together for a productive life in Mandatory Palestine while maintaining a
collect ive way of life. Chajka belonged to t he hachshara in Kalisz and stayed there
for about a year and a half. She was supposed to leave for Mandatory Palestine
(probably by illegal immigration) on September 1, 1939, but she was stuck in
occupied Poland.
28 • I Am Writing These Words To You
I’ve lost my family
—
parents, sister, brother-in-law, and those
children, who were so dear to me.8 I’ve lost the man whom I loved
so much, without whom I neither imagined life, nor wanted to live.
He was my companion, friend, and lover.9 I’ve lost my companions,
who were so dear to me.
[4] So what am I living for and why? How can I justify my
miserable existence? Initially, I used to say, “I want to live to be
able to do something, to take part in hagana.” And today, when
it’s already over, why don’t you, you miserable creature, have the
courage to put an end to your life? I’ll try to justify myself, but
it won’t be true, because deep at heart I want to live. Why and
what for? Because of my memory of them, my companions.
ey had always wanted, and they crammed that into my head
day and night, somebody to stay alive and tell their stories.
Why shouldn’t they come back to life at least on paper? But
why should I live forever with the horror of those days and that
unfullled task?
Have I fullled my duties? I’m so happy that I was accused. It
was a kind of debt, which I’m paying o now. It is a debt to hagana.
[5] I did not beg them. I did not cry in front of them. I walked
calmly, silently, without fear.
I ate an apple before I went in. And then they were hitting me,
smacking me on the head and face. Even though they injured me
so severely, I felt so deeply satised. I endured and now I know that
I shall endure even worse. I do not need cyanide. at test of mine
is a justication of my still being alive today. Perhaps tomorrow I
already won’t be. ey might discover us. And it will all be over.
8 Chajka lost most of her family during the nal deportation: her father Icek-
Leibus (Leibel) Klinger (1880–1943); her mother Ryvka–Perla (Schwinkelstein)
Klinger (1880–1943); her elder sister Sara-Mindela (Klinger) Mgla (1909–1943),
her brother-in-law Jacub Mgla (1906–1943); her nieces Malka-Chana Mgla
(1933–1943) and Tauba (“Tamusia,” Tamar) Mgla (1940–1943). At that time, her
younger sister Malka-Chana (Mania) Klinger (1919–1944) was still alive in a
forced labor camp. Chajka also lost three elder brothers before the war.
9 Dawid (Didia) Kozłowski (1916–1943). See Notebook B, pp. 12–31.
Coming Back to Life • 29
And that debt to my comrades, my comrades who were dearer to
me than anything else
—
is it true? Yes. I loved my poor old father,
so why did his passing not hurt me so much? Why am I not always
thinking about them [my family]? Because my companions had
grown into my blood, because they were in me, because they had
been pulled out together with my entrails. ey are gone. I cannot
understand, or comprehend it. It still seems to me that I’m living
in some desolate area, away from the world, [6] and that they are
living there, far away; that something’s happening somewhere,
only that I am not there.
My dear ones, I can hear music here, in this room and
everything inside me tears apart and tugs so and a miracle [has
happened]. I’ve been hard as a rock. I have not cried (except once).
But now I’ve started crying. It’s the music. Unheard for four years,
it exposed my miserable, inhuman loneliness.
My dear ones, deported, executed comrades; I have a debt
with you
—
to tell of your lives and deaths.
I do not want you to depart forgotten. I want you to come back
to life on paper, in people’s memories, in the hearts and souls of our
companions who are there, far away.
I want your memory to be celebrated, your names to be
respected and loved.
But am I capable of it? I have already wanted to put down my
pen a few times. I know I am incapable. e words I am writing [7]
are chaotic. Chaos still pervades in my heart and soul. One image
chases another. I keep having horrible nightmares, too…
And isn’t the human language too simple to tell all this?
Human language is too inadequate to properly express all that
must be told. Indeed every word and expression seems too pale
and inappropriate to render our feelings and what we really [went
through].
For words able to render our epoch have not been born. [Nor
are there words] to render the situation, destiny, and demise of the
Jewish nation in this epoch.
30 • I Am Writing These Words To You
I don’t want to embellish. I do not want even the slightest
exaggeration in my story. I want to depict the naked truth, but I
am lost for words, lost for words to describe those horrible days
and our terrible experiences. As I have said, the human language
was not created for our times. Language and literature grew from a
certain reality and conditions. [8] is reality and these conditions
are without precedent. Or am I mistaken?
For what did we know about the life and death of other races,
of people in colonies?10 But no. What has been done to us has no
precedent in history.
is has never been done to any other nation. I’ve read about
the Armenians,11 but how can you even attempt a comparison?!
ere was the Spanish Inquisition,12 the pogroms during
Chmielnicki’s [period]13 [in] Kishinev.14 Why, there were murders
and hangings during the times of the tsars. I have read descriptions
of the experiences of many great revolutionaries in prison and [there
were] the infamous [deportations to] Siberia. I burst with vacuous
laughter. It’s Satan’s play. Some time ago, Irka [Pejsachson]15 and I
accidentally read descriptions of Gershuni’s16 time in prison. e
two of us roared with laughter. [9]
10 European colonies in America, Africa, and Asia.
11 Franz Werfel’s book Die Vierzig Tage des Musa Dagh [e Forty Days of Musa
Dagh], which tells the story of the massacres of the Armenians by the Turks
during World War I, was most popular in Hashomer Hatzair during World War
II.
12 e Spanish Jews were haunted and tortured during the Inquisition in the late
Middle Ages.
13 Tens of thousands of Jews were massacred during the Ukrainian peasants’ revolt
led by Bogdan Chmielnicki (1648–1649).
14 66 Jews were killed in the Kishinev (Bessarabia) pogrom (1903).
15 Irena (Irka) Pejsachson (1922–1943)
—
leading activist and instructor in
Hashomer Hatzair in Będzin, the youngest daughter of Icek-Mordke Pejsachson
(1866 –1943), Bund [a socialist Jewish movement] activist, who took part in
the 1905 failed uprising. She was a notable Bund leader in Będzin, deported to
Auschwitz in June 1943. See Notebook E.
16 Grigory Andreyevich Gershuni (1870–1908)
—
Jewish revolutionary in Tsarist
Russia and head of the combat organization of the Socialist Revolutionary Party
Coming Back to Life • 31
ese prisons, murders, torture methods are without
precedent. And, nally, could anyone imagine extermination, total
annihilation of an entire nation?
Yes, this is what has been done to the Jewish nation. Seven
million Jews have been totally annihilated. Today there is not even
one Jewish community, no ocial yishuv [settlement/community].
Here and there are some single individuals on the “Aryan” side, but
there’s not even one yishuv.
e whole nation in the European countries [has been
annihilated]. ere are no Jews in the territories occupied by
the Germans. ere is no Jewish youth. ere is no Hechalutz17
movement. ere is no Hashomer Hatzair movement. e
ower of Jewish youth
—
that which was the most beautiful in
our nation, and not only in our nation
—
[is gone]. Surely in the
course of many centuries no such movement or such people have
been born.
Our movement has died, perished together with the nation
(shtri fon hertzen) [Writings from the heart].
But it had to be so. It is good that [10] it happened so.
If there is no nation, there is no need for its avant-garde. What
was it for if not for the nation?!
We should have died with it. But how?!
Hatzala [rescue] was not an issue for us. It was clear to us, that
it was our duty to die together with the nation. But how? Not like
the entire nation, not like sheep going to the slaughter! To die with
honor, to create the nal act in the history of the Jewish nation
—
that was the birth of a new thought
—
hagana.
I will return to the history of hagana, but rst I want to write
about the experiences of the last couple of days.
(SR). Exiled to Siberia, he escaped from there and returned to Russia. His book,
Mein Entrinung vun Katorga, was published in Yiddish (New York: Socialisten
Revoltioneren in America, 1907) and was popular in revolutionary circles.
17 Hechalutz [e Pioneer]
—
trai ning and immigration orga nization of the socialist
Zionist movements: Dror, Hashomer Hatzair, Gordonia, and Bnei Akiva.
33
Part Two
e Final Deportation1
Notebook I (continuation)2
[11] For a couple of days people have been saying that something is
about to happen. ere is some anxiety in the air again.
One day Dreier3 visited the ghetto. [He] carefully checked
every nook and cranny. [He checked the] Ghetto plans every
morning. Something is about to happen. It is certain that a
[deportation] campaign is about to start. e gmina [community]4
is calling for an Arbeitseinsatz [work assignment] but the Jews
still have time at the center, as always. Rosner5 took 300 people
1 Part 2 of the diaries includes the second part of Notebook I, Notebooks II and III,
and half of Notebook IV. It is a chronological description of the last deportation
from Będzin, the experiences of the underground bunker, its exposure, Chajka’s
interrogation by the Gestapo, and her time in the liquidation camp (August 1–24,
194 3).
2 Pages 11–24 of Notebook I are the opening of the bunker narrative. ese pages
were typed in Istanbul and called Reshimot B (“Bader Photocopy”), pp. 4–6. Its
Hebrew translation was i ncluded in Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto, pp. 99–104, wit h
signicant censorial omissions and/or editing.
3 Hans Dreier (Dreyer) (1907–1945)
—
head of the Department for Jew ish Aairs at
the Gestapo in Katowice.
4 A reference to the Judenrat.
5 Alfred Rosner (1906–1944)
—
German owner of the large workshops. Rosner
was the most important German entrepreneur in Będzin and employed some
5,000 Jews. Rosner, who sold his products (mainly textiles and footwear) to the
Wehrmacht [German Army], successfully defended his employees from being
deported to Auschwitz for a long time. He was executed in 1944. Rosner was
recognized by Yad Vashem as a Righteous Among the Nations.
34 • I Am Writing These Words To You
to Ta lstrasse.6 e anxiety is intensifying. People are saying that it
will be on the night between Saturday and Sunday. But I somehow
cannot believe it. Why would they ruin their holiday
—
Sunday?
And of course it has not dawned on anybody that there could be a
general deportation, Judenrein [cleansed of Jews]. Only we, the black
ravens, say that if there is a campaign, they will no longer handle
us with kid gloves
—
they will nish us o once and for all. For it
was as clear as day to us that since they did not take any economic
[matters] into account in the entire General Government or in
Germany and liquidated kriegswichtige [important for the war eort]
arms factories, which employed Jews, they surely would not count
take into consideration our tailoring workshops owned by Rosner,
[12] which produce clothes, but only for the Wehrmacht. Because
Rosner was told during the previous campaign: “Das ist eine Staadt
politische Aktion und es gibt keine Kra die Stören soll” [is is a
political situation, and there are no forces that can disturb it].
But was that declaration necessary? Was the two-year practice
of clearing settlement aer settlement, district aer district, not
sucient?
But apparently it had not been enough for the Jewry of
Zagłębie. Why, we have Rosner. So far his people have been spared.
And that was why when we spoke about hagana they looked at us
like at madmen, lunatics. ey feared us like re, thinking that we
would bring misfortune upon them. And Saturday came. In the
evening, just as it had been for the last couple of days, there were
guards in the entire Jewish ghetto, outside every building, including
ours. ey wake us at 3 A.M.
I walk out, anxious. I hear shots. We wake everybody. Cwi
[Brandes] opens the hiding place and takes out [several] pieces.
“Why so few?” I ask [13] anxiously. “Has something happened?”
He says in a trembling voice that they didn’t expect that something
would happen, that they had information that nothing would, and
6 e center of Rosner’s workshops.
The Final Deportation • 35
that, consequently, everything’s at Baruch’s [Gaek],7 and there’s
not even one in the main bunker [of Dror8] at Herszel’s [Springer].9
Frantic, we clutch our heads. What now? What now? Have we been
cultivating the thought of hagana in our heads only to be empty-
handed now in case nothing happened? I become furiously angry
with the OKW10 and the entire world. But no, we won’t let them
deport us. We’ll do something stupid
—
maybe only one shot will
be red, but something will happen, something must happen.
We walk downstairs, but rst Abram [Avraham Zylbersztejn]
11 cleans his weapon. He takes it and immediately is furious that
it’s so dirty and soiled. And he begins to delicately, slowly clean it,
caressing it with his palm and gazing at it with aection.
And we descend through the oven,12 which is rather
7 Baruch Gaek (1913–1943)
—
member of Kibbutz Dror and hagana commander
in Będzin.
8 Dror [Freedom]
—
Marxist Zionist youth movement. Dror was founded in 1938
as a union of two youth movements: Freiheit [Freedom], which was composed of
working-class Jewish youth whose main language was Yiddish, and Hechalutz
Hatzair [Young Pioneer (movement)], which prepared its mem bers for immigrat ion
to Mandatory Palestine and, accordingly, demanded training in Hebrew. Dror’s
ideology was based on Ber Borochov’s (1882–1917) Marxist theory that only in
Mandatory Palestine could the Jewish workers achieve the aims of their national
class struggle. Dror was linked to Hakibbutz Hameuchad [United Kibbutz] in
Israel, the largest kibbutzim movement in the 1930s, headed by Yitzhak Tabenkin.
In Poland they were linked to Poalei Zion [Workers of Zion] Right. Kibbutz Dror in
Będzin was a strong Jewish organization, most of whose members came from other
Polish cities. It cooperated closely with Hashomer Hatzair.
9 Herszel Springer (1913–1943)
—
secretary and leader of Kibbutz Dror in Będzin,
representative of Dror at the underground headquarters.
10 OKW
—
name of a ghting organization in Będzin (not to be confused with the
German abbreviation for the Joint High Command). e abbreviation is unclear
—
Chajka’s diarie s are the only source that uses th is name. e local leaders David
and Arie Liwer mentioned Lakrav [to battle] as the name of the organization. See
David Liwer, Ir hametim (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Twerski, 1946), p. 82.
11 Avraham Zylbersztejn
—
Hashomer Hatzair and ŻOB member from Warsaw,
arrived in Będzin at the end of June 1943, survived and immigrated to Israel, and
died in the United States. See Adam [Avraham Zylbersztejn], Be-getaot varsha
ve-chenstochova (Hebrew) (Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1945).
12 In the original text the author uses the Polish word piecznik, which probably
denotes an oven.
36 • I Am Writing These Words To You
uncomfortable. [14] It’s Abram’s rst time in the bunker, which is
very small and awfully uncomfortable, still quite unnished. We
hastily grab two loaves of bread and some water in a pot. We lock
the oven. Soon aerward the campaign begins. It was awfully
stuy underground. Some air was coming in only through a tiny
hole in the oven and there was such a squeeze that it seemed that
we could not endure it. ere was no bucket. How horrible it is
even for someone who has the most primitive human needs; to
satisfy them and other needs in the same place (an empty corner)
where he sleeps! And how awful it is for us! It’s so humiliating to
one’s human dignity. It’s worse than the most brutal tortures. Our
hideout connected two streets so it [the search] was repeated ten
times a day. ey were hitting pickaxes on the oor. ey were
trying to open the oven. At one point they were tearing apart the
oor just above our heads. Cwi ordered Abram to get ready. He
[15] began looking for his gun and said, “Kasia [Szancer]13 will go
out rst. I’ll follow. I’ll do my duty. Run away. If you succeed
—
good, if not
—
too bad.” Breathless, we waited to see what would
happen. Our only worry was whether we had working guns in
our dirty pockets. We spent three days like that. And nobody
came to us with any sign of life. We immediately had a bad
feeling. Judenrein. Cwi says, “I must go to the kibbutz and see
what has happened to them.” Everybody’s worried. He has to go,
but something could happen to him. And we would be le alone,
without protection, without a leader, just like someone whose
head has been cut o
—
the only thing le is the dead, inert body,
or like a person whose heart has been taken out. We loved and at
the same time respected him so much, as a companion, a brother,
and at the same time like a father.
He le. Yet another awful, horrible day ahead of us.
[16] Again the hammering, pounding of a pickaxe, bated
13 Miriam (Kasia) Szancer (Barenblat)
—
Hashomer Hatzair member from
Sosnowiec, survived and immigrated to Israel.
The Final Deportation • 37
breaths, mortal fear and nervous tension. ey were near our
bunker for three hours. Perhaps they had heard a murmur. ey’ve
torn up half the oor. ey’re reaching the oven. ey call, “Juden,
geht schon raus” [Jews, come out at once]. Panic. e people want to
get up. ere’s a murmur. With all my willpower I calm everybody
down with a quiet hiss, “On the oor.” Nobody dares to get up
without my order. I have instinctively taken command.
I hoped for one thing
—
their laziness. And I was not
disappointed. ey le.
Cwi came back at night with mortal fear in his heart. He had
thought that we were already doomed. And he sighed with relief
and I did too. I was so happy that he was already back. I felt such a
relief. I no longer have to be the only one responsible for what is to
happen. It was such a great responsibility on my part.
[17] We’ve run out of water. We open our hatch. We can hear
shots, so we can’t [go out]. ere’s somebody in the hall. ey back
out. But what now? ere’s no water. We won’t be able to endure.
Having only a piece of bread a day is nothing, but we won’t be able
to survive without water. We open the oven again and that causes
a hell of a noise, which could betray us. at makes everybody
anxious.
Cwi goes out with another man. He is the rst, as always. Silent
minutes of waiting. ey bring water. Everybody sighs with relief.
Our dear, beloved Cwi, the bravest of us all. And yet another day
of fear and anxiety. What now? How long can we endure staying in
this dungeon? It is so stuy that everybody is getting weaker and
weaker every day. Somebody switched on a torch. Hell
—
no matter
if you heard about it or saw it in a painting.
is is what Hell must look like
—
like our dungeon, our
shelter.
[18] You can’t recognize the faces in the [dark]. You can see
young bodies, stripped, half-naked, lying on rags. Lots of legs, one
next to another. Haven’t they become intertwined w ith one another?
Yes, they have. Arms, so many of them. One next to another. Palms
38 • I Am Writing These Words To You
so wet and sticky, pressing on you. It’s disgusting. And the people
make love here. ese might be their nal moments. Let them at
least bid their farewells. Cwi is lying with Dora [Hercberg].14 It has
been four years of war. ey were so close to each other, but they
didn’t see each other. I reproach Dora. She regrets. “I was so stupid,
I didn’t have the courage. I’ve wasted four years.” She regrets it so
much now. It’s too late. irsty, they’re lying next to each other. As
always, I make a stinging remark, “Cwi, they must have chosen you
for a sweet death in heaven.” And [19] my prediction proved to be
true. He lived only a couple more days aer that.
e next day we ran out of water. ey walked from at to at.
No water. What now? We have to get out of here. Making matters
worse, Pesa [Brandes]15 is having an attack of hysteria. She begins
shouting; screaming at the top of her lungs, “Kill me. I don’t want
to live anymore. I can’t stand it anymore. Finish me o. I’m Cwi’s
sister. I want to die an honorable death.” She’s screaming at the top
of her lungs. e hatch is open. ey might hear us any moment now
and it would be over. Cwi makes a decision. Everybody disperses
and goes to the kibbutz’s bunker. Dora and Kasia depart. Cwi stays
with his sister. He is very nervous and pushes everybody out. I leave
with Srulek.16 e rst stretch is ne. But rockets appear out of the
blue, lighting the entire street and shots begin to be red from all
directions. [20] We hit the dirt. We’re doomed. We’re being lit from
all directions. Shrapnel and stones are ying from all directions.
ey call, “Komm hier, Jude” [Come here, Jew]. My heart is aching
so much. Why am I to die this way? I haven’t done anything yet. I
wanted to be with my entire chevra [group of comrades] and not
alone on a eld like this. What will people say? at I ran away to
14 Dora (Dorka) Hercberg (…–1944)
—
Hashomer Hatzair activist and Cwi Brandes’
girlfriend.
15 Pesa (Pola) Brandes (1915–1983)
—
Cwi’s sister, survived and immigrated
to Israel.
16 Probably Israel Warszewski.
The Final Deportation • 39
save my skin? at I ed at night to save myself even though I had
been talking so much about hagana?
My heart is thumping and pounding there, so miserable, so
very lonely.
And what have I experienced? ere have been few good
moments in my [life]. [I have led] an exhausting life in poverty and
indigence. But stop complaining. ere have been good moments
too. You had good companions and such deep, great love and such
wonderful moments with the man you loved.
[21] And there’s a boy lying next to you. An 18-year-old boy.
What does he know about the world? Such a pleasant, sweet, good
boy!
I pity him so much. He truly had not even begun to live. I pity
him so much. We’re lying for a long time, our heads hidden, as if
pinned down to the ground. I’m slowly growing calmer (they keep
shooting at us and shining lights around us). I must be destined
for the same kind of death as Dawid [Kozłowski]. Tough luck.
I’m waiting.
I decide to continue walking. And we somehow succeed in
crawling to the nearby buildings. We enter a at. We cannot believe
that we are alive. I feel my body. Yes, I’m alive. And I’m happy.
Srulek and I kiss. We drink water. And aer that we reach the
kibbutz without any more adventures. It’s already 3 P.M. ey are
happy to see us. ey thought that we were kaput [broken, dead].
[22] We meet everybody [there]. Cwi [and Pola] came over.
ey have been through a lot too. ey carried Pola into a at so
that she would calm down in the open, but she didn’t stop. “Kill
me; I don’t want to live anymore.” ey heard her and walked over,
but were afraid to enter the at. One stood by the window and said,
“Komm raus” [Get out]. Cwi walked up to him from behind and
knocked him down. He then dragged the half-conscious Pola17 to
the kibbutz. is is what Cwi is capable of. He didn’t leave her. e
17 Pesa (Pola) Brandes.
40 • I Am Writing These Words To You
rst shot. I am so proud. I am so happy. But not for long. Before I
can catch my breath, they tell me, “ere’s nobody at No. 5. It’s a
ruin. ere’s nobody there.”
I stop dead. Everything inside me stops, freezes for a moment.
It feels as if my heart has stopped beating, that I’ve gone deaf and
dumb. I’m sitting like [23] a dead log without a word. So Frumka
[Płotnicka],18 Ba ruch, Cipora [Bocian],19 and so many others of
our people are already gone. ey were so young, in their prime,
healthy, full of life and energy, but they’re already gone.
Surely I knew that all of us would die, that all of us would
perish. But it was to be dierent. We were supposed to all go
together and not like that, like pieces of living, healthy esh being
torn o piece by piece. Why, we were to do something, something
great, no less than they did in Warsaw. We weren’t supposed to
end up like they did. A single shot
—
this is how Baruch killed one,
but we lost a dozen. I’m less sorry that they’re gone than about the
fact that they had done so little, which makes me furious, screams
inside me and rips my intestines apart.
I’m sitting without saying a word, but everything inside me is
seething.
All of us will come to such an awful end. 20
[24] ere’s not even one gun. Cwi came to have a look but
he didn’t nd any. What now? ey’ll come and take us all empty-
handed. No, I swear to myself for the thousandth time that I won’t
go into a wagon. Let them execute me. I’ll run for the nth time, but I
won’t go. I won’t go in alive. What should we do? is is the rst time
that a thought about leaving here comes to my mind. I don’t want to
sit in a bunker anymore, without air or water. I want to breathe my
last on the surface, look up at the sky once more, and swallow my ll
of water and air. And that thought has kept nagging at me ever since.
18 Frumka Płotnicka (1914–1943)
—
delegate of Hechalutz Center of Warsaw and
one of the Dror leaders. See Notebook B, pp 1–11.
19 Cipora Bocian
—
Dror member.
20 See also Notebook B, pp. 1–11 and Notebook B, pp. 1–4.
The Final Deportation • 41
Notebook II21
[1] Saturday, August 29, 194322
Some thought that it would better in the kibbutz bunker than it
was in ours. I have the impression that it’s worse. It’s stuy as hell.
Everybody’s skin is glistening from sweat, of course, and they’re
walking around half-naked, in pyjamas and shirts. Everybody’s
lying on the oor, their bodies like corpses. It feels as though I
won’t stand being here for long. It’s dicult for me to catch my
breath. But there’s an electric fan, which turns nonstop, spinning
the stuy air and bringing some relief. When you sit close to it
you have the impression that real wind is blowing at you. And
there’s a kitchen, an actual kitchen, because there’s even an electric
cooker. So we eat a warm lunch instead of a dry piece of bread.
e petite Chawka is bustling about by the stove. Everybody’s lying
on the ground like corpses, and she’s cooking lunch plus semolina
for Aliza [Zeytenfeld].23 I admire her. It’s so hot by that stove and
she looks aer the people nonstop. She bandages a wound for one,
hands talcum powder to another for him to rub on his skin, and
orders another to wash himself so that we do not become infested
with lice and ill from dirt. And then she washes herself and [we eat]
lunch. It’s so nice to look at her, so clean and kind.
21 Notebook II is a mathematics notebook without a binding. e date and
the descriptions suggest that it is a direct continuation of Notebook I. e
handwriting on pages 1–13 is rm and the lines are straight. e lines on the
upper part of pages 13–20 are straight, whereas the bottom lines usually slope
downward diagonally. It seems that Chajka was either trying to put more words
on each page, or simultaneously trying to get rid of her painful memories. e
approximate chronological dates of events in Notebook II are August 4–7, 1943.
Notebook II was translated into Hebrew and was included in Klinger, Mi-yoman
ba-getto, pp. 111–118, with heavy censorial editing and signicant omissions.
22 In fact, it was Sunday.
23 Aliza Zeytenfeld (…–1944)
—
Dror member and Herszel Springer’s girlfriend.
42 • I Am Writing These Words To You
When I came, I was angry with Herszel about her staying
here instead of passing to the “Aryan” side despite her good
“Aryan” appearance. And Herszel tells me, “If it weren’t for
Chawka, everybody would be dead.” And I can see that he’s right.
Time’s dragging in the bunker. I look at the people
—
living dead.
I revolt. I won’t stand it. I won’t stay here. I wait longingly for the
evening. ey nally open the hatch and I go out with the boys.
Air
—
live, healthy, fresh [2] air. I take in a deep, deep breath. I
want to breathe in as much air as possible to have some for later.
I’m standing by a wall when I suddenly hear the sound of shots.
Rockets light the building. I retreat into the cubbyhole. I’m angry
with myself for still being scared. Aer all, I’ve become rather
used to that.
I walk out and look around. ere’s a bright light in front.
ose are the barracks
—
the deportation center. e Germans
have assembled all the people there and they’re watching them.
ey also put search lights there so that they cannot escape. e
victims are being carefully watched. And in the back, behind the
hill, there’s an observation post and another two on the other side
and by the wall near the factory that leads to the “Aryan” district.
is must be what a front line looks like. Rockets keep falling and
lighting the way. An actual war is being waged against us. I burst
out with vacuous laughter. Ha...Ha... War against Jews in bunkers,
against my father and mother.
Yes, they’re going to win this war. If they still can. ey can be
proud, happy. e boys bring water. We go underground again. I
thought that I’d feel better aer breathing in fresh air, but it’s worse.
My lungs need to get used to working in this stuness again. And
there’s a tumult, fuss in the bunker. It’s the women arguing. What
now, with the hatch opened? And what are they arguing about?
About rags! For God’s sake, have they lost their minds or what?!
[3] I’m so furious that I say nothing and only burst into tears. Oh
my God, why do I need to sit here with these people? Where are
The Final Deportation • 43
Lea [Pejsachson],24 Idzia [Pejsachson],25 Irka [Pejsachson], Dawid
[Ko złow sk i], Ya nke le [L an dou], 26 and so many other people who were
dear to me? Or maybe it is better that they’re not here and that they
have not lived to see this disgrace. eir dreams have been shattered.
What they died for no longer exists and never will. It is better that
they have not lived to see that. Or maybe it would be dierent if they
were here? Maybe? How can you doubt that? Of course it would be
dierent. It grieves my heart so much and I feel so sad.
Oh, how I loathe these women, these girls! Do all women
have to think about rags even in the face of death? Ugly, loathsome
creatures! Why do they live on in this world, while the good are
already gone? ose who had the ideal of hagana deep in their
hearts are already gone. ere were arguments in our bunker, too.
ere was a boy named Meir, who gave us a hard time. An epileptic,
[4] mentally ill. When everybody told him to be quiet he couldn’t
refrain from moving. He was unable to adapt to the conditions. He
had to lie in a comfortable position. He didn’t follow Cwi’s orders
because he wanted to give them. And his palms were so huge and
slick like a monkey’s. And he kept touching the girls, which was so
annoying. An uncouth, wild animal. But the most annoying thing
was his voice. He spoke at the top of his voice, his veins swelling
up on his neck, in a situation where any murmur might have given
us away. And one of us was no longer able to control himself. He
couldn’t take that anymore and the two of them had a ght.
Dear God, my face was all red. I wasn’t angry with Meir, as
he wasn’t one of us, and had joined us just a couple of days before.
But how could Abram not control himself? Had he forgotten all
24 Lea Pejsachson (1919–1943)
—
dominant youth leader of Hashomer Hatzair in
Będzin and Chajka’s best friend, elder daughter of Icek-Mordke Pejsachson,
deported to Auschwitz in June 1943. See Notebook E.
25 Idzia Pejsachson (1921–1943)
—
Hashomer Hatzair activist in Będzin, second
daughter of Icek-Mordke Pejsachson. Idzia was killed as an underground courier
in the spring of 1943.
26 Jakow (Yankele/Jankele) Landou (…–1943)
—
Hashomer Hatzair member,
deported to Auschwitz. See Notebook A, pp. 28–32.
44 • I Am Writing These Words To You
we had been taught? Abram tried to move closer to me to explain
and apologize. I pushed him away with my leg like a dog. Because
at that moment I hated him and everybody around me. Something
was screaming, crying inside me.
We’re so lucky that there’s water. Our beloved have risked
their own lives to fetch it. Shots were red as they were on their
way. ey had to leave the buckets and hit the ground, but then
they walked on. I decide that tomorrow I’ll also go for water. I’m
becoming daring. I’ve been lucky once, so I need to keep trying.
e shots are nothing; you have to get used to them. But these
rockets are scary as hell.
Why do they shine so brightly? Why are Lea, Irka, Dawid,
and Yankele not here now? Why is it that during our last moments
we’re not lying with those [with] whom we had walked all the way,
with whom we had dreamed of the ideal of hagana
—
the nal act
of our life? Why did they pass away so prematurely and why do
such petty and unworthy people [5] now have to walk this path
with us.
Dora’s sitting next to me and she asks, “So this is who you’ve
sacriced your life for?! Do you want to do something together
with them?! Die for them?!
“If such scum joins your ranks...
“And you want to leave with them! No, I won’t let you do
anything. It’s foolish in my opinion. If you want to do something
great then do it with men, not puppies. If you want to die, then
do it when they understand you.” She’s from a dierent world and
can’t understand us. She doesn’t want to lose Cwi either. I’m sitting
without a word. How much pain her words cause me! How deeply
they’ve hurt me! ere’s so much truth in what she’s said. But she
can’t understand us.
We’ve been living here for a year with the thought of hagana.
We’ve been cultivating it inside us. “No, we’re not going to let them
deport us,” we kept saying. “We’re going to sacrice our lives for
something, for an act.” Hagana had seeped into our blood. It had
The Final Deportation • 45
become a need each of us felt. We had only two weapons, but even
that obliged us to do something.
Dora was unable to understand that. She was young and
wanted to live and love. Her beloved was lying right next to her. She
didn’t want to lose him.
And in his veins and blood there was a feeling of
responsibility with regard to what he had taught us and what he
always [6] preached. To remain faithful to the ideal to which we
had sworn our lives. And he did remain faithful to it instead of
to her. is is why he’s no longer among the living. Dora talked
about that when she was about to depart. “You should come too.”
But he only laughed. “How could I leave my group of friends? No
matter what it’s like.” It was ludicrous. at was as impossible
as for the sky to touch the earth. And she wanted me to go too.
I very, very much wanted to to get out of this stinking hole and
breathe the fresh air. But could I leave as one of the rst? at
was out of the question. Perhaps later, aer some members of
the group had already le.... And I can’t leave Cwi alone with
all the burden of responsibility and decisions. No, I won’t leave
him alone.
Words of reproach begin. How come? You’ve already promised.
A shlichut [mis sion],27 somebody has to, and so on. I have gone deaf.
I can’t hear anything. Besides, those words are meaningless now.
[7] God, how very inadequate my words are. Am I able to
express what was happening in the souls of the handful of people
who were dearest to me? Am I able to express the greatness of their
souls? I haven’t written for such a long, long time.
Am I not too small a mortal to comprehend and express the
breadth of their horizons and their greatness? Surely I am.
But perhaps with the power of my heart, which loves them,
27 Chajka was assigned by her comrades to survive the deportations and the armed
resistance in order to document the history of the underground and/or to
deliver their story orally to their comrades in Eretz Israel. A designated shaliach
(missionary, delegate, messenger), she was “condemned to life.”
46 • I Am Writing These Words To You
and from the days we lived together, something will ow out even
from my heart.
If only I knew that I could get that at the price of a great
sacrice, at the price of my life, years of happiness given away! Oh,
how happy I’d be to do that.
———————
On the other hand, does it make sense to write at all? For
whom?
For the nation, for the masses. Oh, how much I have come
to hate the masses. Why, I knew that it was a rural rira, that it
was clay, which can be molded at will, in which beautiful heroic
impulses can be inspired during a revolution as fast as it can be
brought to do base, vile, criminal acts, [8] to lynching, to stoning.
But what the Jewish rira truly is
—
do say
—
it is because of the
conditions. I don’t want to hear about anything. ey’re all whores
and menials. I hate them. Oh, how much I hate them. A disgraced,
beastly nation.
So who should I be writing all this for?
Perhaps for my American brothers. Ha-ha-ha! For those fat
apes, who tap their bellies with watch chains on them, who think,
“If only the Polish Jews went to [Mandatory] Palestine.”28 I hate
them. But who do I actually love? How do I not hate? Yes, there
was a period when I hated everything and everybody. I was raging
with madness and vengeance, that bloody, merciless vengeance.
I wanted revenge, revenge. For the millions of Jewish children
suocated, suocated in wagons, thrown like balls into trains, for
those strangled by their own parents, for those abandoned by their
own mothers. For the millions of Jewish young people blossoming
and tall like trees who were strangled and executed, tormented and
28 Eretz Israel was called Mandatory Palestine by Great Britain. is should not be
confused with modern-day Palestine.
The Final Deportation • 47
tortured in prisons, who toiled like horses [9] in labor camps. And
for our fathers, slaving away and exhausted by the harsh, toilsome
life. I was raging with desire for a brutal revenge, more terrible
than the world has ever seen. I wanted to suocate, kill them all;
whoever came to hand
—
adults, men, women, children, tiny little
children. I wanted to strangle, kill.
And then I came to this house. To a German woman, though
not native,29 and her child. She’s good to us like a sister. Could I do
her any harm? Or harm her child? But when I look at this child,
pale and somehow weak, I can see those Jewish children with their
rosy cheeks and lively, black eyes. Our sweet, little Tamusia [Mgla].30
My heart’s aching so much, so much. But I wouldn’t be able to hurt
this child. I’ve even grown fond of her. She’s not to blame that the
world’s so cruel, so unjust. Perhaps in another 20 years she will have
to go to spill her blood for some alien, adverse cause. e world’s
unjust and cruel.
And so my hate has somehow subsided [10] and am I to again
believe in our shomer [Hashomer Hatzair member] truth, that the
entire German nation isn’t to blame? at the entire nation cannot
be destroyed for what’s happening? e mind says that it’s true. But
the heart is bleeding profusely and calling for revenge.
———————
I’m writing so chaotically and I’m diverting from the topic.
Who am I writing for?
Who will understand this epoch? Cwi had a dream, and so did
Dawid. I’d like to see somebody from the Kibbutz Artzi31 someday.
29 e woman was Mrs. Banasik, a Volksdeutsche.
30 Chajka’s niece, Tauba (1940–1943), daughter of Sara (Klinger) and Jacub Mgla.
It seems that her Hebrew name was Tamar. She was strangled in another bunker
during the same deportation. It is unclear whether Chajka knew the fate of her
niece when she wrote these lines.
31 Hakibbutz Haartzi
—
federation of the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim in Eretz
Israel.
48 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Am I writing for them? Yes, for them. Perhaps they’ll
understand. If not, then I think I’ll have to blow my brains out. We
didn’t walk the path we chose only for ourselves, but also because
of them and for them, for history.
ey must understand. Because we had grown from them,
because they had always been a signpost showing the way to go.
How happy we were that it wasn’t Meir Yaari32 but [Yitzhak]
Tab enkin33 who sent that stupid telegram. How did he dare dictate
to us such a shameful thing: to leave everything and ee? And that
aer four years of war, during which they had done nothing for us,
[11] having le us to the mercy of fate.34
We’re so angry with you, my Zionist brothers. I speak about
it with irony.
What did you do for us? No, not for us. What did you do to
nd out what was happening to us, what was happening to the
Polish yishuv, which aer all was your foundation, without which
you are a mere cipher.
We risked our lives for every post-delivery. And you? Shame
on You!
Why, parties and organizations without a Diaspora are of
little importance. What would have been the importance of the
Bolshevik Party without the Diaspora back then? And how much
has been accomplished with it!
32 Meir Yaari (1897–1987)
—
leader of Hashomer Hatzair and Hakibbutz Haartzi in
Eretz Israel.
33 Yitzhak Tabenkin (1887–1971)
—
leader of Dror and Hakibbutz Hameuhad in
Eretz Israel.
34 A telegram from Mandatory Palestine, signed by Tabenkin
—
or by Tabenkin
and Yaari
—
was received in Będzin in June or July 1943. According to other
paragraphs in the diaries, the telegram called on the underground members to
“use all means for immigration.” It seems that the telegram arrived in Będzin
through the exiled Polish government in Poland and was transferred to the
underground by an Armia Krajowa (AK) [Home Army] courier. See Avihu
Ronen, “e Cable at Vanished.”
The Final Deportation • 49
Whereas we, even though we have such a powerful Diaspora
—
such a powerful yishuv...You are zero in my eyes.
But I’m writing these words to you.
And what about? ere was the wartime epoch and it will
pass away. e people and events will perish. Maybe Abram was
right. It’s not worth it. ere were base, mean, villainous people
and base [interests]. An awful, horrible epoch. Why should it be
brought back to life? ere was a nation. ere were loy ideals in
that nation before the war. It proved unworthy [12]
—
a nation of
slaves. ere has never been more corruption and slavery in any
nation. e Jewish militia did the messy work, not only manhunts,
but also conducted deportations. e Jewish Gminy [communities;
Judenräte] will be a dark stain on the history of Jews.
And there was our movement against the background of that
epoch. ere were black sheep in it too, but there were also people
whom I believed in so much and whom I trusted. And they sealed
that trust with their death. ey lived and died like men with a free
spirit, like men of courage and ideals. And these people are worthy
of being brought back to life, resurrected.
It’s worth surviving to tell [their story], but the one who
survives will be like a leaf cast about by a gale, a leaf that doesn’t
belong to anyone and has lost its mother tree, which has died. e
leaf should have stayed with it and died too. An epoch died there,
so those people have to perish as well. e leaf will y with the
wind and won’t nd a place for itself, neither nding the old leaves
it used to know, nor a patch of the old sky. It’s impossible to accrete
to a new tree. And the poor leaf [13] will wander, recalling the old,
though very sad, days, and ever longing to return, but it won’t nd
its place.
———————
We’re sitting in the bunker. We can’t continue to sit idly like
this anymore. First of all, everybody will suocate here. Secondly,
50 • I Am Writing These Words To You
what’s the point? It’s surely Judenrein. e people should be sent
on to the “Aryan” side. Lots were drawn. “Ajzyk [Najman]35 and
Maks [Fischer],36 you’re going today.” e people are frowning.
ey don’t want to go. It’s so dicult for them to detach themselves
from the chevra and leave, into the unknown, without an address
or anything. ey are complaining, “You didn’t prepare us for this.
We thought that we’d go together.” “To die,” somebody says. Yes, to
die, but together. Everybody becomes so sad deep at heart. I hang
my head and sit [there] without a word.
But it can’t be helped. One has to go. It’s so sad, so very sad.
We bid them farewell. Tears come to my eyes. If only we could die
together instead of [14] [it] ending so miserably, so miserably.
God, how shortsighted all those people were! ey were
afraid of hagana. We have lost so many people anyway. Why were
they such cowards and why could they not nd the courage to do
something great?
———————
We are sitting in the bunker. Our numbers are steadily
decreasing. Every day somebody goes away. Today it’s my turn.
Today I’m going. No more procrastinating. I would like to go
with Cwi or Herszel. I was about to go with Herszel, but Aliza
[Zeytenfeld] kept putting it o again and again. So what? If they’re
not going, then I’m going today. So what? I can go with Pesa and
Uncio [Brandes].37 ree dirty Jews
—
we are bound to be caught.
I’m oen angry with Pesa for being like a ball and chain on Cwi’s
ankle. But I still pity her. She’s so miserable and helpless yet wise.
35 Ajzyk Najman
—
Hashomer Hatzair member from Żarki, survived and
immigrated to Israel.
36 Maks (Max) Fischer
—
Dror member, survived and immigrated to Israel.
37 Aharon (Uncio) Brandes (1912–1996)
—
Cwi Brandes’s older brother
—
survived
and imm igrated to Israel. S ee Aharon Brandes , Ketz ha-yehudim be- drom maarav
polin (Hebrew) (Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1945).
The Final Deportation • 51
Suddenly we hear a shout
—
they’re reaching us. ey’re
scraping at the coal. e hatch opens. We’ve been discovered. I don’t
understand. What’s happened? How come? I’m standing transxed.
But there’s commotion all around us. e people are hastily getting
dressed, grabbing briefcases and bundles. What’s happened? What
now? We’re doomed! What now? ere’s such commotion, tumult,
bustle. A Jew comes down to us.38 Meir [Schulman]39 talks to him.
Some have to go out and some can stay. Everybody’s standing
speechless. Nobody moves. For God’s sake, somebody has to go out
rst. [15] Let the girls and children go out. ey won’t hurt them. I’m
still undressed. I hastily grab my clothes. I have no shoes or anything
at all. I put a dress on my naked body. Meir and Necha [Schulman]40
open the second exit. I want to go out with them through that exit.
Suddenly, bang! ey close it. ere’s a sentry post. What now?
Nobody wants to go out rst. Chawka goes out. She comes back
aer some time. She talks to us, her speech disjointed. ey asked
about Herszel. ey said that if we came out at once we would go to
Talst r asse.41 So maybe Böhm42 has sent them? Maybe they’ll take us
to Talstrasse to Rosner’s workshop? A ray of hope.
So what should we do with our guns?! Cwi says, “No, maybe
they’re not here for us. Meir! Meir, where are you?” he shouts. “Take
your gun and come.” But Meir’s not there. He’s hidden away with
Necia [Necha] under the cots.
38 Max Fischer, who le the bunker earlier, contacted Böhm, a Judenrat ocial in
the ghetto, and told him about the bunker, intending to help those in the bunker
to move from there to the liquidation camp. Böhm sent a Jew as his delegate, but
he was accompanied by two Germans.
39 Meir Schulma n
—
from Chr zanów, active in t he underground mos tly by producing
homemade arms (bombs) and false documents, survived and immigrated to
Israel.
40 Nechama (Necha) Schulman
—
Meir’s wife, survived and immigrated to Israel.
41 Będzin became a Germanized town called Bendsburg and its streets had German
names.
42 Wolf [Władysław] Böhm
—
ex-chair man of the Sosnowiec Judenrat (under Moshe
Merin), Zionist on good terms with the Zionist youth movements, in charge of
the liquidation camp.
52 • I Am Writing These Words To You
What now? Suddenly, Chawka descends for the second time
and leaves. People, come out, hurrying upward. Herszel must go
out. But he’s so confused. He doesn’t know what’s happening with
him. Neither does Cwi. I don’t recognize them.
Herszel distributes money. He has such a lot of it. I have
never seen so much money. [16] We walk out. ere are three of
them. ey frisk us and take away the money. at was the deal
that somebody would go out and talk to them about transporting
us to Talstrasse in return for the money. Before we manage to get
out and say something, they’re already frisking us. Weak, Aliza
tells them something in a weak voice about transporting us to
Talstrasse. I’m standing in the coal cubbyhole, looking at this sad
happening and wondering what to do with the money. I’m worried
that they’re taking away all the money. Where can I hide it? Perhaps
in my knickers? Pesa’s next to me. “What should I do with my gun?
ey gave it to me, thinking that they wouldn’t frisk the girls.” Oh,
fools! I got scared, terried. It should have been used or hidden
somewhere deep underground, in the bunker.
“Put it in the coal,” I say. She obeys. We walk out of the
cubbyhole. I’m already confused on account of that gun. ey
take away all my money. ey frisk everybody and then walk up to
the coal. ey take out the gun wrapped in a bloody red bag. And
“So
—
Genau habt ihr auf uns” [So, you have something to attack us
with]. Everybody’s terried. e girls start saying, crying, “It’s not
ours. Somebody’s planted it.” [17] Es ekelt [disgusting]. I think we’re
doomed. I return into the cubbyhole. He [the German] jumps to the
exit and I follow him without a moment’s thought. Perhaps I’ll be
able to go out through the other exit. Cwi says, “I’ve lost the other
gun. I put it in the briefcase. I can’t nd it.” We begin looking for it
frantically. “Where did you put it? Try to remember,” I ask him. We
can’t nd it. Abram descends into the bunker. “ey’ve arranged
everybody on the ground and he threatens to execute everybody
unless you come out.” Silence. Cwi says, “Ich gib zich on por a korbn
—
ich gey” [I’ll be the sacrice. I’ll go]. He goes out.
The Final Deportation • 53
Abram comes over again. “Necha, you have to go out because
he [the German] has seen you. Leave.” Meir is furious, “What are
you talking about? Necha’s not going out.” “Abram, why are you
calling Necha?” I say. Too bad, I’ll go out. Everybody’s lying on
the ground with their arms outstretched. 12 people. I lie down
as well. ey ask, “Is anybody else there?” “No, there isn’t.” ey
send Herszel to see if anyone is le. “ere’s nobody there.” We
won’t give Necha and Meir away. He descends and takes one step.
He picks up a briefcase and reaches inside. He takes out the other
gun and bursts out laughing, “Nicht eure, so?!” [Not yours, right?!].
He fumbles inside the briefcase. [18] He takes out a Lichtbild
[photograph] [of Aliza] Zeytenfeld. We can hear their faint voices
again. ey’re laughing. “So eine Dummheit, [das] Lichtbild
übergelassen” [How dumb to have le the photograph]. Aliza starts
talking and pleading. “It’s not mine...not mine...” You stupid, stupid
girl. Your words are meaningless so at least be brave.
Can they believe your words? ey cannot and should not.
Would you believe?
And then he points at me. “Und das ist ihre” [And this is
yours]. It’s a done deal. Fate has passed its sentence. “Was, meine?”
[What, mine?] I say.
He said nothing and only kicked me twice so hard, that I heard
a thud. And then he kept hitting me with a wooden pole, one, two,
three, four times. And I didn’t even squeal, only at the end, when I
saw that he was getting furious. Why should he keep hitting me if
he’s going to shoot me anyway?
We’re lying, waiting for the sentence.
I’m perfectly calm. I’m looking at the sky, looking around
greedily, absorbing everything. I’m looking around fully convinced
[19] that it’s the last time. But why do they make us wait so long?
I’d only like to drink some water and then they can nish me o.
As long as it’s fast and without suering. I heard that death from a
bullet is painless.
ey order us to get up. We all gather our bundles. I look at
54 • I Am Writing These Words To You
them, confused. What for? I’m forbidden to either put on my shoes
or take the briefcase. I must look like a mad woman in the untidy
dress, which is dirty from lying on the ground. I can’t shake o the
dust. I have no shoes. I must look like I’m out of my mind.
I’m ordered to walk last. “In Beine werden Sie bekommen” [I’ll
hit you on the legs] and he hits me with a [rie] butt from behind.
“Ich werde sie jetzt erledigen” [I will nish her o now], I hear him
say to another man, but the other man tells him, “Let her be. Don’t
do anything on our own initiative.” He leaves me alone.
Everybody’s walking in single le. We arrive at the square
opposite the barracks. Lots of soldiers and ocers. “Das sind diese,
das sind diese…” [It’s them. It’s them...], we hear from all around.
ey’re standing, looking and pointing at us.
Aliza’s pleading again, [20] crying. I can’t stand listening to
that anymore. “You idiot, calm down,” I say. “It won’t help you.
Have some dignity.” “I will,” she says, shaking like a leaf. “One is
not allowed even to speak.”
I’m cursing myself and others. Oh, how much I’m cursing
OKW [the ghting organization in Będzin]. I hate them. Why did
they give me a role that disgraces and hurts me? Why can’t I now
clearly and openly shout in their faces, “Yes, it’s mine. It’s ours.
I wanted to wipe out our disgrace with it and teach you, Mörder
[murderers], villains, a lesson.” Why must I remain silent and lie?
Why did they give me such a disgraceful role? I’m so furious that
I’m biting my ngers. Why did we put such a burden on weak
Aliza’s shoulders? “Farewell,” I say. “We, Aliza and I, are probably
going to be executed.” Only Cwi, I only want to drink some water.
“Water!” I call in vain.
———————
e deportees are sitting in the barrack. We are forbidden
to enter the barrack. ey order us to sit down on the ground in
front of the barrack. We can get neither water nor food. We are like
lepers.
The Final Deportation • 55
Notebook III43
[62] Jews, many of them familiar to us, are sitting by the windows.
ey come out through the door and move about rather freely, but
of course they’re being watched. We cannot move from this spot.
Guards keep coming to have a look at us, like at wild animals in a
menagerie. I’m furious. I oen have an urge to stick my tongue out.
I look around. It’s empty all around. All the streets, alleys
—
the
entire Jewish ghetto is deserted. e campaign has been on for a
week. Everybody was hiding in bunkers but they brought soldiers
trained for Jewish deportations, who dragged them [the Jews] out
of the bunkers. During the rst couple of days all the Jews without
exception went into wagons. Led by the chairman, [the members
of] the Jewish gmina went by hansom cab. Many executions, with
the number reaching a thousand
—
they were those who tried to
reach the “Aryan” side. And the wagons had tops, cattle wagons.
And now they’ve le 500 people at Rosner’s44 workshop to liquidate
43 Notebook III is without a binding; the pages do not have printed lines. As in
Notebook II, t he handwriting i s steady and straight in the upper part of the pages,
whereas the bottom lines usually bend downward diagonally. Notebook III is
identical in type to Notebook II, and its content is a continuation of II. It seems
that either Chajka had two identical notebooks or these are two parts of the same
original notebook . It is unk nown who wrote the notebook numbers (I, II, III, etc.)
—
either Chajka herself or one of her comrades, before or during her long travels
(Poland–Slovakia–Hungary–Turkey–Mandatory Palestine), from late December
1943 to early March 1944. Owing to the underground conditions it is possible
that the notebooks arrived in Istanbul in pieces and were stacked together. In
any case, it is quite certain that the confusing numbering of the pages (62–84),
was done in Istanbul, because the original notebooks with their numbering are
identical to the photocopy that was made in Istanbul by Menachem Bader in
1944. (See the “Bader Photocopy,” Moreshet Archive C.36.15). Most of Notebook
III, was included in Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto, pp. 118–126, although heavily
edited and censored. Its approximate time frame was August 7–10, 1943.
44 Rosner himself led the evacuation work. He was executed later by the Nazis.
56 • I Am Writing These Words To You
the workshop. Some were sent to Annenberg.45 300 remained. e
same at Braun’s.46 ey also le for a while 20–30 young people
from the last transport to liquidate the apartments. e number
was growing with every transport. So everybody was very eager to
work. Even though they knew. Of the 1,000 or 2,000 people to be
deported, only [63] 20 will go to work.
Every now and then they bring somebody new from a bunker.
Poor old Jews and you, children, I pity you so much. ey’re
so intimidated and dirty.
And so thirsty. ey dash for the water buckets like wild
animals. ey snatch mugs from one another and ght. ey have
had no water for three weeks and have been drinking rainwater
or urine.
And the Germans are looking at them as if at negroes or
some exotic animals, for they are very shaggy. And they take pity
on them. ey have water and bread brought to them. ey are
merciful and grand in their generosity.
ey’ve brought an old Jewish man with sidelocks. Laughter.
e brethren ask, “Do you have gold? You’ve hidden it. Give
it to us.”
Good God, the man looks as if he has never seen a pfennig
[penny] in his entire life and they want gold from him.
And one of the soldiers who are frisking him [says], “Das ist
der richtige — ‘Jude Schwindler’ [at’s the real “Jewish Swindler”].
He must have had a lot of gold.”
But I know the faces of my Jews. I could swear, that he’s
another [64] Boncie Schweig.47 He’s staring at them and says, “Ja…
was…” [Yes... What...].
45 Annenberg
—
labor camp in Schlesien [Silesia], administrative center of
Organisation Schmelt.
46 Braun
—
a German workshop owner.
47 Boncie Schweig [Boncie, shut up]. Boncie Schweig is the protagonist of a story
by Icchok Lejbusz Perec (1851–1915), a leading Yiddish social author. Boncie
suered all his life but never spoke about his pain, being exploited by his
The Final Deportation • 57
And they just keep laughing.
And it hurts me so much that I can feel something turning
and writhing inside me.
Ha! Order this Majufes [How Beautiful]48 to dance and dance
he will. And you’ll laugh and laugh. (ey’re here
—
a lady in black
gave the children some bread). ey’re already escorting another,
shouting, “Wo sind die Anderen?” [Where are the others?] e man
doesn’t want to say. ey lay him on a chair. “Oy, vey. Oy vey,” he
cries. “I’ll talk. Schon bald [pretty soon].”
Ribono shel Olam! [Master of the World!]. ey’re there,
walking. Any minute now. ey couldn’t have beaten them long.
He’s already coming. ey’ll come soon. ey have made moiserim
[traitors/informers] out of them, ingratiating parasites, slaves, who
give away their own brothers and wives.
———————
ey are taking people to work.
Everybody is eager. One looks for backing from another. e
Jews are scheming. How about bribing a soldier? But there’s nothing
to bribe him with. One had a gold watch and did bribe him. What
could I bribe him with?
ey leave. People volunteer to work. ey select the young
employers, cruelly controlled by his wife, and neglected by his children. When
he arrived in paradise, the angels held a special ceremony on his behalf and God
told him that he would get whatever he wished for. en, at last Boncie uttered
his rst words, “Do you have a roll and butter?” For Chajka and her comrades in
the radical youth movement, Boncie Schweig represented the traditional Jewish
passivity and they denounced his character and his destiny. See Icchok Lejbusz
Perec, Collected Works, vol. 3, book 2 (Tel Aviv: Dvir, 1947–1953), pp. 167–172.
48 Polish landowners, as part of an evening’s entertainment, would summon “their
Jews” to the estate for a command performance of majufes [a traditional Jewish
song/dance]. And t he Jews, coerced and humi liated, complied, play ing out for the
Pany a travesty of devout song accompanied by dancing and extravagant hand
gestures. Bret Werb, “Majufes: A Vestige of Jewish Traditional Song in Polish
Popular Entertainments,” Polish Music Journal, vol. 6, no. 1 (Summer 2003).
58 • I Am Writing These Words To You
and healthy. Our people volunteer. “No, you can’t. [65] You have
to stay put.” Husbands abandon their wives and children; mothers,
their children; children, their parents.
I want to save myself. Perhaps a wagon will arrive in the
meantime and there will be a deportation? ey’ll gain one,
two days.
Poor, miserable people. Nothing can save them. e death
sentence has already been pronounced. “But it might be revoked.
A miracle could happen,” so the religious think. But I don’t believe
in miracles. I don’t.
ey interrupt my reections. ey’re calling us, Aliza49 and
me. We are about to be executed. It’s a certainty. “Farewell,” I say
quietly and walk proudly with my head up. I’m strutting boldly.
ey stop me by the building of the former militia. Aliza walks in
and I stay. ey order them to watch me, because I could escape.
I’m standing, thinking why are they dragging me to a closed
building. ey don’t want witnesses. But far away in a eld they
won’t have any witnesses either. e thought that they would
torture me did not cross my mind. Why would they bother? What
good would it do? Bidner,50 whom I know, a former clerk in the
gmina, walks past me. He has a frightened look on his face. “What
are you doing here?” “Nothing really. ey want to execute me.”
“How come? What for? How?” “ey have found something in
our bunker.”
[66] He had a tray with apples. I take one in a most leisurely
manner and begin to eat it. He looks at me as if I were out of my
mind. Am I? I don’t know. Before I can nish eating they call me.
I throw away the rest. “It’s the nal moment,” I’m thinking. “I’ll
shout out everything. I’ll tell them what I think about them.” I’ve
already composed the sentence I would tell them. I hope that I’ll
have the time. “Mörder
—
euer Rache tag wird kommen
—
Für
49 Aliza Zeytenfeld (...–1944). e second revolver was found in Aliza’s handbag.
50 Bidner
—
Judenrat ocial.
The Final Deportation • 59
unser Blut wird man Rache nehmen. Euer Ende ist schon nahe”
[Murderers, your day of reckoning will come. Our blood will be
avenged. Your end is already near]. To shout, scream at the top of
my lungs about that for an entire day
—
is this all that I can do
before death? Interestingly enough, I was not the only one thinking
about it. I had an exchange of thoughts with my neighbor, who was
thinking about the same thing. And so were the rest at the same
moment. It doesn’t seem strange to me at all.
As I was walking to the execution site, I wanted to scream,
because nobody would hear me in that desolate area. But I managed
to control myself. It even seems to me that I asked Cwi and he didn’t
tell me not to. Besides, I didn’t want to for myself, for the sake of
the others. Perhaps they will execute only us and leave the rest, who
might escape and get away with it. But I felt such an urge to scream.
[67] What do I care about the chevra? I want to die an honorable
death. I care about nothing else.
I became silent and calm. Neither Cwi nor the chevra had
ordered me to.
I went into a room. Aliza is standing in a corner, so miserable,
broken, so severely beaten and covered with blood.
So they’re going to beat me. I was completely petried with
fear. Endure. Say nothing. Stand tall.
ey order me to lie down. “Totschlagen” [beat (her) to death],
they say. And they began beating me, beating me severely. ey
were hitting me hard without paying attention where the blows
were landing. ey injured my whole body. But the worst thing
was when they began hitting me on the head. I wanted to show
them what a lousy Jewess was capable of. I wanted to refrain from
shouting, even at the price of death, but that was not my tactic.
I was disclaiming so I had to shout, scream about my innocence.
Let that shout pierce their ears. Let them be forced to cover them.
“Say whose this is, and we’ll leave you alone,” they were shouting.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I don’t know. I’m innocent. Mom, Mom,” I
was calling.
60 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Only those three words, again and again during the entire
time I was being beaten. ey got nothing else out of me. [68] He
let me be and moved on to Aliza, which was even worse. I must be a
vile animal because I didn’t react. I only covered my face. Oh, how
humiliated one can become. How could I not walk over and slap
him in the face? How could I? But I was preoccupied with myself.
Such a horrible pain and such erce joy! I was already sure that I
would endure. at I wouldn’t give in.
And they started on me again.
He approached me
—
a tall, skinny greyhound. And those
eyes
—
very familiar eyes of a snoop
—
green, cold, oating eyes of
a sh, the eyes of a snoop. I gave him a cold, slightly derisive look.
And it still seems to me that that was what he beat me for.
On the cheek, in the face, in my eyes. Blood gushed out. One
more centimeter and I would have lost my eye.
He put his sinewy arms around my thin neck and began
to strangle me. He was about to strangle me to death. I began to
wheeze and he released his hold. I was about to nd out at what
point one can die. I’d always been curious when the process of
agony began. But he stopped beating me. We were escorted out.
I heard the word “Auschwitz” as I was passing. I didn’t know then
that it referred to us.
[69] In the courtyard I heard two Germans whispering and
pointing at us: “Sie halten sich. Ja, sie halten sich” [ey’re holding
up. Yes, they are holding up].
I was unable to walk. I barely managed to drag myself to our
group. When they saw us they burst into tears and covered their
faces.
How did I manage to sit down then? But it was no longer on
bare stone, as those who had some towels or shirts had oered them
for me sit on.
But my body was as hard
—
how should I put it?
—
as stone, as
hard as rubber. And so black. Not blue, but black. Instead of sitting
I curled up like a cat and was lying on Pesa. I had no coat, shoes,
The Final Deportation • 61
or stockings. It became dark. e soldiers are preparing wood,
old furniture for a bonre. ey’re about to light it. Cwi whispers
to Uncio, “Now or never.” Nobody except for Uncio heard that
whisper. He didn’t say even as much as a word to the chevra.
And he suddenly sprang to his feet and rushed ahead so fast
—
so fast that your eyes couldn’t follow him.
Your heart begins pounding so strongly again, that you think
that it will pop out.
Commotion among the soldiers. Shots red one aer another.
ey begin to run. e commander51 comes, “Was? Getürmt
—
Von
diese[n]!” [What? Escaped
—
Of those!].
He begins to shout at the soldiers. “How could you let that
happen? Chase him and bring him back [70] dead or alive.”
It’s been only a couple of minutes. My heart’s pounding,
pounding. What will happen? Will he escape?
I’m quietly begging I don’t know who, God perhaps, to let him
escape and reach his destination alive. e minutes are dragging
on forever. ey’re already coming back. I look at their faces hoping
to guess the truth from their expressions. But it’s already too dark
to see.
But I can hear one say to another, “Schon erledigt! Ich habe ihn
erwischt” [Already done! I got him], he brags. My heart stops and
then I feel a contraction, a spasm of pain. We’ve lost our dearest
one, the best of us all. Our companion and leader. And I’ve also
lost a friend. “But it might not be true,” I say quietly to myself.
“He might just be bragging. It might not be true,” I’m consoling
myself. Vain hope. Deep at heart I know, I’m sure, that he’s dead.
I’m certain of that.
His sister and brother are sitting next to me. “What were they
saying?” they ask me. “I don’t know,” I say.
I’m sitting, unmoved. Why, I know that Cwi’s dead, so why
am I not crying? Why am I not banging my head against a wall? I’m
51 A German ocer. One of Chajka’s interrogators.
62 • I Am Writing These Words To You
sitting still and my insides feel empty and hollow. If you knocked
on me there might be an echo.
Why is it so? Am I already incapable of any human feelings,
emotions, pain?!
I don’t know. Perhaps it’s because I’m so wounded psychically
and physically. Perhaps it’s the conviction that tomorrow I’ll be [71]
where he is now. Yes, that could be it. Tomorrow I’ll be gone too. A
tragedy will happen, but there will not be anybody to care. We will
be gone. ere will not be anybody.
What is death? It’s just a minute. e heart’s pounding
strongly and then more and more slowly, and then it weakens and
falls silent. e end.
It’s only a moment. It seems to me that it’s not so frightening at
all. Even death from torture, from beating
—
horrible pain, which
intensies until you lose consciousness and then it’s over.
I used to fear death a lot. I was terried of it. I didn’t want
to die not only because I loved life and because every ber of my
being [yearned] for life, but also because the process of dying was
something frightening and horrible in my eyes.
Today life has already lost its sense to me and I’ve already
come to hate it. I’m already so exhausted by it. I used to know a
poem, which I oen repeat now, “Ich bin des Lebens müde” [I’m
tired of life].52
And death is no longer an old woman with a rod in her hand,
but a kind, gentle lady.
ese might be our nal hours, this night outside the barrack.
During my nal hours I should be thinking about my life,
about unfullled dreams, about a song interrupted in the middle.53
I’m not thinking about anything. [72] My heart’s so empty and
hollow.
52 Unknown German poem. Probably a nineteenth century Romantic poem. ere
is a guitar fantasia by Adam Darr (1811–1866), entitled “Ach, ich bin des Lebens
müde.”
53 Perhaps a paraphrase of a Hebrew poem by Chaim Nachman Bialik.
The Final Deportation • 63
I am only looking at the soldiers by the bonre, thinking,
“So you’re heartless. What are you? A listless animal, a tool
carrying out orders.
“Your wife, lover, or mother is surely waiting at home...
“When you look at us don’t you see them, blind man, when
you turn your gaze away?”
It’s dark. And in darkness thoughts of escape are born. I’ll
escape. I won’t let them deport me. I won’t get into a wagon. Perhaps
my dead body will. Yes, my dead body but not me.
I do not believe in aerlife, to use a term popular where I
was from. I do not believe that Jews live in Auschwitz, only some
individuals at best.
I’m motivated by some mad curiosity to see, discover what
is happening there, in Auschwitz. I’m sure that it’s another
Treblinka.54 ere are the gearwheels nobody escapes from.
ey’re destined for an oven
—
they see nothing except an oven.
ey’re destined for labor camps
—
they see nothing except
for labor camps. e German soldiers who serve in Auschwitz
have no idea what’s happening there. No living man has le [73]
Auschwitz yet.
No, I won’t go to Auschwitz. I’ll jump out the wagon, even if
it kills me. I’ll kill myself, shoot myself. I can die like a dog. But I
won’t go to Auschwitz. is is a promise I’ve made to myself.
I still don’t have the courage. I’m still recalling Cwi. And this
bonre is burning so bright. But tomorrow it might be too late. I
have to make up my mind. I’m still asking myself.
It’s morning and we are being tormented again
—
they’re
watching us, pointing ngers at us.
We’re murderers
—
we who only wanted to die an honorable,
human death.
We’re still sitting on all fours like yesterday. We haven’t had
54 No anachronism. Chajka was well informed about Treblinka owing to the
information that came from the Jewish Fighting Organization (ŻOB) in Warsaw.
64 • I Am Writing These Words To You
anything to eat. We ask the Jews from the barracks to give us some
water. Walking right by us, they can give us some water without
being noticed. Besides, this German is a good man. I can tell by his
expression, his face, and his treatment of the Jews.
But the Jews will not give you anything. Forget it. Why, they
are afraid to look at us. ey pass us at a distance without looking.
So you ask another. “For God’s sake, give us some water
at least.” Forget it. Nobody wants to. Ha-ha... I’m afraid of a
deportation. [74] Ha-ha… ese guards
—
in an hour or two they
could be gone.
I loathe them, hate them so much.
Your nation
—
this is who you wanted to die for, who you have
sacriced your life for.
It’s such a heavy load and I’m so sad.
I understand everything. ey are innocent. It was the others
who made them what they are.
But my heart’s hurting, hurting so much.
Finally that German took pity on us and ordered us to get
up for a while. He also let the children be given food and us some
water.
In the aernoon some dignitaries came over. Uncio and I
decided to escape. We prepared a plan: get to the toilet, crawl to the
laundry, wait there until it is dark and then sneak out.
But they were watching us. I go, but he’s [the guard] standing
by me, watching. I get furious and scared.
I return to my spot. Some higher-rank military men approach
us, call out four boys and order them to follow. It seems that it’s an
execution
—
they’ll be executing in groups of four.
e minutes are dragging on forever. But no, they’re coming
back carrying something. Yes, we had a hunch. It’s Cwi’s body.
How perdious they are! ey took our people to march past us
with Cwi’s corpse. ey want to show us what they’re capable
of. [75] ey’re getting closer. His sister is moaning next to me.
I want to shout at her to stop, sit quietly, and look proudly into
The Final Deportation • 65
their faces. I won’t shed even one tear. Moaning isn’t how I want
to honor Cwi’s death.
But there’s something yelling and howling inside me. All the
skin on my head has gone numb. I’ve suddenly become sti and
numb with cold.
I think that my hair’s about to turn gray.
And they, the boys, are carrying him
—
our dear companion.
ere is not another one like that among [us]. ey’re carrying him
and it seems to me that their legs are giving [out] from under them.
Later Abram told me that he had suddenly become so weak and
pale when he saw him that he was unable to li his hand. ey
didn’t as much as moan. But Cwi’s face was so horrible, his body
so mutilated and as full of holes as a sieve. Our poor, beloved Cwi!
Why poor? Perhaps he’s better o than we are. at was Cwi’s
last zchut [privilege] for his comrades to carry him and they did.
Farewell, our dear, righteous friend, as Mordechai [Anielewicz]55
once wrote to you. We’ll soon see each other there, where nobody
is in a hurry to go. Yes, your guess was right
—
you’re gone
—
the
two dearest people I’ve known in our movement.
He didn’t want to wait for others to bring him life instead
of death as a gi. Oh, how brave he was in their eyes! ey were
digging pits aer that, thinking that they would be our graves aer
execution.
We thought ten times a day that they were already coming for
us, and that waiting was worse than death. [76] Aerward we sat
like corpses for a long time. An order came in the evening. I’m to
go into the barracks. We’re to mix with all the other Jews and share
the same fate. “A transport leaves tomorrow,” I said at once. “e
barracks will be empty tomorrow.”
And I became so gripped with fear. What now? I think I’m
going to break my vow and go to Auschwitz. I’m so scared, so
55 Mordechai Anielewicz (1919–1943)
—
the leader of the ŻOB.
66 • I Am Writing These Words To You
terried of Auschwitz. I already have regrets. Why did they put us
in the barracks? Outside at night there might be a chance to escape.
Others are content. We blend in with the crowd so there might
be a chance to escape.
But there’s only fear in me. Herszel is consoling me, “Don’t be
scared. ere won’t be a transport just now.”
I look around
—
so in the end my turn has come too. I am in
a deportation barrack. Well, I thought that it would be worse. e
barrack isn’t so packed or stuy. One couldn’t suocate here, yet.
e people are perfectly quiet.
“ank God, that you’re here with us,” they tell us. “Nice
consolation!” I laugh. “What dierence does it make what death
you die: whether it’s by execution or by suocation in an oven? I
prefer the former.”
ey wanted to peck me to death for having dared to say that.
Everybody goes to sleep. It’s perfectly quiet. Nobody’s shouting or
crying. I can only hear a child crying every now and then. [77] A
young girl is irting with a young boy in a corner. She’s in such
good spirits! I look at her with disdain. But why am I picking on
her? Perhaps she just wants to indulge herself before death?
I lie down on the oor next to a married couple and fall asleep.
Somebody puts a palm on me and moves it. Ugh! I shake it o.
Somebody’s moaning in their sleep. A child is crying. e
bloody red glow of the bonre [can be seen] through the window.
German voices. I fall asleep again.
It’s quiet in the morning. Gray faces, gray people. ey walk
calmly out with their towels to wash themselves, comb their hair
—
just a normal life. Hey, you! What do you need all that for? Let them
say that you’re dirty, but stop doing everything so quietly, calmly,
and obediently. For God’s sake, revolt! Jump out of a window at
night. Do something! You should be watched by dozens instead of
six Wachtmeister [noncommissioned ocers rank]. ere are so
many of you, so many young and healthy people!
The Final Deportation • 67
What are you going to do? You’ll say, “Why, it’s judenrein, and
they’ll track us down, hunt us down like animals.”
Good, but make it dicult for them. Yes, attack them
barehanded, but let the world and these simple soldiers know that
they are escorting you to death, because they are being lied to and
told that it’s to work.
[78] Good God, but you don’t believe that you are going to die.
We’re talking in vain. You are clinging more than ever before to
your stupid faith that you are going to work, that a miracle might
happens.
Yes, pray and you’ll be saved. And during that nal night
before death I heard words of faith and talk of a miracle.
Anxiety hangs in the air. e discipline is stricter today. ey
let fewer people out. I’m reproaching myself. Why didn’t I jump out
of the window at night? So what that there was a soldier nearby?
So what that I would have died like Cwi? At least I would not be
waiting so long for certain death. I was talking with Uncio. We are
angry with ourselves. Why didn’t we escape? “We have to today.
Remember. I can feel that there’s going to be a transport today.
I’m sure of it,” I tell him. “What are you talking about?” Herszel
screams at me. “I’ve made up my mind. I won’t get into the car,” I
tell Uncio.
ere’s a certain anxiety in me, but it’s so quiet around me.
e people are cooking, eating.
But the urine and feces from last night have not been removed.
Animals.
And they can also ght. Suddenly I can hear screaming
—
somebody has had their suitcase stolen and they want to ght.
Herszel’s begging, pleading, “Calm down. It’s a disgrace to ght
now.” ey slowly calm down. [79] Food is brought and everybody
digs in
—
like hyenas. e cooks cannot handle the situation. Aer
a moment all the food is gone. Some have full pots, double rations,
while others have nothing.
68 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Why, it was the rst time since we got here that we had a sip of
coee. ey handed it to us themselves.
I look at the people again and I wonder again why they’re so
calm.
ey are saying that a car is due to arrive at 10 A.M.
Among the deportees is a very young, resourceful boy, who
goes out to work every day. He’s going today as well. He wants to
help us. I believe in him, because he has honest eyes. His name is
Berek.
He wants to escort the girls into the kitchen. But they won’t
let me pass with my wounded face. ey’ll see that I’m one of the
others. e boys leave for work. I push Herszel out. “Go.” I don’t
know what happened
—
he stayed.
And I’m still scared. It is almost 10 A.M. I spot Berek standing
with horses next to the barrack. He winks at Chawka, who passes
by in a white apron and walks toward the kitchen.
I decide to go. I’m waiting for the right moment. A lot of them
have just come. ey’re talking with one another. [80] Berek winks
at me. I approach him. “Go to the kitchen Bau [building].” “Come
with me,” I say to him. “No, go alone.” I go. A Wachtmeister is
standing in front of the kitchen. He lets me through.
———————
Aliza, Pesa, Sara [Kukeilka],56 and Abram join me. We’re
talking with the militia regarding Herszel. ey go there to bring
him over.
He [the Hauptmann] comes before 10 A.M. He’ll surely send
us back now. He’ll surely recognize us, particularly me because of
my wounded face.
He’ll send us to a transport. Aliza is hiding, but I won’t. I can’t
take it anymore. What now? What now?
56 Sara Kukeilka (…–1944)
—
Kibbutz Dror member.
The Final Deportation • 69
e Hauptmann [captain, the rank of the commander] comes
in. He looks at me for a long time, shakes his head and slowly says,
“Neue Gesichter. Aber nein, sie sollen bleiben.” [New faces. But no,
they should stay].
A strange man. He must have recognized us. Abram is a
Degenhart [idiot].57 Why has he le me?
It was as I predicted. e transport le and the barracks were
empty. Herszel58 le with the transport. I know that he had been
looking for a way to escape. ey must have been keeping an eye on
him, must have been watching him and pushed him into the car.
And he walked the Jewish path. It might as well be destiny.
Herszel has so much Jewish folk character in him. Azoy, ful
volkstumlichkeit [So full of folkishness]. More than any of us. [81]
He would nd a way to communicate with anybody of common
origin: a wagon driver, a caretaker, a tailor, a cobbler, or a butcher.
He had lots of true friends of common origin. He could have an
honest conversation with anybody, hit the nail on the head, and
use the right expression. I oen admired him so much because
he could nd a place and time for even the most trivial matters
of people he didn’t know. And he did so much for them, for those
simple people whom he didn’t know. He was happy to do someone
a favor. ere was so much simple friendship and kindheartedness
in him. You couldn’t cross a street in his company without him
being approached, asked or consulted. And he rarely refused.
When he couldn’t help you, he at least heard you out. He also
enjoyed great respect and love. A man of common origins, he
came from the working class, worked for it, wanted to live for it,
and went to die with it. Herszel, if you’re still alive, do know that
you are alive in our memory and hearts, in the memories of many,
many people.
57 Chajka disliked Zylberstejn following the incident in the bunker. See
Notebook II.
58 On August 23, 1943, Herszel was still alive. He managed to write a letter that was
smuggled out of the liquidation camp in Będzin and arrived in Istanbul.
70 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Perhaps we’ll meet one day. Even if it’s a delusion I want to
live with it. Even though deep in my heart I know that it’s just a
delusion, I feel good with it.
The Final Deportation • 71
Notebook IV59
[82] Friday, September 2, 194360
I’m slowly breaking free of the fear and panic. When I came here I
always had the feeling that somebody was spying on me, watching
me. I was afraid of every loud word.
I was afraid of every bold, loud word; something was
restraining my hand, stopping me from writing openly and boldly.
I’m slowly breaking free of these fetters.
———————
Nothing can help us. I don’t want to go into any causes or
conditions. I have to forget about historical materialism for a while.
But I have to note that the Jewish nation is a nation of slaves.
Various people have told me that Jews climb into the cars
and wagons perfectly placidly. In Zawiercie the young even
pushed their way in to get better places in the wagons. When
somebody wants to open the window, they shout and fuss
—
“Ir
vet oif unz brengen das groiste Umglick” [You’ll bring upon us a
major catastrophe]. When somebody wants to jump out of the
window, they stop him by force. ey’re afraid of a dra. Isn’t
it silly? [We’re talking about] convicts who are being taken to
the execution site, where they’ll die a horrible death. It’s either
a chamber in the form of a bathhouse lled with hot, condensed
59 Notebook IV is identical in appearance to Notebook III: a notebook without a
binding and the pages do not have printed lines. Its content is a continuation of
Notebook III. As in Notebook III, the handwriting is straight in the upper parts
of the pages a nd the bottom lines bend diagonal ly downward. Substantial parts of
the notebook were not included in Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto. e approximate
dates of the descriptions on pp. 81–91 are August 10–24, 1943.
60 It was actually ursday.
72 • I Am Writing These Words To You
air where people die a most horrible death by suocation, or a
gas chamber
—
also by suocation, or by electricity
—
high
voltage burns.
Can death be more horrible than t hat? Aerward t he execution
site is a shambles. Just before death the people rush like mad and
then the bodies become stuck and are lying on one another. [83]
Which of the living nations would let themselves be escorted to
death without resistance?
How great that a movement like ours has sprung from that
nation and expunged that nation’s disgrace with its blood. It is so
good that there was [the Warsaw Ghetto uprising]. I’m slightly
merciless in my evaluation of my nation, but so much in it causes
me pain. I’ve sacriced some of my blood and my Dawid for the
honor of this nation so I can be strict in my judgment of it. It is
my right.
e Germans began the liquidation of the Jewish nation in a
perdious and calculated way.
At rst, they eliminated all the healthy elements of the nation:
crasmen, porters
—
in short, the masses in the pure sense of this
word
—
simply all the healthy elements resembling Noah Pandre
61
—
those broad-shouldered peasants with strong bones, who would
have attacked them with hammer and axe. en it was the Jewish
intelligentsia’s turn. ere was a whole series of campaigns aimed
exclusively against the Jewish intelligentsia, for instance, the one in
Częstochowa, conducted under various pretenses.
e people le are from among the petit bourgeois and
61 Noah Pandre is the protagonist of a Yiddish novel Noah Pandre, (War saw:
Yovel Komitat, 1938) by Zalman Shneur (1887–1959). Pandre is a strong young
Jewish fellow, who attracts the shtetl [small town] girls, mocked the well-to-do
Jewish merchants, fought with the Jewish coachman, beat the police ocer and
defended the Jewish community against a pogrom. Most of the Jews do not
follow him and he is obliged to leave the town. e novel was most popular
because Pandre symbolized the new Jewish model for many young Jews in
Poland, leist Zionists (like Chajka), right-wing Zionists (like Menachem
Begin) and Bundists as well.
The Final Deportation • 73
traders, who in the meantime underwent a “restratication” in
workshops, plus every kind of scum. ese are the last survivors
—
everywhere. ey were the ones who conducted the liquidation of
Jewish property, everywhere and always in the same way.
[84] Kitchen building [Bau]. e transports have le. We are
still here. How odd. A two-minute walk from the barrack to the
kitchen has saved me for now from Auschwitz, from death. How
strange this whole life of ours is! In the kitchen building, they are
cooking for the laborers from the Stadtverwaltung [municipality]
who are liquidating property
—
Jewish apartments.
I’m peeling potatoes and sitting quietly because I don’t want
to talk to anybody, but the people are curious and ask how it was.
I don’t feel like bringing our pain out into the open. I wish they
would leave me alone.
ey’re so unkind! ey think that the world is their oyster
because they are here. ey are so mean to newcomers. Unwilling
to risk their necks, they don’t let me hide. ey already think that
they won’t end up in Auschwitz.
And this storehouse keeper is such a mean, disgusting boor.
If you bring something good for the kitchen sta, he either eats it
himself or takes it into the bunker for his family. And he’s always
angry with me. I want to help him with the work, but he doesn’t
want me to. He’s afraid that I’ll see too much. e kitchen director
takes me aside. I know her. She thinks that I should get out of here
for my own good, because they might recognize me and there
would be trouble. She’s shaking all over while talking to me. I’ve
seen that
—
she’s worried about herself. I reply in the most placid
way possible, “OK, I’ll go. I don’t want to put anybody at risk, but
in the condition I’m in, I can’t. I am injured, bruised, my face is
wounded. I’ll go when I recover.” What a nice conversation at the
very start! But it doesn’t matter. I’ll manage. And now I’m going to
wash myself. I’m so happy that I’m about to wash my entire body.
[85] I undress and suddenly somebody shouts, “God, look at
her!” ey begin to [pity] and bemoan me. I cover myself up. I need
74 • I Am Writing These Words To You
neither their tears nor their pity. “What good has it done you? What
good?” they ask. “You fools! It’s you who make us miserable. Be
quiet,” I shout. “Leave me alone. It’s none of your business. You
fools, idiots, you walk like cattle to the slaughter,” I’m shouting.
And then I immediately feel as if I’ve been banging my head against
a wall. I can’t even wash myself.
But there were also people I could talk with, who respected
me.
Suddenly, somebody approaches me quickly. Schröter 62
—
the one who had beaten me. Yes, this sadist scares me. I hide
under the bathtub. I prefer to suocate than to take even one
look at him. roughout my stay in the kitchen I hid whenever
I heard his name. He was the only one I was afraid of. Various
people stayed in the kitchen to carry out liquidation works. Most
of them had strong arms and could cope both with their hands
and their mouths. And there were also some random people and
no shortage of scum.
ey are liquidating Jewish apartments. I am speechless when
I enter the barracks.
Yes, one can see the German pace and organization.
[86] One barrack contains carefully arranged blue kitchen
utensils. ey have been beautifully sorted according to quality.
Another barrack contains enamel utensils as well as shining,
bright ones, and pots arranged in a row
—
large, very large, smaller,
smallest. And there is glassware, beautifully arranged on the
shelves. Another barrack is packed with porcelain arranged in sets
on the shelves.
And there is barrack aer barrack. Silverware in one, tin
and electrical devices in another, and canvas, wool, shoes, silk
in other barracks. And this is how the Jewish slaves are working,
assembling Jewish goods and objects obtained at the price of hard
work and sweat.
62 Schröter
—
a Gestapo ocer.
The Final Deportation • 75
And my heart aches and bleeds. ey become angry with me.
I cannot work anymore. I am dreaming of taking all this glassware
and porcelain and smashing it on the oor with a crash. But I need
to place, arrange, carry, and move. And the inspector is watching
and shouting...
And every now and then beautifully dressed German women
come over. Wearing Jewish two-piece suits and fox furs, they keep
selecting new beautiful sets, clocks, shoes.
And everybody wants to show that they can select the prettiest
object and they snatch them from each other’s hands, while I place
them.
And in the kitchen they bake layer cakes and make Bohne
Kaee [brewed coee] for the Hauptmann and his cronies.
And the Jewish girls led by the director are smiling
aectionately and irting.
Jewish girls are working in the soldiers’ kitchens where
[87] they cook and clean. But not just any girl can work there
—
she has to be pretty, clean, and smartly dressed. And you’d
better not approach a chosen one. Don’t you dare! ey want for
nothing, neither beautiful dresses nor good food. ey eat their
ll of goose and layer cakes, but they will not share any with
you. ey have a separate room and sleep on three pillows, while
you have to sleep on the bare oor because they won’t give you
even one.
ey are our prima donnas. e world is their oyster. e
Leutnant [lieutenant] has made them some promises.
Oh, you Jewish whores! I would strangle you.
Yes, give yourselves away to soldiers, German Leutnants.
ey’ll save you, you idiots....You’re as mean as it comes. It’s good
that your brothers are dead, if there are such women among you.
But why am I angry? Why?
Why, it would suggest that I’m a naive idealist who doesn’t
know life at all. Why, you know that there are scum and the dregs
of society in every nation.
76 • I Am Writing These Words To You
And at times like these, such dregs rise to the surface.
Yes, I know about it but I’m choking in this quagmire. I
sometimes think about attacking the Hauptmann when he comes
over. I won’t stand being here any longer.
Another time I witness the following scene: the Hauptmann is
beating an elderly woman who doesn’t want to wash the oor.
[88] Another time the women are ghting and shouting. One
is missing something. Yes, the is something commonplace here.
One robs another and vice versa, and again and again. You can’t
put anything down. ey keep stealing. And it’s so dirty that it
makes you nauseous.
e buckets are full aer the night. And the Germans keep
coming and looking.
Trade is flourishing here. The people go for liquidations,
and I also went once. They rush into the apartment like mad
and rush to the wardrobes, [and] frames. It’s a sacred procession
now. They look for money and gold. And they do find them.
And then at the market they are asked, “Is it gold? How much?
I’ll take it for 500 RM.63 And how much are dollars?” “You want
to buy?”
And the situation with rags is a real tragedy. Each day
everybody brings new heaps of “rags,” as we call them. Beautiful
clothes, genuine silk and wool. e old ones are thrown out and
the piles of suitcases keep growing. And the girls are simply in a
frenzy. New outts, new shirts every day. People, what do you need
so many rags for?
———————
63 Reichsmark
—
German currency. Zagłębie was annexed to the German Reich
as part of the Ostoberschlesien. Accordingly, the legal currency in Zagłębie was
German. By contrast, the General Government retained the Polish złoty as its
legal currency.
The Final Deportation • 77
Eroticism
e people are going crazy: the young and the old
—
everybody. ey will not leave you alone. e same vulgar, awful
words continuously spoken and heard. ey’re only looking for an
occasion to kiss and perhaps. . .
Decadents, they want to seize the day because tomorrow
they might be dead. [89] e militiamen are just looking for new
victims. ey can’t understand that one might not want to. Why,
we might be dead tomorrow.
No, I don’t want to be with you. Besides, it’s interesting that I
somehow don’t want to indulge myself before death. It makes me
want to vomit. It makes me nauseous.
It’s the same with food. e people are binging frantically.
ey steal, snatch. ey just want to eat, eat as much as they can,
and drink vodka and wine, whatever they can get their hands on.
ey gobble and vomit, gobble and vomit. Worse than animals.
———————
ere’s no longer a center in the barracks. Whoever comes
from a bunker is escorted to us. ere is a selection. ey segregate.
e center is in our building. ey make a selection, leaving the
young and attractive and sending the old to Braun for deportation.
ey sometimes leave the old ones selected a long time ago. At
other times they select those to be deported from among them and
leave the newcomers.
e old are protesting, shouting, “We’ll teach these new ones.”
e director [the Hauptmann] comes out and points, Das ist eine
neue…das…das [is one is new...this one...this one]. He points at
the newcomers and a list is made of the old ones. ose who are not
on the list will go. ey do not let anybody hide in an apartment.
ey drag people out by their hair.
I was to be sent away because of the wound on my face. Kranke
brauchen [90] wir nicht [We don’t need any sick ones here!]. But
78 • I Am Writing These Words To You
they le me without my asking. Others plead, cry, beg and they
sometimes do take pity on them. ey leave the husbands and
wives and send the children for deportation. e parents remain.
ey rarely go with their children. You can oen hear the piercing
screams of children. Oh, these poor Jewish children!
e same selection every day. People are selected and sent to
their deaths every day.
I will not stay here. I’ll leave. I cannot be part of this eort. I
don’t want to.
And I cannot tolerate being in this quagmire anymore. In a
little while this life will have me in its clutches.
e liquidation is proceeding at a slow pace. ey take away
heaps of pillows and eiderdowns. Everything is proceeding in
Ordnung [order]. Later they will start transporting furniture.
e deportation is supposed to last until Pessach and the
Jews, that is, those who have remained, are happy. I wonder how
many Jews are in the bunkers and what will happen to them. A
new Wache [detachment of soldiers] arrives. e soldiers who have
been here for a long time are leaving for the front lines. New ones
arrive, none of them young. I look at them, trying to guess what
they’re like. ey have kind eyes and good-natured faces. I was not
wrong. We go with one of them for a liquidation. Not knowing
what the deal is, I keep my mouth shut. And he immediately tells
me, “ey’ve caused you plenty of grief but don’t think that we [like
it]. [91] I’m suering too. Two sons of mine are at the front lines.”
And he begins to conde in us and complain. “Das ist eine Welt von
Tieren, wilden Tieren” [It’s a world of animals, wild animals]. I tell
him what they did to us. I tell him about Auschwitz, but he does
not want to believe [it]. I try to convince him again and again, but
he does not believe, cannot believe.
Why, it is incomprehensible for somebody with a normal
prewar mentality.
I had a long conversation with the soldiers. We found common
interests and I’m happy that there might be many such German
The Final Deportation • 79
soldiers, that maybe the misery and losses will nally make them
see reason again. Perhaps they want the war to end already. Maybe
they’ll drop their weapons? Isn’t it high time already?!
———————
I [don’t] want any more misery, war, or losses.64
64 Additional sentence written in another pen. e meaning is unclear.
80
Part ree
Hashomer Hatzair and the
Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943
Notebook IV (continuation)
[92] I’m still so stuck in what I went through not so long ago.
What we lost causes me so much pain that I’m still unable to draw
a line and separate myself from all of it and say that it’s all over.
I am still unable to treat it as history. It is so dicult for me to
look dispassionately at everything that happened during those four
years of war and make an objective judgment. My eyes simply can’t
see that far. I cannot forget the present and assume the spirit of that
period, which seems so distant, already so unreal and uni mportant.1
———————
[92] e war broke out. Disappointed hopes.2 Everything
interrupted in the middle. Some during hachshara, others just
before aliyah [immigration to Eretz Israel].3
1 End of the chronological description of the deportation and li fe in the liquidation
camp (August 1–24, 1943).
2 e beginning of the history of Hashomer Hatzair in Będzin during World War II.
Pages 92–99 were not included in Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto, owing to the second
extended ver sion, which Chajka w rote in Mandator y Palesti ne in the spring– summer
of 1944 (Notebooks OGEN I, OGEN II). However, the short but concentrated
1943 version reects more anger and criticism than the second version, which was
soened by Chajka herself. e approximate time frame of the descriptions on pp.
92–99 is from the winter at the turn of 1939 and 1940 to the spring of 1941.
3 Dierentiated from regular immigration to other countries. In Hebrew aliyah
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 81
e thread of life cut o right in the middle. What will the
conditions and life be like? Nobody knows. At rst all of us wanted
to ee from here and follow the movement’s route, go toward Równe
and then toward Vilna.4 All bogrim [senior members, adults] of the
movement followed that route.
But then an order came, “Stop. Stay put. Everybody stay where
you are.”
e yishuv of Polish Jews remained, was in Poland, the former
Congress Poland, so our [yishuv] must stay here as well. It had to
stay with the yishuv
—
live, grow, and die with it.5
[93] en they came from Vilna to work in the movement
in Poland. Josef Kaplan [came].6 And aer a while he visited us in
Zagłębie.
“I’m [...]7,” he said. “We’ve become stuck, we
—
the old-
timers. ere’s no path to aliyah. We have to make sure that this
[...] is worthy of our movement. We have to start work, rebuild the
movement, the branches, and the groups.”
means rising, ascending, climbing, advancing.
4 In the early days of the war, most of the chalutzim moved to the East. In late
September–early October they were concentrated in Rovno (the Soviet part
of occupied Poland) but aerward they moved to Vilna, which was annexed
to Lithuania. About 2,000 chalutzim, organized into some 20 kibbutzim, had
arrived in Vilna by t he spring of 1940, trying to nd a way to emigrate from there
to Mandatory Palestine.
5 e command was given by the Hanhaga Elyona [supreme leadership] of
Hashomer Hatzair in Vilna, March 1940.
6 Jose f Kaplan (1913–1942)
—
head of Hashomer Hatzair in t he Warsaw Ghet to until
his execution on September 3, 1942. Following the German invasion of Poland,
Kaplan ed to Vilna but returned to Warsaw in early 1940 as a member of the
supreme leadership of Hashomer Hatzair. Other members of the older leadership
stayed in Vilna and later (1940–1941) immigrated to Mandatory Palestine,
leaving Chajka and other chalutzim, who obeyed t he command “stop,” in Poland.
On the other hand, younger members of the Hashomer Hatzair leadership
—
such
as Tosia Altman, Mordechai Anielewicz, and Shmuel Breslaw
—
also returned to
Warsaw (early 1940). Other young Hashomer Hatzair leaders, including Abba
Kovner, Chajka Grossman, and Mordechai Rozman, also stayed in Vilna and did
not immigrate to Mandatory Palestine. All of them later became underground
leaders in occupied Poland.
7 Unclear.
82 • I Am Writing These Words To You
And I forgot what I once promised myself during hachshara,
that is, that I would never return to being an educator.
Hatnuah doreshet [the movement demands]
—
it’s so simple
and obvious by itself.
A few of us
—
vetera n shomers [members of Hashomer Hatzair]
from before the war
—
assembled. We have to start afresh, organize
tzom [scouts], bnei midbar [children of the desert]8 and educate
ourselves. I can’t remember how many of us there were. Perhaps
nine or maybe sixteen? Not more.
e young, particularly children, are suering from neglect.
Extreme poverty. All trade in is children’s hands. ey sell pretzels,
rolls, sweets, corsets and stays, mercers’ goods, and shoelaces. ey
travel, trade, smuggle. Dirty, neglected, they do not go to school.
No guardians or teachers.
A new generation is growing up
—
children of the street.
Children must not be le on the street at the mercy of fate.
We won’t let them become a generation of [94] amei haartzim
[ignoramuses, illiterates]. e children must not forget the Hebrew
language, but more importantly they cannot become illiterates. We
shall not let that happen. We used to say that we cannot merely
survive. We have to survive psychically prepared for the new tasks
that will await us then.
We started work, eagerly, with a will and youthful zeal.
We focused on organizing children from the poorest strata.
Without a plan, chaotically, but with devotion and zeal. (is was
to be a feature of our work in Będzin from the very beginning until
the end.) I still remember the rst joys and concerns: How can we
8 Hashomer Hatzair was organized according to three age groups: bnei midbar
(10–13 years), tzom (14–16), and bogrim (17–19). e chalutzim were the older
members (aged 19-25), who were supposed to immigrate to Mandatory Palestine.
e name of the you ngest age group (bnei midbar) was derived from the legend of
the heroic battle at Masada (70–73 BC), which provided a constitutive narrative
for Hashomer Hatzair.
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 83
teach children and play with them when they are hungry, dirty and
barefoot?
We began trying to obtain shoes and clothes, and to ensure
that the children would be clean and well fed
—
common funds,
lunch eaten together. But all that was palliative medicine.
Będzin had broad prospects. Young menahalim [youth
leaders] came to us. We have to work on a larger scale and with
more momentum. Let us open a kind of day care center. But where
can we obtain the resources, premises, and money? e only thing
we have is teachers.
Let’s turn to the gmina9 with a plan to open a day care center.
A detailed plan was prepared, [95] specifying the premises we
needed, the meals, the curriculum, and the games.
We went to the distinguished gentlemen and they liked the
idea. Indeed, the children, the young population should be taken
care of. But a more detailed plan was needed. So we prepared a
plan that specied every tiniest detail. Initially, they promised that
we would be in charge of all managerial and technical duties, but
then they took everything away from us. ey did open common
rooms and day care centers, but without our participation. But we
had no regrets. We were happy that we had initiated the idea of
care for Jewish children. Even though [it was carried out] not in our
spirit and not according to our wishes, it was still ne, because we
supplemented those eorts in our kvutzot (groups). More and more
kvutzot, more and more members. Our hearts are swelling with joy
and consolation.
e rst ocial and public bnei midbar mesiba [festivity of
the children of the desert] in the orphanage
—
Purim.10
e orphanage has never seen so many children. ey are
wearing their best clothes. Irka is leading the mesiba. Aer the
muster, they walk in a le, singing loudly. I look around anxiously
9 is refers to the Judenrat, which at the time was headed by Benjamin Graubart.
10 Probably December 1939 or January 1940.
84 • I Am Writing These Words To You
to make sure that there is nobody who shouldn’t be there. e
children are playing, enjoying themselves and rejoicing. A
Purim speech
—
few Israeli motifs but lots of scenes from the
life of children of the street instead. Are all of these children
ours? And they made up all these scenes themselves. [96] And
the words are their own. I’m amazed and I can’t believe it. Wet
with perspiration, the young menahalim youth leaders are proud
and happy.
It is their work, their achievement. And then the asefa
[meeting] followed. Lots of shomer shirts, gray or white, almost
everybody.
ere’re so many shomers! When did they come? When did
they grow up? ere are almost 120 of them.
A short assembly, memorial to the dead and those who
perished for the current cause and a call to ght, to work. We shall
not let ourselves be blindly led by fate. We shall go our own way.
And a tone of yearning for the far-away Eretz Israel, for our brothers
in Eretz Israel.
———————
We
—
the moetzet menahalim [board of directors of youth
leaders], the rst of our irgun [organization]
—
are seeking new
educational paths, because the old ones don’t match the new war-
time reality. Before a discussion on educational matters, we have
to know where we are, our place in the world, how the war-time
reality has inuenced our ideology, and if our path is still the
right one.
We discuss the inuence the war has had on us
—
Jews. e
annexation of vast stretches of our land by Soviet Russia. We
conclude that the war-time reality has further highlighted the
validity of our ideological path. We are talking about the struggle
that is going on now (it’s a struggle against imperialism), our
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 85
orientation and attitude toward England,11 and the stance the
working class should adopt.
[97] We change the subject to educational matters. New
achievements in the clandestine education [program], a new form of
scouting, and more importantly self-education
—
strict supervision
of education. And now a general question: What is our educational
objective? What [kind of] men and women do we want to bring up?
An old-school, prewar shomer, who believes that man is good,12
that one should be moral and not deceive or steal?13
Why, nowadays one needs broad shoulders and has to know
how to achieve one’s objectives with all one’s strength and how to
deceive, steal, and survive in life.
In spite of everything, the old principles have not changed and
we continue to believe in them. We just have to bring up men, but
raise them to be more valiant, resourceful, and practical.14
11 Ideological attitudes toward Great Britain were considered a crucial issue by
Hashomer Hatzair in that early period of the war. Great Britain’s policies were
denounced by Hashomer Hatzair on two grounds: (1) it was an imperialistic
power; and (2) it blocked Jewish immigration to Mandatory Palestine. At that
stage of the war (spring 1940), adhering to the Marxist interpretation of World
War I (following Rosa Luxemburg and Lenin), the new war was conceived by
Hashomer Hatzair as the “Second Imperialist War,” that is, as a war between
two capitalist powers: fascism (Germany, Italy) and imperialism (Great Britain,
France). e USSR policy (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, August 24, 1939)
was interpreted as a clever strategy by the Soviets
—
let the capitalists exhaust
themselves in their ow n war
—
defeating socialism would come aerward. At that
time Hashomer Hatzair in occupied Poland objected to Palestinian Jews being
recruited to the British army. Chajka’s comments about the Będzin conference
are in accordance with the decisions of Moatzat Hashomer Hatzair [Hashomer
Hatzair Assembly] in Warsaw in May 1940. See Notebook V, p. 102.
12 Paraphrase of the title of the novel by the pacist German author, Leonhard
Frank, Der Mentsh iz gut [Man is Good] (Warsaw: Kochot, 1928), which was most
popular in the prewar Hashomer Hatzair.
13 According to its roots in the Scouts, Hashomer Hatzair h ad “ Ten
Commandments.” e rst of them was: “Hashomer is a man of truth.”
14 ese decisions are in full accord with the decisions of the rst moatza of
Hashomer Hatzair in Warsaw held in May 1940. It is known that two delegates
from Zagłębie took part in it. Was Chajka one of them? Probably not
—
there is no
description of the visit in the diaries. One can assume two alternative hypotheses
86 • I Am Writing These Words To You
We put forward the idea and the slogan. [Other youth]
organizations are beginning to sprout like weeds. Work race,
chasing aer people. Commotion on the Jewish street. Here and
there one hears Hebrew songs. “Hazak Veematz” [be strong and
brave], children scream out loud on the street. Small g roups here and
there. You can already tell that Hashomer Hatzair is concentrated
in this building, Gordonia15 in another, and Dror in the kibbutz.
We’re setting up an agricultural farm. On the initiative of the
gmina, young Jewish people were given some 30 elds and gardens,
which they are to plow and sow…[98] to set up an agr icultural far m.16
We put so much eort and energy into that farm. Its construction
began with so much enthusiasm. At rst, we were working 12 or
more hours nonstop and without food. We did get food, but there
was no place to live. Finally, the living quarters were renovated.
First nights on the farm. First clumsy agricultural labor. Peasants
laugh as they pass by, “e Jews are going to work!” We’ll see who
has the last laugh. ey’ll see. And see they did
—
boys in scouts’
shorts, girls in shorts, with spades, hoes, and rakes. At rst clumsy,
awkward. Bruised hands.
en operating plows and seeders and taking care of horses
and goats.
concerning this report: (1) the decisions were the same in Warsaw and Będzin;
and (2) Chajka is reporting here about the Warsaw conference, which she learned
about from information that came from Warsaw aer the spring of 1941 by
emissaries and smuggled volumes of Hashomer Hatzair press in Warsaw brought
by Anielewicz (summer 1942).
15 Gordonia
—
moderate Zionist socialist youth movement. It was named for
Aharon Dawid Gordon (1856–1922), a Jewish intellectual who believed in
redemption of the Jewish nation t hrough physical work i n the elds of Mandator y
Palestine. Gordonia, founded in 1925, was part of the chalutzic movement, and
its members immigrated to Mandatory Palestine to establish new kibbutzim (one
of them, Mishmar Hasharon, is Ehud Barak’s kibbutz). Politically, Gordonia was
linked to the Hitachdut party in Poland and to MAPAI (the party of the workers
in Eretz Israel) in Mandatory Palestine. At that time, MAPAI, headed by David
Ben-Gurion, was the largest party in Mandatory Palestine and controlled the
Histadrut [labor union] and the Jewish Agency.
16 e farm was founded in May 1940.
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 87
At rst, the harvest was meager. Empty elds. You didn’t
see cabbage heads, but only leaves; limp potato stems and a lot of
wasteland.
e next harvest, the potato stems were stronger, the cabbages
looked healthier; gorgeous cauliowers and cucumbers. We put a
lot of eort, sweat, and health into that farm.
A lot of arguments, conicts , heartache, lack of understanding.
It’s no wonder as the farm was an inter-organizational [99]
achievement.
(But it was worth the eort. Something was created. e rst
shaliach [messenger] from Warsaw [was] Eliezer Geller17.)
We contributed a lot to the farm. We, the shomers, always
supervised the cultural eorts.
We introduced a spirit of discussion into the life of young
people. Heated discussions on nationalism, socialism, and [the]
Hashomer Hatzair ideology began.
We oered our ideology to the young. e young people of
the Zagłębie didn’t know us. We stirred up a hornet’s nest. People
began streaming to us. ey were leaving Hashomer Hadati18 and
other organizations and coming to us, which was the cause of a
lot of fuss and jealousy between the organizations. ey were
angry with us. ey looked with envy at our growth, at our people
debating proudly, at Hashomer Hatzair chutzpa [impudence]. Yes,
our hearts were swelling with joy. We were forcing our way.
17 Eliezer Geller (1919–1944)
—
head of Gordonia in Warsaw. Later, he was the local
commander in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and one of Anielewicz’s deputies.
Geller’s visit to Będzin was in the spring of 1941.
18 Hashomer Hadati [organization of religious pioneers]
—
a religious Zionist
socia list youth movement . Hashomer Hadati was simila r to other Zionist-So cialist
youth movements in terms of ideology, education, immigration to Eretz Israel,
etc., but dierentiated itself from the other movements by observing Jewish law
(Shabbat, kashrut, etc.). In most parts of prewar Europe, this youth movement
was called Bnei Akiva. ey were linked to the Mizrachi (Zionist religious party)
in Poland and Mandatory Palestine (later the national religious party MAFDAL),
and established several kibbutzim in Mandatory Palestine.
88 • I Am Writing These Words To You
e rst shaliach from Warsaw: Eliezer Geller.19
We were so happy about his arrival. We were yearning for
news about the movement in Warsaw, the world, and Jewry.
He came to our asefat menahalim [youth leaders’ meeting].
ere were already 40–50 menahalim .
e room was so full, the faces were so young, the eyes so
smart.
He talked about Warsaw and our hearts are swelling. e
largest and best movement, just like before the war
—
Hashomer
Hatzair.
Notebook V20
[10 0]21 100/100
20
—
butter
20
—
milk
12.50
—
eggs
1.70
—
bread
3
—
potatoes
1
—
beets
kielbasa
———————
Sausage
butter
—
20
2 cheese packages
19 Repetition in the original text.
20 Notebook V is without a binding and has the same unlined pages as Notebooks
III and IV. It seems to be another part of the same series of unlined notebooks.
Notebook V docu ments the main events of Hashomer Hatzair in Będzin from the
spring of 1941 to August 1942. It includes an exceptionally vivid description of
Mordechai Anielewicz and an exact report of his attitude in the summer of 1942
(pp. 104–110).
21 Shopping list of the group in hiding.
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 89
bread
vegetables
—
cucumbers
bread
—
1.70
eggs
—
3
butter
—
10 decagrams
chicken
—
20
butter
—
1
7 egg
—
20
bread
—
(there was no milk)
[101] e best publications: Iton Hatnua [the movement’s
paper], Płomienie [ames],22 and others. e best education and
supplementary education; a middle school established.23 Beauti fully
developed mutual help, each gdud [group in Hashomer Hatzair]24
has its own [soup] kitchen
—
kibbutz.
Despite the poverty, hunger, and cold, the life of the young
is bustling and teeming to an inversely proportional degree. And
we’re talking about ourselves, about our growth, about how […]25
and un zal zein became in a way a theme of our life
—
about our
22 Brzozowski, Płomienie. One of Hashomer Hatzair’s underground papers was
entitled Płomienie [ames], followi ng Brzozowski ’s book (two volumes date d 1940
were preserved). Płomienie and its romantic and revolutionary protagonists, the
young Narodniks in late nineteenth-century Tsarist Russia, had a great impact
on Hashomer Hatzair in Poland. Actually, it was a kind of “cult book.” Płomienie
was the rst book to be translated from Polish to Hebrew as Lehavot [ames]
(Merhavia: Hashomer Hatzair Publishing House in Mandatory Palestine, 1939),
and the name of a new kibbutz in the Galilee (Lehavot Habashan
—
Flames of the
Bashan) was homage to the book. e historian Israel Gutman was a member of
that kibbutz.
23 A rare mistake by Chajka: the underground middle school in Warsaw was run by
Dror and not by Hashomer Hatzair.
24 Organized according to age and sometimes also according to gender, “battalion”
in contemporary Hebrew.
25 e rst word is unclear. Maybe part of a traditional saying in Yiddish, “im yirze
Hashem” [God willing]. Chajka, an atheist, omitted the Hashem (God) but still
used the saying in an ironic way.
90 • I Am Writing These Words To You
creative work, which brings so much satisfaction, and about so
many plans and tasks.
e Soviet war broke out.26 Great joy among all Jews. Could
it be? Jews, our fathers, had been waiting for the day, the hour
when Russia would invade our territory. For Soviet Russia was the
only factor saving Jews from physical extermination. Migration to
the Soviet-occupied territories began.27 But there was also a large
number of people who were coming back. Discussions, widespread
discussions, regarding Russia. Many people became disillusioned,
but many were enthusiastic. We assessed the situation realistically.
We saw both the good and bad sides. e reality of Soviet
Russia was irrefutable, tangible evidence, that our theoretical
prerequisites were right. For we had been saying only theoretically
that Soviet Russia could save us. Fascist Germany meant physical
extermination of Jewry, while imperialist England didn’t have
Jewish interests in mind.28 [102] ey were shocked
—
how could
26 June 22, 1941.
27 ere was underlining in red pencil, which was probably done by someone else
and not by Chajka herself. She repeated the same analysis in her revised diaries,
which she wrote in Mandatory Palestine in 1944. In the Israeli political culture
of the 1950s, this pro-Soviet analysis would have been most controversial.
Chajka’s original diaries were used without her consent as the basis for anti-
Zionist papers in the communist press, written by Shmuel Ron (Rozenzweig),
one of her comrades, and appeared during the 1955 election campaign. Later,
while preparing the diaries for posthumous publication (1959), the editor, Dawid
Hanegbi, omitted severa l “problematic” paragraphs from the original translation
of the manuscript. At that time, three years aer the Twentieth Congress of
the Communist Party of the USSR and the denunciation of Stalin’s crimes by
Khrushchev (1956), Hashomer Hatzair and its party in Israel (MA PAM) were
quite cautious about their early adherence to the USSR. It seems that one of them
underlined these paragraphs, aiming either to emphasize Chajka’s sympathy for
the USSR (Ron) or on the contrary, to omit them (Hanegbi).
28 As mentioned above, until the German invasion of the USSR in June 1942,
Hashomer Hatzair viewed the war as the “Second Imperialist War.” Once the
USSR became involved in the war, it became a “ just war” according to the
Hashomer Hatzair interpretation, and the only real prospect for Jewish freedom.
Again, Chajka’s analysis is in full accord with the ideological thesis of Hashomer
Hatzair in Warsaw (writte n by Anielewicz) and a rmed by the general movement
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 91
we say so? Jews living in Soviet Russia are totally lost for Zionism
—
that was of course what General Zionists29 were saying, but the
masses, Jewish masses were gravitating toward Soviet Russia.
I remember that day
—
it was Saturday or Sunday
—
when there
was a rumor that the Germans were leaving the town, that they
were already leaving the institutions and packing up. e troops
had been seen marching away. ey were said to have already been
in retreat. e Jews of that town spilled out: the old, the young, and
[the] children. ere was such joy on their faces. e people were so
happy. “We’ll welcome them with bread and salt,” they were saying.
e rabbis and Orthodox Jews with sidelocks were saying so. eir
gut instinct was telling them that that was their only rescue. And
we were with the masses. Our ideology had sprouted from Jewish
reality and had stuck to it ever since.
ere was a commotion in our movement too. A shichva [age
group] of bogrim was formed;30 there was no way out. ere was
no hachshara. We were trying to establish a post at any price. We
were unable to [do so] on our own, without Warsaw’s help. For we
had no support in the local society or actually in the gmine. Our
educational work had already become less satisfying.
We found an outlet in discussions. And there was no shortage
of topics: Soviet Russia, our attitude toward it, and the relevance of
Zionism aer the revolution.
[103] War changed Jewish reality a lot. e abolition of classes
and general dispossession of the Jewish masses brought about by
the social revolution
—
this is what the Germans had wrought
—
plus a kind of proletarization. I don’t want to be misunderstood
—
workshops were established, Jews didn’t make their living at that
labor, which would have been nonsense. But something changed
in the Jewish mentality. Young Jews were no longer embarrassed
assembly (moatza) held in May 1941, and with the enthusiastic identicat ion with
the Soviet Union and the Red Army aer June 22, 1941.
29 Zionim Klali’im [General Zionists]
—
name of the mainstream Zionist party.
30 e term is still in use in Israeli youth movements.
92 • I Am Writing These Words To You
to work as crasmen or tailors. And that was already something.
e young were already gravitating toward a life of work, dreaming
about working in the Soviet Union.
And if the Soviets had come and at the same time there would
have been a possibility of immigrating to Eretz Israel, they would
have stayed in the Soviet Union. And that was why one could no
longer answer “yes” as easily as before the war to the question of
whether aer a [world] revolution Zionism would be still relevant.
Discussions began. Long, all-night, theoretical discussions
started anew, afresh
—
about nationalism, Borochovism,31 the
Jewish question, the nation.
And the Trotskyites32 began to meddle. Negative consequences
—
the young, whom we valued the most, le us. Salek33 and Sawek.34
And then doubts in the hanhaga [leadership] itself.
Long, tiring discussions.
It was known that Idzia would leave. I planned to forbid her.
[104] But a real blow came with [the departure of] Irka.
e branch, which had been built with such eor t, disintegrated
in our hands and that caused us so much pain. I simply had a feeling
31 Dov Ber Borochov (1881–1917)
—
ideologist of Zionist-Marxist movements
(Poalei Zion, Dror-Freiheit, Hashomer Hatzair). Borochov analyzed the Jewish
situation in Europe in Marxist terms, arguing that the economic structure of the
Jewish nation in the nineteenth century was “abnormal,” that whereas a normal
national distribution of labor had a wide infrastructural basis of productive
occupations (farmers and workers) and a narrow superstructure of service and
intellectual occupations (merchants, intelligentsia, etc.), the Jewish “pyramid” of
the distribution of labor was upside down: a wide unproductive superstructure
and a small productive infrastructure. Aiming to become a “normal” nation and
to free themselves from anti-Semitism (which, according to Borochov, was an
economic problem), Jews must immigrate to Eretz Israel and there transform
themselves into a productive nation. e national liberation of the Jews could
be achieved only by a social-economic revolution. Note that several of Chajka’s
analyses of the Jewish situation in the ghettos were “Borochovist.”
32 e head of the Trotskyites in Będzin was a lawyer named Erlich.
33 Unknown.
34 Sawek Merin. E xecuted as a commun ist in Auschwitz i n April 1943. See Notebook
A, pp. 17–22 (the Duński aair).
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 93
that they were ripping a fetus out of my womb
—
my own child
who had grown there. But perhaps it was more painful to Nacia
[Klugman].35
She was strongly connected
—
theoretically and emotionally
—
to the movement and even more to Irka.
ey had been building together, had grown up together,
learned, and developed [together]. ey were so strongly connected
with each other. Now they were to go their separate ways.
It was so painful. Once Nacia cried during an asefa. None
of us wanted to leave. e ercest oppositionists, for example,
Idzia, wanted to stay with us. ey were attached to the movement
and they wanted to be convinced that they were wrong. We, the
veteran shomers, Dawid and I, didn’t feel able to do that (even
though in his memoirs,36 Mordechai [Anielewicz]37 wrote that he
didn’t understand why Dawid hadn’t convinced them despite his
valuable contribution to the discussion). Somebody had to come to
us and explain. Mordechai came. Such a tall, thin, expeditious boy
emanating so much energy. Yes, he was still very young.
[105] And the discussions resumed. Mordechai had lots
of information and was very intelligent. My doubts le me aer
his rst lecture. I had doubted that he would be able to see the
current reality from a Marxist point of view and t our ideology
within the framework of this reality. Mordechai was a theoretician
of our movement in Poland during the war and he presented
himself as such to us. He had broad perspectives. A new, grand
35 Chaja-Nacha (Nacia) Klugman (1922–1943)
—
Hashomer Hatzair activist and
leading instructor and orator. In the 1944 version, Chajka wrote a detailed report
on the ideological arg ument between the two of them (see Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-
getto, pp. 54–60).
36 is is the only mention of the fact that Anielewicz wrote memoirs.
37 Anielewicz arrived in Będzin in early June 1942, at the peak of the ideological
argument. As a shaliach and member of the supreme leadership of Hashomer
Hatzair in Warsaw he had the authority to end the argument and to make tough
decisions, including the expulsion of deviant members from local branches of
Hashomer Hatzair.
94 • I Am Writing These Words To You
idea could have been born. Not lacking courage, he acted with a
ourish and presented the matters of Jews and our movement in
a global perspective, and that was how he impressed us. He got to
various issues in such a nice, interesting, and, more importantly,
unusual way.
And he did convince Irka, whereas Idzia stayed even though
she didn’t have explanations for some of the issues.
Mordechai played a major role in the life of the young people
of Zagłębie.
It was a period of stagnation in the life of our young
people. Aer that great blossom[ing] came a period of psychical
dissatisfaction. Less activity. e educational work had come to
a halt. Here and there you hear that everything is falling apart
inside a given organization. Everything is resting on feet of clay
—
the slightest wind will cause everything to collapse. Narrow-
mindedness has begun to creep into our ranks. What are the causes
of that?
Every educator has to have his own [personal] aim he’s trying
to achieve as well as his own educational aim. [106] Toward what
goal is he educating the children?
Toward [Mandatory] Palestine? It’s ridiculous. Toward the
Soviets? Or to be stam [simply] men?38 What for?
It was already clear to us that a systematic, gradual
annihilation of Jewry was in progress. So what was the education
toward? Toward death?
e educators saw no concrete social task ahead of themselves
and that was what caused the young [to become] idle and inert.
38 Chajka used the Hebrew term “stam” in two senses: a simple pioneering (abstract
noun) and simple pioneers (a social group). e second was used for young Jews
who aimed to i mmigrate to Mandatory Pale stine without ideolog ical backgrou nd
and with no clear aliation to one of the chalutzic movements. However, those
youngsters needed the organized movements for immigration arrangements
(both leg al and illega l), so they were classi ed as stam chalutz im [simply pioneers].
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 95
ere was a need for a new spark, a current that would
stimulate, invigorate the young and incite them to act, to ght.
And Mordechai came and told us about what was happening
in the world, about the underground struggle for liberation in the
mountains of Serbia,39 about the grand deed in Czechoslovakia,40
about the partisans in the Polish forests. And he asked where the
young Jews were, for they had to participate in that struggle for
liberation as they had always done in every epoch.
at was when we found out about the Polska Partia
Robotnicza (PPR) [Polish Workers’ Party] and about our
participation in it. And about the importance of partisan warfare
during that period of the ghting. And that with the opening
of the second front in Europe the struggle behind the lines
—
sabotage of various kinds
—
would be of the greatest importance.
e individual third-front lines of workers would now determine
the course of the war.
Nowadays Soviet Russia is the only subject of socialism. [107]
Any progressive elements of any sort not aiming at extermination
of people, like fascism did [have to unite]. e only subject of
socialism
—
of actual strength
—
is the USSR. You can’t count
on any proletariat. You can only count on existing strength. e
titanic struggle that is going on now will settle the fate of socialism
for many, many years to come.
Every proletarian willing to ght for socialism has to take the
side of the USSR and aid it in its heroic ght. ose claiming that
the right moment hasn’t come yet are opportunists.
In Poland, the communists set up the Polska Partia Robotnicza
(PPR) [Polish Workers Party], which was organizing partisan forces
under the banner of an independent Poland. Why under the banner
of a chauvinistic [slogan]. Because you couldn’t come to the Polish
39 Yugoslavian partisans.
40 e assassination of Reinhard Heydrich by the Czech underground on May 27,
1942.
96 • I Am Writing These Words To You
masses with other [kinds of] slogans. ey hated Soviet Russia as
much as the Germans and thought that the Soviet occupier was
as hateful as the German one. Masses should be approached with
popular slogans.
A delegate from the USSR, who arrived in Warsaw literally
from the sky (we were so happy about that)41 turned to us
—
the
Jewish faction. Attempts were made to form a certain political/
theoretical base, but they failed. Even though he did change the
orthodox view on the Jewish question, the change was only slight.
He thought that the only solution to the Jewish question was a
general revolution.42 A bloc43 was formed on the basis of practical
work in the political sphere.
e committee consisted of Dror, us, communists. e PPR
was carrying out intense propaganda activity. [108] e life of the
young acquired new meaning.
It spread to the Zagłębie area. e Jewish Fighting
Organization (ŻOB) was established.44 It was founded on totally
dierent principles than the Hashomer Hatzair educational
organization.
41 Andrzey Schmidt (Pinchas, Pinkus Kartin) (1902–1942)
—
veteran of the
Internation al Brigade in Spa in. He was parac huted by the Soviet Ar my into Poland
in December 1941. He established the Anti-Fascist Bloc with Josef Lewartowski.
Executed by the Germans in June 1942.
42 “Lu. Rev.” in the original.
43 e Anti-Fascist Bloc (April 1942–June 1943).
44 e underground in Zagłębie was established in late August 1942. Anielewicz
was the main speaker at the meeting that was held on the farm. e Zagłębian
ŻOB included cells of Hashomer Hatzair, Dror, Gordonia, Hanoar Hatzioni, and
Hashomer Hadati. Chajka took part in the rst meeting together w ith Dawid and
the Pejsachson sisters as the representatives of Hashomer Hatzair. It is interesting
to note that Chajka did not record a detailed description of the meeting. It seems
that for her, the establishment of the Zagłębie underground was more a process
than a one-night decision. In any case, according to Chajka’s description, the
Zagłębie underground was a branch of the ŻOB. Two other titles used by the
Zagłębie underground are mentioned: OKW (only by Chajka) and Lakrav (by
David and Arie Liwer). See Ronen, Nidonah le-hayim, pp. 190–195.
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 97
Iron discipline, strict military discipline, punctuality, and
soldierly tness.
It had already become known that the Jewish nation would
be systematically liquidated. ere was knowledge of Chełmno,
Bełżec,45 [and] the excesses on the eastern border of Poland46 [and]
in Vilna.
Mordechai told us about a gas chamber that killed thousands
of Jews every day, that Warthegau was already judenrein, and how
there were mass deaths by suocation. We were terried. Our
hair stood on end. It was clear that the intention was the complete
extermination of the Jews. [He also told us] about the participation
of the militia47 in the deportations and about the disgraceful
excesses of some Jewish communities.
And he also mentioned Nowogródek48 and how our young
people locked themselves in and defended themselves with axes
—
all of them died, but they didn’t walk like sheep to the slaughter.
ey managed to die a human death.49 And he talked about Arie
[Wilner],50 how he went twice to ask what to do. “Set it ablaze.”
Everything was ready. ey were waiting for an order.
Our path had already become clear to us. [109] Hagana is an
inappropriate term. We don’t want to defend ourselves because
we didn’t stand a chance of succeeding. But [we wish] to die an
honorable, human death.
We took a social task on our shoulders of not letting it
—
[the
nation]
—
sleep peacefully, of not letting it delude itself that not
45 Anachronism. Bełżec was not operating at that time.
46 Białystok was included in the Eastern Provinces.
47 Jewish police.
48 Today Nowogródek (Navahrudak) in Belarus.
49 ere was no sel f-defense in Nowogródek at that t ime. However, the story beca me
a kind of educational myth within Hashomer Hatzair in Warsaw and then a
combat slogan: “Nowogródek is calling!”
50 Arie Wilner (1916–1943)
—
dominant leader of Hashomer Hatzair in Vilna
and Warsaw. Later, he became the liaison between the ŻOB and the AK. He
committed suicide in the bunker at Miła Street 18.
98 • I Am Writing These Words To You
everybody would go, that they wouldn’t exterminate the entire
nation.
We had to bring the naked truth to it and terrify it with
our stories about Vilna, Chełmno, Treblinka, Trawniki, Bełżec,
Auschwitz
—
the sites of mass extermination of the Jewish nation.
We organized young Jews brought up on faith in man and his
goodness. We, who [had believed] in a caring world and people,
the optimists, had become black ravens, pessimists who predicted
that the demise of our entire nation was nigh. Yes, we had to open
its eyes, prevent it from sedating itself on opium, and show it the
naked reality, however horrible it was. Because we wanted to trigger
a reaction. No revolutionary movement, let alone [a movement
of] the young, had ever faced problems similar to ours
—
[110]
the single, naked fact of annihilation, of death. We stood face-to-
face with it and found an answer. We found a path. We were still
groping our way but we found a path and this is what was the most
important
—
partisan warfare and hagana.
Mordechai was the pride of the movement. He had unusual,
rare abilities
—
a man of theory and a practical leader. He couldn’t
stand people’s lack of resources and shlamazel [incompetence]. He
organized the organization. He fought and formed the “ves.”51 A
newspaper was published; a workshop was opened. Something was
being done, built. And not only by us but also by all youth. Despite
very strict conspiracy something changed among the young people.
Whenever the young, tall man with the open-collar shirt was
spotted, people looked at him, saying, “It’s him.” (Unfortunately,
this is what our conspiracy looked like.) We did not compromise.
Mordechai was brave. Not because he wanted to be brave, but
because he truly was brave. I remembered that during the
deportation campaign.
51 Groups of ve members.
Hashomer Hatzair and the Underground in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 99
Notebook VI52
[111] I can remember Mordechai during the deportation days in
Będzin.53 He was extremely curious about everything. A crowd
assembled on the street near the deportation center. e Germans
were shouting, rushing people with whips, ring, and carrying a
corpse. Everybody was eeing, but Mordechai was pushing in the
opposite direction, toward the Germans. He was curious about
everything.
I could give thousands of proofs of his courage, genuine
courage. It wasn’t just pretense, but a part of his nature.
He enjoyed respect in the town, as the people could sense that
he was an extraordinary man. And he didn’t lack for moral courage
either. He was able to criticize the Będzin gmine chairman Chaim
Molczadski54 to his face and pass judgment on him before the Leiter
[director]. Even though representatives of Jewish communities
were afraid of him, they still received and entertained him.
And he was content like a scamp playing a trick
—
that he
52 Notebook VI contains only two separate pages. ese are similar to the pages in
Notebook A (23 lines), and their content is clearly a continuation of Notebook
V and the opening of Notebook A. It seems that these two pages were torn from
Notebook A and t hen attached to Notebook V II, which deals w ith a dierent issue
(the ŻOB in Warsaw). It also seems t hat this (mixed-up) combination was created
in Istanbul (1944), because the notebook numbers t the “Bader Photocopy.” In
any case, the page numbers (111–112) are Bader’s. However, owing to the printed
lines or to the topics, the handwriting is steady and straight and it seems that the
work of writing became easier for the author.
53 Probably the large selection in Będzin on August 12, 1942.
54 Chaim Molczadski (1910–1948)
—
active Zionist, a member of Poalei Zion ZS
(Zionist Socialist) Right; he functioned in the prewar period as the head of Keren
Kayemet Leisrael [Jewish National Fund] in Będzin. He survived Auschwitz,
immigrated to Israel, and was killed in a car accident while serving in the Israel
Defense Forces (IDF) during the 1948 war. Molczadski was buried under the
name Chaim Aharoni. Reliable evidence suggests that he was assassinated by
veterans of the Zagłębian underground.
100 • I Am Writing These Words To You
was eating in their homes, that they were throwing parties for him,
and that they made the eort to visit him on the farm while he was
printing anti-German iers almost right under their noses. [112]
He would always tell us, rst of all, [to liquidate] the Jewish traitors
[collaborating with] the Gestapo.55
So how could his personal behavior be reconciled with the
political struggle that he led? We frowned, but he [Mordechai] had
an answer for that: he wanted to get abroad and they had promised
him that.56 He very much wanted to leave but not in order to stay
there. He wanted to shock the world. Oh, he would have done that
so well! He was the right person for the job. But it wasn’t about
to happen.
———————
Mordechai le57 and things happened dierently. Every day
work started and it brought very little satisfaction. e work was
top secret and only [particular] individuals were engaged in it. e
people were dissatised. ere was also talk about taking action,
but it was necessary to sit idly [by] and wait for the establishment
of contact with the partisan forces or for the right moment for
hagana. Colossal sums of money were needed for that.
55 ere is underlining in Notebook VI, which was probably done by one of the
editors who read the diaries.
56 During his long visit in Zagłębie (June–September 1942) Anielewicz tried to nd
a way out of occupied Poland. His aim was to deliver the information about the
anni hilation of the Jew s to the free world. He hoped to ge t help from Moshe Merin,
who had good connections with the Germans and, at the beginning of the war,
was involved in a forced emigration program led by Eichmann. An emigration
oce was established within the Sosnowiec Judenrat in early 1940, and one of
its ocials was Kalman Tenzer, the head of Hashomer Hatzair in Sosnowiec. e
program failed, but Merin earned the reputation (in Warsaw) as someone who
could help in emigration matters. On the other hand, at that time he already had
a notorious reputation as a collaborator.
57 An ielewicz le Zagłę bie in mid-September 1942 . e reason for his sudden retu rn
to Warsaw was the news about the death of his two comrades there: Kaplan and
Szmuel Breslaw.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 101
Notebook A58
[9] We received news about the deportation campaign in Warsaw.59
It was horrible news
—
apparently they were already liquidating
ghettos as well. People had thought that the several Jewish centers
where there were ghettos would be le intact.
First news about losses.
Sagan,60 M.,61 and others have been executed. A letter from
Josef [Kaplan]. It was a very beautiful, historic letter. He described
the course events had taken.62
A certain anxiety spread in Warsaw. ere had been
rumors that Jews would be deported east. People were
58 Notebook A should have been marked as Notebook VI. e two separate pages
of Notebook VI (111–112) are clearly part of this notebook based on its form (23
lines) and content (the events of September 1942). e page numbers are again
Bader’s. “Bader’s Photocopy” opens with eight printed pages of Chajka diaries,
which contain three samples of her writings: Reshimot C, pp. 1–3 (Notebook B,
pp. 1–11); Reshimot B, pp. 4–6 (Notebook A, pp. 11–24), Reshimot A (Notebook
I, pp. 1–10). Notebook A is attached to it and its page numbers follow the printed
opening: 9, 10, 11, 12, etc. It seems that this strange order was not arranged by
Chajka, but by Bader or his assistants in Istanbul. e approximate time frame of
the events described in Notebook A is September 1942–July 1943.
59 e great deportation from the Warsaw Ghetto began on July 22, 1943.
60 Szachna Efrayim Sagan (1898–1942)
—
Poalei Zion Le leader in the Warsaw
Ghetto. Poalei Zion Le was a le-wing Marxist Zionist party that attracted
radical Jewish intellectuals such as E. Ringelblum, Prof. R. Mahler, and others.
Poalei Zion Le activists were in close contact with Hashomer Hatzair activists
in the Warsaw Ghetto. Sagan was a very active leader, concerned with social
and labor problems in the ghetto and took part in the early discussion about the
establi shment of the ŻOB in its rst framework (July 28, 1942) but soon aerward
he was captured in the “great blockade” and deported to Treblinka.
61 Probably Menachem Linder (1911–1942)
—
Hashomer Hatzair veteran, and
sociologist who was active in Oneg Shabbat (the secret Warsaw Ghetto Archive).
62 is seems to be the opening of a long quotation from Kaplan’s letter, which
Chajka documented by heart. e letter has not been preserved.
102 • I Am Writing These Words To You
afraid to go out. Panic. [Adam] Czerniaków63 turned
to the authorities for an explanation. ey calmed him
down saying that nothing would happen, and he was
cruising in an open hansom cab, telling the people to be
calm because they weren’t in danger.
And out of the blue arrests of physicians and the
intelligentsia began. Conferences with the authorities.
An announcement was made that there would be a
deportation nach Osten [to the east].
ey demanded 7,000. e rst two days they stuck
to the quotas but then they demanded more and more:
20,000, 30,000, 40,000.
[10] Czerniaków can see that he’s been deceived
and he commits suicide. Czerniaków had a lot on his
conscience but he died like a hero, and this is how people
remember him. ey pack all the people designated
for deportation on the Umschlagplatz [collection
point square] (the assembly site for the deportations
from the Warsaw Ghetto) and then into wagons. On
the Umschlagplatz the people lie down
—
feces, dung
next to them. ey lie down in the dirt. Wagons right
by the square. e people are thrown in like herrings
into a barrel. ey suocate in there and only a small
percentage reaches the destination. And children are
oen thrown in like balls and very oen their heads
crash against the wagon walls.
A kilogram of marmalade and bread lure people onto
the square. Children have simply begun to trade. ey
go in and out with bread and [marmalade] several times
a day
—
many die doing that but so what? e people go
out on their own initiative, motivated by hunger.
63 Adam Czerniaków (1880–1942)
—
head of the Warsaw Judenrat.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 103
Josef writes:
e Jewish police are helping conduct the campaign.
Remember that
—
it’s the utter disgrace of our nation.
[11] Jewish hands shouldn’t have touched that. Beware
of it and prevent others from [doing] it any way you can.
e campaign is also being conducted by Poles and
Ukrainians. e Germans we know have failed us. Don’t
ever count on them.
For now workshops are the only thing that can save us.
Set them up and promote the idea of szops [the common
name for workshops in the Warsaw Ghetto].
We
—
the shomers, our entire branch
—
are assembled
in one place and we’re waiting.64 Do know that we won’t
go voluntarily. We won’t go like sheep to the slaughter.
We’re waiting and we’re going to respond.
And now I bid my farewell to you, my dear comrades.
is could be my last letter to you.65
How could he know, sense that those were indeed his last words
to us? Soon aerward a terrible blow
—
Josef is dead, executed
at Pawiak.66 For me Josef was the last of the Mohicans,67 the last
shomer of the old school, from before the war, our last link [12] with
the Palestinian movement, with the prewar movement. Why was
64 It was a tough decision for Hashomer Hatzair members; it meant that they had to
leave their families to their fates.
65 Chaika quoted the letter from memory.
66 Kaplan was murdered on September 3, 1943. It was a “black day” for the young
ŻOB in its primary framework (Dror-Hechalutz, Hashomer Hatzair, and Akiva),
which had been established in late July 1942. Breslaw, another Hashomer Hatzair
leader, was killed while trying to rescue Kaplan and the few underground arms
(some revolvers and explosives) were captured.
67 A reference to James Fenimore Cooper’s novel, e Last of the Mohicans
(Philadelphia: H.C. Carey & I. Lea, 1826).
104 • I Am Writing These Words To You
he executed? I don’t want to recall that because it’s too painful and
it makes me feel ashamed and furious.68
He died as a result of a denunciation, given away by [Israel]
Zelcer
—
a member of the merkaz [central leadership]69 and
Gordonia and one of our “allies.” e latter was just a mean, lousy
man. He’s dead too, but I don’t pity him. Let his name be covered
with shame. Josef wasn’t the only one who died because of him.
Many others died as well.70
I didn’t know Josef well. I only know that he was very popular
and respected. When he visited a small town everybody was excited
about him. He brought political news and talked about the fate of
Jews in various provinces of Poland. Josef was held in high esteem
and he could get a lot done thanks to his contacts with highly
placed persons.
He was also a great organizer and he enjoyed prestige. It was a
terrible blow to our entire movement in Poland. [13] His nal letter
was like a testament. Many people read that letter, which made
quite an impression on all social groups. Even before Josef’s death I
had a feeling that we
—
the shomers
—
were being dogged by ill fate.
During the deportation they
—
[the shomers in Warsaw]
—
tried to get mostly those they wanted to save for aer the war out
of Warsaw.
Among that group was Rachel,71 a future genius of the
shomer movement, who wrote beautifully, and other very valuable
individuals.
ey were captured while leaving the ghetto. e rst victims.
68 Chajka was the one who reported to Eretz Israel (via Switzerland) about Kaplan’s
death. C hajka to Nathan Schwa lb, February 13, 1943. See : Avihu Ronen, ed., “ Saba
Meir Yachol le-hiyot ge’eh be-nechadav: Michtavim me-Bendin le-Schwitzerland
January–July 1943,” (Hebrew) Yalkut Mo re shet 92–93 (2013), p. 320.
69 Israel Zelcer (1913–1942) was a member of Gordonia’s central leadership.
70 A detailed description of the aair appears in Notebook VII, pp. 120–122.
71 Unidentied.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground i n Będzin, 1940–1943 • 105
en Josef, Szmuel [Breslaw],72 the leadership member, who was
captured with a switchblade knife and was executed.
Josef [Szmuel]73 dead. He didn’t fulll his dreams: he wanted
to kill at least one German. And he wrote a letter to Mordechai
right before he died. He wrote about deep hatred, about terrible,
horrible revenge, by which we would make up for all the harm done
to us. [14] And he asked him to give his regards to Josef Szamir,74 if
he ever visited him. No, Szmuel, Mordechai won’t be able to give
him your regards.75
———————
So much money spent on sending them away, on the
equipment, and on just the shoes. ere was a collection, the rst
on such a large scale. 100 to 200 Reichsmark per person. e people
were simply stealing from home, selling their watches and clothes.
Just a new Hashomer Hatzair morality. We collected 2000–3000
RM
—
an enormous sum at that time.
72 Szmuel Breslaw (1920–1942)
—
ideologist of Hashomer Hatzair in the Warsaw
Ghetto, edited several underground papers, and w rote the editorials and political
reviews. Breslaw was killed on September 3, 1942, while trying to rescue Kaplan.
73 Chajka mixed up the names here. She wrote Josef but meant Szmuel.
74 Josef Szamir (1916–…)
—
dominant member of the older leadership of Hashomer
Hatzair, like Kaplan. Szamir was Anielewicz and Breslaw’s instructor in the
prewar period. As a philosophy student at Warsaw University, Szamir convinced
the 15-year-old Anielewicz to move from the right-wing Betar to the radical
le-wing Hashomer Hatzair. Szamir was the keynote speaker at the Hashomer
Hatzair conference in Vilna in March 1940. In his speech he delineated the aims
of the Polish Hashomer Hatzair during the war: immigrating (illegally) to Eretz
Israel (from Vilna), restoring the movements in the Polish ghettos, and sur viving
in the Soviet part of Poland. Szamir himself was supposed to return to Warsaw
(following Kaplan, Altman, and Anielewicz). He corresponded with Kaplan
about this, but he never arrived in Warsaw. Instead, he immigrated to Eretz Israel
and joined K ibbutz Ruchama in the Negev. During the 1950s he became t he main
ideologist of Hakibbutz Haartzi, promoting orthodox Marxism and Leninism.
75 Anielewicz was supposed to arrive in Eretz Israel from Zagłębie. See Notebook
VI, pp. 111–112.
106 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Mordechai had to leave.76 He couldn’t stay here. Josef was dead
and somebody had to take his place. He had also le his large family
without protection. So he had to return. ey were growing restless
in Warsaw because they needed him and needed his guidance, as
he was their leader. He le.
And aer some time we felt the void he le. But back when
he was with us, we felt that what he was telling us about [15] the
guerrillas and forests was more a product of his imagination, of
how he wanted to see it, than actual reality.
It doesn’t at all mean that we had our heads in the clouds
and entertained excessively romantic notions of all that: distant,
beautiful forests, heroic deeds, laurels, bonres, aairs with girls...
It made us laugh.
We knew that it was a tiring, tough life of a soldier. Partisans
of 186377
—
ragged, dirty, and starving
—
stood before our eyes.
Exhausting, long marches. Gray, tiny graves of unknown soldiers78
with simple, black crosses.
But you felt a human being there, without the yellow patch
on your chest
—
not a beaten dog with its head hung low, but a free
man taking revenge, not with words but through action. And that
was attractive.
We argued as to who would leave in the rst group.79 e
boys began to think about the next step. But the girls were worried.
“What about [16] us? Why aren’t they taking girls in? Why, we have
76 Anielewicz le Zagłębie in early September 1942.
77 e partisans of the 1863 Polish uprising. Hashomer Hatzair and other radical
Jewish movements in Poland adopted the symbols and myths of the Polish
national struggle for independence. e 1831 slogan Za naszą i waszą wolność
[For our and your freedom] was adopted by the Bund and later by the ŻOB.
78 Seems to be a free association of Andrzej Strug’s book, Mogiła nieznanego
żołnierza (Poznań: Towarzystwo Wydawnicze “Ignis,” 1922).
79 Inuenced by the Anti-Fascist Bloc’s strategy, it is quite clear that Hashomer
Hatzair in Zagłębie planned at that time (the autumn of 1942) to join the
partisans.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 107
such brave girls. ey’re good at everything: working in the eld,
propaganda, being messengers or paramedics.”
And then those long days of waiting for a letter from
Mordechai, for an establishment of contact with the PPR in the
Zagłębie.
Everyt hing came to a halt again. A nd the people are whisperi ng
and asking about the purpose of all that empty talk when we can’t
bring ourselves to do anything.
Cwi arrived.80 We prepared a plan of action. Large-scale
propaganda on the Jewish, Polish, and German street. A series
of iers on doors, on the street, in the gmine [oces]. Letters to
German companies
—
ours [our comrades] le the ghetto and
went to the “Aryan” districts. e rst walk with hidden iers. e
pounding of the heart, the contained joy
—
I’m doing something.
Workshops began [to produce] brass knuckles, daggers,
knives
—
cold weapons.
e newspaper, fresh news every day [17] from the radio, a
political article, news about the guerrillas, from Jewish ghettos,
and about mass deportations of Jews. e newspaper already had a
number of subscribers.
e struggle against the Jewish gmine
—
against the internal
evil and the police. Aer the disgraceful behavior of the Jewish
police during the deportation campaign a decision was made to
blind [Romek] Goldminc81 and Procel82 with vitriol.
ere was also Mordechai’s secret order and a resolution of
the OKW to liquidate [Moshe] Merin. e Jewish gmine was feeling
80 Cwi Brandes arrived in Będzin in September 1942, apparently as a consequence
of the Hashomer Hatzair leadership meeting (with Anielewicz and Altman) in
Żark i, which was held followi ng the news about the deat hs of Kaplan and Breslaw.
Brandes functioned in Będzin as Anielewicz’s representative.
81 Romek Goldminc
—
(…–1943), head of the Central Jewish Militia in Sosnowiec,
born in Eretz Israel, returned to Poland with his family, had connections with
Hanoar Hatzioni.
82 A Jewish militiaman.
108 • I Am Writing These Words To You
the growing inuence on the young and on the sober, deant part
of the society.
ey began to fear us
—
hotheads ready for anything. ey
feared for their own heads, because they were aware that their
kingdom resting on clay feet would collapse the moment our rst
act was discovered. ey knew that they would be the rst to lose
their heads because of us.
ey didn’t want that to happen [and] no price was too dear
for them to avoid that...
[18] And the most shameful struggle in Jewish history began
—
a struggle against the best part of the Jewish gmine, that is, the
young (the case of Lipek and Cwi Duński).83
eir plan was to push us to the wall. ey called us to a
meeting.
ey criticized those who had brought over “foreign”
pessimism and declared that the things happening in the General
Government wouldn’t happen here.
ere’s the Leiter84 here and the local Jews play a vital economic
role
—
the local yishuv will remain. ey criticized the young for
being Philistines [egoistic and narrow-minded persons] and unable
to act.
ey’d like to go hand in hand with us, as the young have
to be taken care of. ey’d open clubs, have choirs, singing, and
lectures. Hagana
—
very well, they support it too and want to be
ready, but we shouldn’t do that on our own. We’re hotheads, who’ll
bring ourselves and the gmine to ruin.
We answered them...
ere was a time when we wanted to cooperate with them.
Today, aer they have undertaken the disgraceful deportation
work, we have nothing in common with them. [19] ere’s too wide
a gap between us and too much mutual distrust.
83 See Notebook A, p. 19.
84 Namely, Moshe Merin.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground i n Będzin, 1940–1943 • 109
is is no time to educate the young generation when we are
in danger of physical extermination.
ere was a time when we used to say that we had to survive
not only physically, but also morally. We were educating both
ourselves and others back then, relentlessly, zealously.
Today, when we see no future ahead of us but only the naked,
horrible reality
—
death in the ovens of Auschwitz
—
we have to
prepare ourselves for something dierent
—
for hagana. Yes, this
is the only plane on which we can reach an agreement. Sometimes
we didn’t want that agreement either. And we showed them our
partzuf [face]. ey had stopped deluding themselves and began
ghting us.
e case of Lipek [Minc]85 and Cwi Duński.86
At rst, the matter was entirely in their [the gmina’s] hands.
ey knew that Lipek had been secretly listening to the radio and
that a newspaper and iers had been found at Cwi’s.87 Cwi’s mother
had been taken away with her child and they were [being] kept
in prison to be deported. According to the German [20] custom,
the parents were made responsible for their children’s faults. ey
wanted him and all the young people to humble themselves before
him [Merin], for us to come to him. We didn’t and aer several
weeks he released the mother.
Lipek collapsed. He [Merin] took away his brother’s police
[Jewish militia] cap88 and threw him out of the workshop. ey
found themselves without any means of subsistence. Lipek had a
breakdown, cried before him [Merin] and confessed.
And when our underground activity didn’t cease, he [Merin]
handed the case over to the Gestapo. e boys were taken to prison.
Before the Germans found them they assembled about half of our
85 Lipek Minc (1923–1943)
—
elder Hashomer Hatzair member in Sosnowiec.
86 Cwi Duński (1921–1943)
—
head of Hashomer Hatzair in Sosnowiec.
87 It appears that the conict began in December 1942. e investigation was
conducted by the Jewish police.
88 Minc’s brother served in the Jewish Militia.
110 • I Am Writing These Words To You
branch, the members and parents, and beat them to make them
reveal his [Cwi’s] hideout. Nobody gave him away.
In prison the boys found out that Merin89 and Goldminc had
signed a condential document at the Gestapo, accusing Lipek
and Cwi of membership in a secret organization that conducted
sabotage against the Germans.
Merin and Goldminc had given those innocent boys into the
hands of those murderers. e boys were imprisoned with PPR
members.90
ey showed how people, revolutionaries, should hold on
and behave, while those shady [21] characters and scoundrels
were competing with each other in denunciations. Despite severe
beatings the boys didn’t breathe a word. Lipek rehabilitated himself
completely. He turned out weak in the face of [Merin’s] crooked
ways and diplomatic speech. He wanted to play the role of a diplomat
too, so they baited and caught him. But he proved resilient to the
Germans and their […].91
And Cwi, that simple boy devoted to the movement, knew
how to be a hero. Aer every interrogation he would return covered
in blood and unconscious. But as soon as he came around, he
would take water and wash the others and console them, making
them hardier and stronger. And when one of the prisoners who
was sleeping in the same cell tried to hang himself, Cwi didn’t try
to stop him even though he would have been executed for that.
But Cwi and Lipek enjoyed the most respect on the part of the
Germans.
e Germans spat on Moshe Merin and told the boys, “Sie sind
doch soviel schuldig wie der Christus” [You are as guilty as Christ].
89 Moshe Merin or his brother Chaim Merin, who at that time was head of the local
Sosnowiec Judenrat and was involved in the interrogation.
90 A group of eight Jewish communists were arrested by the Judenrat at the same
time, that is, February–March 1943.
91 Unclear in the original text.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 111
Cwi was executed in Auschwitz, but Lipek purportedly is still
living and working there.92
[22] e case of Lipek and Cwi is a dark stain on the history
of our movement in Zagłębie. Whenever I recall it I feel ashamed,
even tod ay.
ere was no need for those victims.
We were still weak back then and not ready to react. So it was
either of the two: react or go to Canossa.93 Back then we could
still go to Merin. We would have avoided the unnecessary victims
and even that burning shame caused by their deaths remaining
un[avenged]. e response of a ghting revolutionary organization,
which we were, should have been either to rescue the boys or kill
Goldminc or Merin, and go even more underground and intensify
the conspiracy. Conspiracy was undoable
—
the locality was small,
no apartments to hide in, and the gmine knew the top ranks of our
organization very well.
So we could have taken action and then completely liquidated
the organization, but we didn’t want to let that happen.
[23] We took a step ahead: we “dissolved” the organization in
order to completely “confuse” the enemy.
We already knew that we would never gain importance
without rearms.
And Warsaw had already had a lot of experience. It had
already gone through the January campaign and the rst defense. 94
92 An ocial Judenrat document of April 23, 1943, signed by Merin’s secretary,
announced the execution of the eight supposed communists. e list included
Sawek Merin and Dov (Bobo) Graubart, who le Hashomer Hatzair in the
summer of 1942 over the Trotskyist aair. Cwi Duński and Lipek Minc were
not mentioned, but it seems that Duński was executed at that time. See Ronen,
Nidonah le-hayim, p. 231.
93 Going to Canossa (Gang nach Canossa)
—
an idiomatic reference to humiliating
surrender in German and other European languages. It refers to the barefoot
walk in the snow of Emperor Heinrich IV from Speier to Canossa to ask for Pope
Gregory VII’s forgiveness in 1077.
94 e Jewish resistance in Warsaw on January 18, 1943.
112 • I Am Writing These Words To You
We were so proud: 40 Germans perished and only a few of
ours. It turned out that those who defended themselves were the
ones who didn’t die.
A decision was made to send somebody to Warsaw: Ina
[Gelbard]95 or Idzia [Pejsachson]?
Idzia was sent as she would accomplish more, clarify our
situation, demand aid for us, and learn a practical lesson in Warsaw
as to how to operate. And that was another mistake. We shouldn’t
have sent our best girl, particularly as she wasn’t so t for that. She
was shortsighted and shortsighted people are always scared.
Idzia perished on the way, while carrying arms, but she had
done a lot for us: she presented our situation in [24] Warsaw and
they promised to keep sending arms. Astrit [Zosia Miller]96 arrived
with the rst pieces. Great sorrow over the loss of Idzia, but also
great joy on account of those rst weapons. We looked at them
as though they were sacred objects. e rst lesson. Baruch is97
teaching us. I grab one, initially scared that it’ll burn me, but then
my hands began to move more condently and stroke the piece.
You feel more condent with it and you gain importance in your
own eyes. e boys were making fun of us, “So you can do it too?
It’s not for you.”
Astrit is a new type of member of our movement
—
a girl
messenger. In normal times she would be a very ordinary type of
girl. Yes, boys would always nd her attractive. She’s very pretty
and shapely, but also ighty and vain. She was talking a lot about
clothes, because one had to look neat and pretty on the “Aryan”
side. New shoes, shirts, dresses had to be bought every time.
And you couldn’t criticize her at all. [25] It had to be so. She
was so brave, was such a daredevil, and had so much chutzpa.
95 Ina Gelbard (1921–1943)
—
Hashomer Hatzair activist from Zawiercie.
96 Zosia M iller, underground n ame “Astrit” or “Astrid ”
—
a ŻOB (Hashomer Hatzair)
courier from Warsaw, disappeared in late 1943.
97 Baruch Gaek. He alone, of all underground members, had some military
training.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 113
ey never stopped her for frisking. Once she brought [arms] in a
large teddy bear
—
she looked so sweet and innocent with it
—
the
second time in a marmalade tin, and the third time simply in her
coat pocket. She went back and forth several times
—
bold, brave,
and condent.
Every time she handed us the weapons she complained about
feeling somehow sterile, empty, and barren of content. She deeply
respected Mordechai and Arie [Wilner].
Astrit said that if Mordechai dared to leave now (rumors were
going round in our organization that he was to go to e Hague),98
she would slap him despite all her admiration. Whenever she came
we threw a party and drank vodka
—
Warsaw customs had to be
introduced.
When she was told that she would surely survive thanks to her
appearance, Astrit would say, “When the ghetto is no more and our
people have le [26] or perished, my mission will be over and I’ll
have nothing to live for. I’ll nish myself o.” I don’t know if she’s
going to do it or not, but I did see one thing: she was speaking from
the heart, honestly. And even if she could bring herself only to say
that, it was still a lot.
at was when we heard from abroad.
Earlier they had been sending us letters in which they wrote
about the moledet [fatherland] and other things in that vein. ose
letters made us laugh. How could we care about that while being
engaged in a bloody, daily ght for survival? Was that99
ose letters caused us pain, but at the same time made
us laugh. e most explicit expression of our attitude toward
the [moledet] overseas was a slightly vulgar saying
—
Moledet,
Y[ob].T[voyu]. M[at].10 0
98 To the Permanent Court of International Justice in e Hague. Chajka, who was
Anielewicz’s main hostess during his long visit, was most familiar with his ideas
and plans.
99 Incomplete sentence.
100 A mix of Hebrew and Russian, this means: Fatherland, go fuck your mother.
114 • I Am Writing These Words To You
But perhaps we were most irritated by Nathan Schwalb
(shvantz [prick]),101 who was sending such bullshit in his letters,
which were so full of Hebrew sentences that they could give us
away ten times a day.
[27] A parcel delivery campaign was launched.102 Nathan was
unjust, as he was sending disproportionately more to Gordonia
than to us. 103 On what grounds? Had they been given a bigger share
of Hechalutz?
We were angry. e money sent to us from Hakibbutz Haartzi,
which Josef could receive in cash in Warsaw, was exchanged by him
for parcels, which he then sent to various localities across Poland,
with Warsaw not beneting from that at all.
And then Geller104 or somebody else wrote him that we had
become communists. Nathan spread that news without rst asking
Josef if it was true.
He then received Josef’s reply, in which he called him names,
but apparently Nathan didn’t get his statement straight, because
long aerward we received a letter from Turkey,105 asking us if we
had forgotten about Meir.106
How could we answer such a question? It was so painful and
at the same time so strange to us. e parcels from abroad didn’t
bring us much [28] consolation or help. And later we didn’t even
have that, because the gmina began to requisition them.
101 Schwalb was the Hechalutz representative in Switzerland and the principal
correspondent with the Zionist youth movements throughout the war. Chajka
corresponded with him as a Hashomer Hatzair representative.
102 Humanitarian aid from the Joint or the Red Cross.
103 Schwalb was a kibbutz member (Naan) aliated with Gordonia (and MAPAI).
In Eretz Israel, Gordonia was linked to MAPAI, the largest socialist party. In
Poland, however, Gordonia was relatively small in comparison to Hashomer
Hatzair and Dror.
104 Apparently Eliezer Geller (1918–1943/1944)
—
Gordonia leader in Warsaw, who
visited in Będzin.
105 e Eretz Israel delegation in Istanbul, established in January 1943, included
Menachem Bader as the Hashomer Hatzair delegate.
106 Meir Yaari. Code name for Hakibbutz Haartzi.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 115
en there was the foreign passport aair.107 Letters from
abroad with requests for photographs began to come. Heini
[Bornstein]108 had already sent us a letter as early as during that
period. His letters made us so happy; they were short but so warm.
You could sense a dear, kindred spirit
—
he was simply our man.
But the most important thing was that his letters were concise,
to the point, and not auallend [conspicuous] at all. So what should
be our stance on the issue of the Internierungslager [internment
ca mp]? Men hot gerufen an aseyfe un bashlosen [A council was
called together to decide] and a resolution was adopted against
that [idea]. (Later on we learned that Warsaw also adopted such
a resolution.) We were sending only a shlichut. e resolution was
adopted by all the youth organizations.
But suddenly aer several weeks we learned that some
Gordonia members had sent [passport photographs]. Papers began
to come. ere was a commotion in the town. e older generation
was outraged at the young [29] for their rejection of a chance to
survive. Parents began to appeal to their daughters and sons,
achieving partial success.
And the young began to change their minds. Gordonia
members openly supported the idea of sending the photographs.
ere was a frantic search for ways of doing that.
e Kibbutz Dror was seething. Everybody was in favor of
departure and some asked how come that aer so many years of
107 Beginning in January 1943, there was wide-ranging correspondence between
Switzerland and Zagłębie concerning a rescue plan using South American
passports. Youth movement activists from Zagłębie were asked by Schwalb
in Geneva to send him their photos and their personal details. In return, they
received South American documents that testied that the document’s holder
was a citizen of Paraguay or Costa Rica, etc. Having such a South American
passport, they were supposed to be arrested by the reg ular German police and be
transferred as foreign citizens to an internment camp in Germany, where they
could stay until the end of the war.
108 Heini Bornstein (1920–2016)
—
lived in Kibbutz Lehavot Habashan. Hashomer
Hatzair member in Switzerland, who became active aer 1942, keeping contact
with Hashomer Hatzair members in occupied Europe.
116 • I Am Writing These Words To You
hachshara they had not received passports, while people like Arie
[Liwer]10 9 or Motek [Krzesiwo]110 had.
ere was almost no controversy in our movement. Perhaps
the young did get some stupid ideas, but none of us said anything
out loud. On the contrary, when that issue was discussed during a
Hashomer Hatzair asefa everybody was in favor of a shlichut.
Our hanhaga went as far as being ready to resign from a
shlichut, which I thought was wrong, just to avoid creating an
impression that the leadership of the organization was leaving.
A horrible atmosphere ensued. We knew that we would face a
asco and as a popular saying in Yiddish goes, [30] Men walt nisht
gehat — ani di welt [...].111 We, the Hashomer Hatzair movement,
would be isolated. Everybody would get their passports, and there
wouldn’t be any hagana anyway.
We were afraid of isolation and that was our mistake. We had
strength, so why were we afraid to engage in hagana on our own?
We were perfectly aware that the position of Dror would depend on
our strong and rm stance.
A shlicha of the merkaz, Frumka [Płotnicka] couldn’t be
against hagana. We went through those matters many times and
Cwi proposed a project suggested by Frumka to send everybody’s
photographs without their knowledge.
We were against even that and I don’t know how Cwi accepted
that project at the yeshiva [meeting] of the Hechalutz.
In the meantime papers for Gordonia members began to
arrive. Others were outraged [and asked] what they were doing with
the young. e initial enthusiasm for hagana of the rst couple of
109 Arie Liwer
—
brother of David Liwer, ex-Gordonia member, dominant gure in
the chalutzic movement, the manager of the farm. Survived and immigrated to
Israel.
110 Motek Krzesiwo
—
Gordonia member. e rst group (Nan Eck and his family)
le for the Internierungslager (on March 6, 1943); Motek Krzesiwo was a member
of the second group. Survived and immigrated to Israel.
111 e last words in the sentence are unclear.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 117
[31] days had passed. I said, “It’s no surprise. I’ve never regarded
Gordonia as an able organization112 fullling a certain social task. It
proved its inadequacy through its breach of the discipline imposed
by the hachlata [decision] of Hechalutz. It proved its leaders’ lack of
pride and narrow-mindedness.”
And I should also mention [Nathan] Schwalb’s swinish
actions. ere are no words to express our indignation. When we
were soaked with blood and leading our exhausting lives, he still
dared play prewar tricks. A number of passports for Gordonia were
delivered, while we didn’t get any even for our shlichut.113 When
they already had about 20 passports, we nally got one, and to
make matters worse, a Honduran one. Well, I’d like to get a chance
to get even with them.
Besach hakol [to sum up]. What good did help from abroad,
which must have been surrounded [32] with an uproar, do us?
Nacia [Klugman], Jakow [Landou], Berek [Fruchtzweig], and
Hela114 were sent to Auschwitz.115
God, we are personally responsible for the death of those who
were [supposed] to survive.
Making matters worse, we received a wire from [Yitzhak]
Tabenkin urging us to use all means for immigration.116
Isn’t it funny and outrageous at the same time? e issue
112 e second group, including Arie Liwer, Krzesiwo, and ve other Gordonia
members, as well as another 12 Jews le Będzin on April 7, 1943. Letters that
arrived from the Internierungslager (internment camp) in Titumning (Germany)
gave assurance that the program was working. All of the 19 survived.
113 In a letter to Schwalb, Chajka complained that no passports were arriving for
Hashomer Hatzair members.
114 Hashomer Hatzair member; her family name is unknown.
115 A third group of 34 Jews was supposed to arrive at the Internierungslager. e
group included four Hashomer Hatzair members. However, a short time aer
the departure of the group it became known that they had been deported to
Auschwitz . Merin and some of his assistants were a lso deported to Auschwitz on
the same day.
116 e telegram arrived on an unknown date in late June or July 1943, but no later
than July 31.
118 • I Am Writing These Words To You
of the Internierungslager had one consequence: it dampened the
enthusiasm and weakened the strength and the concentration of
force on our one aim
—
hagana.
What was hagana to us actually? Our hatred of Germans was
deepening as they were taking root in our territory, intensifying
their oppression of us
—
Jews
—
and intensifying the gzeirot
[oppression].117 Initially, that hatred was so intense and bitter. I
remember that once as we were walking on a street, some whelp
hit me on the chest as he was passing by. I seethed with anger. [33]
Dawid clenched his sts and I had to take him by the arm. During
the rst period each of us dreamed about hitting or slapping them,
spitting in their face, or killing at least one
—
it didn’t matter with
what: a knife, an axe, or bare hands. We were burning, seething.
Hatred and desire for vengeance were blazing inside us like a red-
hot iron.
Hagana was not only a compensation for the harm and our
nation’s disgraceful behavior. It was not only a deed for the sake
of history, but in my opinion it was predominantly an individual
need in each of us. It was born inside [of] us. We gave birth to that
thought in ourselves. It was the best part of our existence. And
only thanks to its presence within us could we endure all that [34]
humiliation for so long without losing our personal dignity. For
each of us knew that the day of reckoning would come.
And we cultivated the hate in our hearts. I didn’t want my eyes
to miss anything. I wanted to absorb everything, each and every
harm, every brutality, every act of barbarity, and to comprehend, to
grasp, the full picture of what was going on. So that my hate would
be great and powerful, so that it would overwhelm me.
With the passing of time aer the Warsaw campaign, which
made a powerful impression on Jews, Germans, and Poles, and aer
117 Gzeirot is a traditional Jewish term for oppressive orders of the rulers. Here it
refers to the harsh (German) orders.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 119
the incident in the Czechoslovakia Republic,118 it was the greatest
achievement of the people oppressed by Hitler’s regime.
It was a full Jewish compensation on a large scale. For could
any of us dream that the Germans would be liquidating the Jewish
ghetto for four weeks?
We knew that in the best-case scenario [35] hagana would last
a couple of hours.
For hagana has nothing to do with logic or actual defense.
It simply comes down to dying a human death. But
unexpectedly there was a feat that few people living in better
conditions could nd courage for. For me it was a sigh of relief
that we wouldn’t be so ercely condemned. I wonder whether
such actions in all the occupied territories would have made the
Germans change their tactics in regard to Jews. I don’t think so. It
could even lead to an aggravation.
But aside from that feeling of pride and compensation, I was
also feeling great pain, which was ripping my intestines apart.
Everybody is dead, having died a tragic death, as it wasn’t during
combat.
None of our people is alive. ere’s no zecher [trace] of that
powerful and beautiful movement that Hashomer Hatzair used to
be. ere’s nobody le to objectively assess our part in that combat.
[36] Aer the Warsaw feat, a small, minor act would have been
meaningless here, and, in our own opinions, insucient.
We had to bring ourselves to do something grand that would
if not exceed [the] Warsaw [act], then at least match it.
We started work on a large scale. e workshop was operating
at full steam. Ina was traveling to obtain arms. An “Aryan” group
was formed. It was sent to places that it was to set ablaze in order
for its members to get to know them well. We were frantically
buying inammable materials. e girls who were carrying those
118 e assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague on May 27, 1942.
120 • I Am Writing These Words To You
cans [with explosives] to the various groups felt so content and
important.
And then we received a letter from Warsaw, which was a slap
in the face that stunned us.
Very resigned and desperate, Yitzhak [Zuckerman] and
Cywia [Zivia Lubetkin]119 had changed their minds as to the value
of hagana.
ey had come to the conclusion that it hadn’t been worth
[the lives of] those [37] victims and their tragic deaths.120
is is how we explained it to ourselves: the events had
overwhelmed them, they had become afraid of what they had
started with their own hands, and the responsibility that had fallen
on their shoulders was too great.
ey were spiritually exhausted. Aer so many days of
psychological tension, which had reached its zenith, they became
depressed.
It’s no wonder either that they felt devastated aer only 40 of
the few hundred members of the ŻOB had le the ghetto or that
life had lost its value for them aer they became the only survivors
from the very many and beautiful hard core [of the organization].
But should we have learned a lesson regarding our objective
duties from their subjective opinion of the events? No, and that is
why their opinion
—
that aer Warsaw’s hagana there was no need
for it here
—
had absolutely no inuence on us.
[38] And one more thing, very important to us.
Were we supposed to live in the shadow of their glory? Were
we supposed to live at the price of their deaths and peacefully rest
on their laurels?
119 Yitzhak (Antek) Zuckerman (1915–1981) and Zivia Lubetkin (1914–1976),
leaders of Hechalutz and ŻOB who survived the Warsaw uprising.
120 e letter or the message from the surviving leaders of the ŻOB in Warsaw
was transmitted to Będzin by Rywka Glanc (1915–1943), a Dror member from
Częstochowa, who visited Warsaw aer the uprising and was in contact with
Antek and Cy wia. On her way back to Czestochowa, she visited Będzin and le
a letter there for Geneva.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground in B ędzin, 1940–1943 • 121
No, that would have been more than dishonorable. Besides,
had any of the main reasons that inclined us to hagana changed?
No. Not even one. While others were satised with the hechsher
[kosher certication]121 that Warsaw had given them, we didn’t
give up our stance. And then we received Tabenkin’s cable, “use all
means for immigration,” that is, quit hagana.
We were outraged: they hadn’t contacted us for four years
of war, hadn’t helped us at all, despite having [had] plenty of
opportunities, and now, ignorant of the conditions, they dared tell
us what to do.
Could you kindly [39] tell us which possibilities to use? When
we received the wire Hashomer Hatzair had already had three or
four papers.
Plenty of possibilities of immigration!
But that was a way out for those who inclined to look for it.
Gordonia members were openly against hagana. ey were to leave
as soon as all their people obtained papers.
Conicts with the gmina began. Paraguayans, that is, those in
possession of such foreign passports, were arrested, including my
sister instead of me.122 e gmina wanted to exert pressure on us to
take control of the passport aair.123
How could we let that happen? How could we let those we had
sentenced to death survive? e gmina was threatening to deport
those people, but the nal decision was in the hands of the Gestapo.
en came a list from the Polizeipräsidium [German police
headquarters in Sosnowiec] enumerating those whose foreign
passports had arrived. [40] e six of us were on that list. Bleak
despair. What now? is could break our discipline. If they don’t
leave, the campaign against Hashomer Hatzair will resume.
121 Chajka used the term as a metaphor for being legitimized.
122 e youth movement activists were arrested by the Judenrat on May 24, 1943.
123 Merin also sent a letter to Geneva (to Alfred Szwartzbaum dated June 2, 1943),
demanding that all the correspondence with Switzerland be conducted solely by
the Judenrat.
122 • I Am Writing These Words To You
We wanted Nacha [Nacia] to go. It was possible that I
wouldn’t manage to leave, so she would be a shlicha.124 Helena
from Zawiercie125
—
that didn’t depend on us. e gmina would
inform her, and she would have to go. Ina’s gone, so it would be
good if Jankele [Landou] and Dow [Fruchtzweig] went. ey didn’t
want to. What now? Now also Cwi [Brandes]. A decision was made
that Jankele and Dow would go in order not to reveal that we were
keeping boys for hagana.
As for Cwi, his stance was rm and tough: he wasn’t going
regardless of the consequences. ere was pressure on him in
the kibbutz from Frumka and Herszel. But he didn’t give in only
because he was Cwi. e group le. Later on we found out that they
went to Auschwitz. It was Merin’s fault
—
he had said too much to
the Gestapo.126
[41] We lost four good, dear people. I don’t want to accuse the
[people] abroad, even though I’m not very fond of them. And then
came the rst deportation. e order had long been that we weren’t
going to the [deportation] center.
Another terrible blow:127 Irka and Lea [Pejsachson], Mirka128
in the kibbutz, Max, Joel,129 Sara, and others. I don’t want to talk
now about what Irka and Lea had been for our movement. We were
completely disheartened for many days. We couldn’t get over their
loss, but the most painful thing was that they, who had been on
re and had lived and breathed hagana, le quietly together with
everybody else, with a transport.130 ey wrote to us with a request
124 Nacha [Nacia] Klug man and Chajka were the b est Hebrew speakers in Hashomer
Hatzair. As such, they were assigned as emissaries to Eretz Israel.
125 Unidentied.
126 Merin himself was deported to Auschwitz on the same day
—
June 19, 1943. e
Jews connected his downfall to the passport aair.
127 e deportation from Będzin was resumed on June 22, 1943.
128 Her family name is unknown.
129 Joel Springer
—
Herszel’s brother. Herszel was also deported, but he escaped
from the train to Auschwitz and came back to Będzin.
130 In the 1944 version of her diary, Chajka wrote a full (and more empathetic)
Hashomer Hatz air and the Undergroun d in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 123
for bottles [Molotov cocktails]
—
they wanted to start inside, while
we were to start on the outside.
A decision was made to carry out a retaliatory campaign
in various spots in the town. e workshop was to be set on re
should the campaign continue. It subsided [42] and the plans were
changed. Instead of the attack, two expeditions for arms were
organized.
e boys went dressed as Germans. e rst [expedition]
failed. Two pieces were obtained. A boy, a careless Hanoar Hatzioni
member, fell during the other expedition.131 At rst, he held up
bravely but then he started squealing.
We beneted little from those expeditions. Hanoar Hatzioni
members borrowed the pieces and failed to return them.
And Irka and Lea le embittered by the fact that we had not
brought ourselves to act. ey couldn’t have taken the beaten track.
ey might have jumped out the window and been shot, or more
likely they took cyanide because they had it on them.
ose two matters
—
of the Internierunglager and the
deportation
—
depressed us greatly.
at was when we received news from Częstochowa: [43] A
description of the loss of Lea and Irka: “Together with their father
—
an
extraordinary man and former Bund activist
—
he was one of the most popular
people in town. Actually it was because of him that they were to be deported. He
refused to hide in a bunker. ‘I don’t want to,’ he said. ‘I’ll go with all the other
Jews.’ ey argued with him for so long that in the end the German police came
and took them all. Owing to the pressure exerted by various personalities, the
gmina managed to obtain exemption for one person from the Pejsachson family.
ey were to decide among themselves who that would be and they chose their
father, because ‘ere’s going to be another roundup tomorrow and they might
take the elderly. You can still survive. We’ll jump out the wagon and return
home,’ they told him. e father le, while they stayed, thinking that they would
act on the inside, that they would in the end jump out the wagon” (Notebook C,
pp. 16–18).
131 Hari (Arie) Blumenfrucht (1924–1943)
—
member of Hanoar Hatzioni.
Blumenfrucht was executed later.
124 • I Am Writing These Words To You
campaign against our people had been carried out there and the
bunker had been discovered.
Mojetek, Heniek, and Rywka132 had perished, some had
managed to reach Koniecpol, others had vanished.133 And there
was no hagana in Częstochowa. ey had been so well prepared
—
so many grenades, bombs, and handguns. But all of that came
to nothing. Marek [Folman]134 came to us and inspired us with the
idea of partisan warfare.
We had had a dierent attitude toward partisan combat. In
fact, during that phase of the war partisan combat was of cardinal
importance to the Soviets and it had only now begun to assume its
importance.
But at the same time at that stage of the liquidation of Jewry,
when the Jewish yishuv was no more and when the Polish street
ceased to regard us as a separate group, partisan warfare had lost
its signicance to us Jews.
[44] No, it was not historically signicant at all whether 10, 20,
or 100 Jews participated in partisan warfare. What was important
was [that it was] the last act of the dying Jewry. Hagana was now
more essential than partisan combat, which could be a way for
individuals who survive hagana to continue to ght. But Marek
had an inuence on us, especially because, as I have noted, various
groups were seeking a way to avoid dying in hagana. Consequently,
his plan was adopted.
He established contact with a PPR representative.135 e people
were happy that long-sought contact had nally been made. But
132 Rywka Glanc (Dror) (…–1943), Mordechai (Mojetek) Zylberberg (1915–1943)
—
the leading activists of the defense organization of Częstochowa, Hashomer
Hatzair Heniek (unknown).
133 e failed uprising in Częstochowa was on June 25, 1943.
134 Marek Folman (1916–1943)
—
member of the Warsaw ŻOB. Folman took part in
the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, survived the battles, joined the partisans, moved
to Częstochowa, participated in the failed uprising, and then moved to Będzin.
135 According to other sources, his name was Socha. See: David Liwer, Ir Hametim
(Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Twerski, 1946), pp. 125–126.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Undergroun d in Będzin, 1940–1943 • 125
there were secrets in our movement, so even I didn’t ask who, what,
and how. I only knew that he belonged to the same group as Marek.
e boys began getting ready. Breeches were being sewed
frantically. Alter136 was bringing us a pair of high boots from a shed
every day. [45] Plus fours were being stolen. Windcheaters were
being made. And there was so much joy when we learned that girls
would also be able to go with the second group. And then there
were arguments as to who would go.
Dawid was to go as the commander of the rst group. I wanted
to go with him and share my fate with him, but they didn’t let me.
Perhaps I’d still get to go as a shlicha. (Perhaps) I was [still] too
weak physically to go. Dawid was to convince the boys to let us, a
couple of girls, stay with them.
I didn’t want to be petty and say that either we’d go together
or none of us would go. Others, the girls in the kibbutz said so, but
I didn’t. He le. I knew that I would never see him again.
e rst group was very well equipped, our boys in particular.
Everybody had high boots, pants, windcheaters, and jackets. Dawid
had a red raincoat. Kommissar.
Ten young, hunky boys. en another group: another eight
boys and two girls. Our Hela [Kacengold]137 looked like a young, [46]
irtatious Komsomol [youth organization of the Communist Party]
member
—
a soldier. ey le feeling quite happy. And we were
also very happy. Everybody was getting ready for the next groups.
e atmosphere was so joyful when we were bidding farewell, but
without unnecessary formalities so as not to detain them.
ey le, but they didn’t reach their destination. eir leader,
with whom contact had been established and who was supposed
to be a PPR member, was [in fact] a Gestapo informer. ey all
perished aer whole detachments of German soldiers surrounded
them in the forest. eir dreams didn’t come true, as no German
136 Probably Alter Goldblum (…–1943).
137 Hela Kacngold, Hashomer Hatzair member from Będzin (…–1943).
126 • I Am Writing These Words To You
died at their hands. Ajzyk, who managed to escape, told us, “We
were so happy in the forest. We were free without the word Jude
on our chests. Our souls were singing. And he [the guide] was very
good to us. He told us stories and joked with us.
“Suddenly he went to fetch water and we stayed on our own.
A number of soldiers surrounded us and there was such a horrible
[47] fusillade from the machine guns. Boom...boom...boom. I
pretended to be dead. ey approached me and boasted, ‘Ich habe
ihn erledigt’ [I’ve nished him o]. en I ed. ey were shooting
aer me. I can’t believe that I escaped.”
Twenty boys perished that way. Dawid’s death was so painful
and it seems to remain an ever-open wound. But the second group
almost made me furious. I asked if they had a password. ey said
they did. But then I found out that it was either not top secret or that
there was none. Cwi wanted to commit suicide. He was justifying
himself, saying that Marek had given him that idea and that he had
trusted him blindly.
And Marek simply ed.138 Later they passed a death sentence
on him [Socha, the traitor]. I don’t want to suggest that the fact
that he was captured during that journey was a punishment.
No, because he hadn’t wanted the boys to die. But how could a
responsible organization [48] member have been so naive. Why, I
feel ashamed just talking about it.
I bear such a deep grudge against him. I still can’t forgive him.
We were completely devastated. Our workshop had been closed
the moment we had decided to dispatch our major forces into the
woods. e reason was that we had been afraid of a search since
Hari’s [Blumenfrucht] capture. We didn’t know how much he had
revealed.
We spent many days in the bunker. We had lost our best boys
and most of our weapons, which they had taken with [them]. Who
could we begin a campaign with now?
138 Marek Folman was captured and killed near Częstochowa.
Hashomer Hatz air and the Underground i n Będzin, 1940–1943 • 127
Wasn’t it too painful?
We’ve sacriced so many victims, so many valuable people
perished, but we had been afraid to take a risk for hagana. Twenty
such boys, of whom almost everyone was a commander of a ve,
might have constituted a hell of a force. at healthy core of our
[49] movement had le. But those who remained knew that they
wouldn’t let themselves be taken for deportation alive.
But there was an intention to rescue a group of people
—
shlichut. Some were to go to Warsaw to the “Aryan” side. Ina arrived
and said that there was a place for me in a bunker. I don’t want to
go. I won’t go as long as there’s somebody here. I won’t sit there idly
growing fat. Nobody from the hard core went. Nobody was in a
hurry to go and nobody went.
Besides, there was the issue of Hungary,139 which cost so much
money
—
10,000 per person. And it turned out to be a scam. is
was the situation we were in when the things I described at the very
beginning happened.
139 On July 31, 1943, a delegation of four representatives of youth movements went
to the Hungarian border trying to nd a way of escape and rescue via Hungary.
eir Polish guide disappeared in a closed railway station, so they returned to
Będzin and arrived there just a few hours before the last deportation began.
e group was funded by money that was brought from Istanbul by a German
courier, who was sent by the delegation from Mandatory Palestine in Istanbul.
128
Part Four
Supplements
Notebook A (continuation)
[50] Supplements1
Tosia Altman2
I have completely omitted Tosia’s [Altman]3 bikur [visit].4
Tosia paid our branch a visit when we were in our prime.5
But our branch was characterized by a lack of orderliness and
healthy arrangements. Our expansion was not going according to
plan. For instance, there was a kvutza [group] of girl tzom but a
kvutza of boy tzom had not yet been organized. Everything was
1 Aer nishing the chronological history of Hashomer Hatzair in Będzin, Chajka
turned to addressing various issues. Some of these are written as necrologies and
some seem to be short essays or outlines for essays, perhaps for a book that she
would write some day. Pages 51–61 of Notebook A were not included in Klinger,
Mi-yoman ba-getto.
2 e subtitles were added by the editor.
3 Tosia Altman (1918–1943)
—
member of the Hashomer Hatzair leadership in
the Warsaw Ghetto, its principal shlicha and Chajka’s good friend (they both
belonged to Kibbutz Galon). While writing, Chajka was uncertain about Tosia’s
fate. She mistakenly reported her death to Eretz Israel on April 27, 1943, but
later learned that Altman had survived the battles and had been captured by the
Germans following the re in the hiding place of the ŻOB survivors on May 24,
1943. It seems that Chajka belie ved at that time that A ltman was sti ll alive. Chajk a
wrote much more about Tosia in her revised 1944 version. See Klinger, Mi-yoman
ba-getto, pp. 38–44.
4 Actually, the word is closer to bezuch (Ger ma n).
5 Sometime in the autumn of 1941.
Supplements • 129
proceeding erratically, impulsively, which was why our branch was
unhealthy and badly structured. Numerous eidot [intimate groups]
of bnei midbar, a small one of tzom, and a large one of bogrim.
Tosia introduced orderliness, planning, and organization
into our operation, organized asefot of menahalim, conducted a
seminar for the leadership and organized a tzom’s convention of
the shichva, which she wanted to cement and strengthen. But she
did not do anything about a plugat hachshara [training group] on
the farm. Although she did fulll her tasks in a timely manner,
she did not [51] solve the ideological problems as she postponed
[dealing with] those until the planned convention, which had
serious consequences for us.
Later, during the war period, both Tosia and Frumka
[Płotnicka] were no longer t for work. e times had overwhelmed
them. ey were t for normal times, when you could sit in the
Hanhaga6 and deal with the Machleket [department of] Bnei
Midbar
—
that was the only thing that existed for them. ere were
many such instances.
e war-time reality required everything from a command
member: he had to rise to challenges, know how to control a
Hechalutz yeshiva, present himself on the outside, and be able to
nd solutions for all the theoretical and ideological problems that
arose at the time.
[52] Kalman Tencer7
I do not know if now, today, when those times and particularly
their spirit are so distant, I can penetrate the essence of that man
and his signicance to our movement in Zagłębie.
Kalman Tencer was a shomer with every inch of his being.
6 In this instance, Chajka means the seat of the leadership (in Warsaw).
7 Kalman Tencer (1916–1942)
—
Hashomer Hatzair leader in Sosnowiec. His
comrades made aliyah but owing to his movement duties he had to stay in
Sosnowiec.
130 • I Am Writing These Words To You
For a certain period he was the soul of our movement in the
Zagłębie area.
All the bulletins and conventions were Kalman’s achieve-
ments. Kalman Tencer developed the Sosnowiec branch. Our
branch in Będzin was an ideological hotbed, where papers and
operational plans were prepared and discussions were held,
whereas the Sosnowiec branch was a model of orderliness and
healthy composition. All their gdudim [groups] had a normal
structure. [ere was] a solid shichva tzom, which retained the
prewar Hashomer Hatzair values. One could simply say that the
Będzin branch was the head, while the Sosnowiec one was strong
hands ready to work and would do everything neatly and well. If
you gave the Sosnowiec shomers [53] some work to do, you could
be certain that it would be done well and promptly. As for Będzin’s
punctuality, the Sosnowiec branch laughed at us and criticized us
severely and rightly so, but they had less air and intelligence. Yet
everything was in order there.
It was Kalman Tencer’s achievement. He was also so
meticulous that it bordered on pedantry. “You were supposed to
come at this or that hour. How could you not come?” He worked
quietly and placidly, but incessantly, nonstop
—
no excesses, no
hesitation. e path ahead of him was clear.
Genetically predisposed, he suered from a pulmonary
disease, and if he had not been a shomer and had not devoted all
his soul to our work, he would not have died so early.
Even when it was raining or very cold he still rushed to a
discussion, to the gmina for an intervention, or to save somebody
from an Einsatz [(forced labor) assignment].
And when he was taken ill, all the aairs continued to take
place in his room. [54] No important matter could be settled
without him. He continued to take care of our aairs even on his
deathbed.
Supplements • 131
He died in the same way that he had lived, that is, quietly and
placidly.8 His loss was felt long aer his death.
Conferences in Zagłębie
From time to time, more or less every four months, a conference
was held.
First, there was the bogrim conference, the restoration of our
movement
—
our ideological path. e convention was held in the
cellar and each person entering had to give the password.
ose keeping guard outside
—
young shomers, with bated
breath, were watching for any Schupo [member of Schutzpolizei,
state police] entering the building.
Another conference of the menahalim
—
our educational
path
—
our educational aim remains unchanged. e bogrim
conference on the farm
—
the rst major Hashomer Hatzair
convention.
It was a long, cold winter. Snow lay all around. e farm9 was
far away from the town. e road [55] went across elds. White
snow lay wherever one looked. Whiteness all around.10 One could
not see the roads. White snow lay all around, about half a meter
deep. And the shomers were streaming across the elds from all
directions, from Będzin and across the main road, from Dąbrowa11
via Zagórze, and from Sosnowiec via Środula.
I can clearly recall standing outside the barrack, my heart
swelling. e people passing were covered in snow and when
they took o their coats they emerged completely transformed, so
festive in their white shirts. e farm kitchen also looked somehow
dierent that day. e pots on the walls sparkled as if in a festive
8 Tencer died in 1942.
9 e farm was worked by the youth movements and functioned as a central
location for their activities. See much more in the 1944 version and its Hebrew
translation: Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto, pp. 32-41.
10 Probably the winter at the turn of 1941–1942.
11 Dąbrowa Górnicza.
132 • I Am Writing These Words To You
way. Everything had been washed and scraped clean and lined with
white paper.
None of the strangers went into the kitchen. ey only peeked
in to see what it was like at the shomers’. e atmosphere was so
festive and formal.
Singing started
—
loud, uninhibited by [56] anything in this
desolate area
—
the singing was coming from young, strong chests.
ey were singing about freedom and liberty. at conference was
the rst time that our attitude toward the USSR was discussed at
length and in detail. Idzia took the oor then. I can still see her
standing by the wall. She is pale, but there’s re coming from her
mouth. She is becoming more and more enthusiastic. is is what
Rosa Luxemburg12 must have looked like while talking about the
revolution and the international proletariat.
en there was the conference of directors in the orphanage.
An enormous hall, so big, clean, and light. So many windows
and so much sunshine and joy coming through each of them.
Joy was reected on all the faces
—
young, concentrated faces
expressing comprehension and intelligence. Educational issues, but
unfortunately I can’t recall the content. Nacia covered all the basic
issues in one paper. Frumka was at the convention.
[57] She is content with our strength and the sight of so many
young people. ere were 80–100 of us from the entire irgun [the
Hashomer Hatzair movement in Będzin], and some had even come
from Zawiercie.
at was the culminating point of our growth. It was during
the period of rivalry between the organizations, the period of
constant discussions and “attraction” of people. at was when
we asked ourselves a question: Should we be guided by stupid
12 Rosa Luxemburg (1870–1919)
—
Jewish revolutionary Marxist. Luxemburg was
born in Poland and was most active within the international workers movement
in Germany. She was a consistent anti-nationalist, anti-militarist and a great
believer in workers’ solidarity and the prospect of a world revolution. Luxemburg
was murdered during the failed Spartacus uprising in Berlin in 1919.
Supplements • 133
sentimentalism and not break up the organizations? Should we
live in harmony and peace? We decided that we had to disband
Hanoar [Hatzioni] because we pitied those young people, who
were wasting their potential there. But it would not be bad either
to reduce Gordonia’s membership. Let it be said. at was when
we strongly emphasized the dierence between us and them, both
orally and in writing. It was a very tense period. What was at stake
was simply prestige. ere was simply a struggle to win over Salek13
and Heniek, who talked and debated with representatives from all
the organizations, but [in the end] joined us.
Everybody hated us then, but we cared little about that.
We were growing stronger, acquiring valuable individuals
every [58] day. During the convention in the orphanage we outlined
our future work plan and decided to look for roles for the growing
shichvat bogrim
—
build a hachshara post.
When we wished to say something about our conventions
it should be clearly stated that our growth was reected on those
occasions. Growth was evident in the steadily increasing number
of members (20 at the beginning, then 40, 60, and 80), and in the
content and style of the discussions on issues.
Each convention brought us strength, joy, and fresh
enthusiasm for work.
Breakthrough: Internal Transformation into a Fighting
Organization
—
Hashomer Hatzair
Every breakthrough in our movement comes consequentially,
together with the maturation of certain new conditions and a new
reality. Consequently, it should be imperceptible.
But in our movement we have a habit of calling various [59]
periods in its history by name. Once in a while we stop and ask
ourselves the question: Where are we?
We theoretically identify and determine our stances in life
13 Salek became a radical. See the Trotskyite argument.
134 • I Am Writing These Words To You
and the world. When Mordechai came to us and told us about the
PPR and our participation in it, when he established a ghting
organization, he talked about two bodies of Hashomer Hatzair and
about that new organization. Back then we sensed and told him, as
he was, awkwardly, trying to prove to us the necessity of further
educational work, that in fact the educational role of Hashomer
Hatzair was already over. What should we educate the young
shichvot [for]?
at education was to become, particularly with regard
to the older strata, broader rather than deeper. I would say, like
propaganda, closer to Dror’s education.
Education needed for a short-term objective and a specic [60]
purpose. Education preparing one for life in an army, for combat,
but also for sacrice. Education according to Man’s Fate.14
Organization of new educational shichvot was out of the
question in our area.
I still have the impression that it was then that Hashomer
Hatzair became a political–military organization.
Formally speaking, there were two organizations, but when
the one became more active, the other withered.
is is how current needs alter the [organizational] forms too.
[61]
Saturday 2.5015
20 RM
kielbasa 20
20 RM
¼ butter 20
0.60
1 loaf of bread 0.60
0.60
6 rolls 0.60
29.00
pears 9.00
14 e protagoni sts of Malrau x’s novel, La Condition Humaine (1933), are completely
dedicated to the coming revolution and ready to sacrice their lives for it. See
more in Notebooks VII and B.
15 Shopping list of the group in hiding.
Supplements • 135
Monday
—
27 0.60
0.60 bread 5.00
5.00
duck 2.20
2.20
cellu-cotton [bandages] 1.50
1.50
essence 1.50
1.50
vegetables 22.00
22.00
butter 1.20
1.20
coee 6.60
Tuesday
—
28 5.00
0.60
bread 2.20
5.00
eggs 10.00
2.50
stamps 7.00
10
onion 2.50
7.00
electronics 1.20
2.50
porridge 0.60
Water
116.80
1.20 daily 115.80
200
315.80
136 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Notebook E16
e Girls in the Underground17
[1] e atmosphere on the farm has become sad. Lea has been
deported to a camp.18 We had become so used to her and we miss
her so much. Always the rst to get up for work (as early as 5 A.M.),
she would wake up the rest (of the girls). She was the rst to start
work. Lea knew how to work
—
it was in her blood. She was strong,
with broad hips and strong, nimble legs. She had a good-natured
face, particularly when she was smiling and two dimples appeared
on her face. Lea knew how to do every kind of agricultural work:
walk behind a plow, sow using a seeder, cultivate beds beautifully,
bring in hay from the eld, and look aer owers and mushrooms
16 e integration of Notebook E as a continuation of Notebook A and ahead of
Notebook VII is the only editorial change that has been made here that is not
according to the order of Chajka’s writing, but is in accord with its content.
It is unclear when and where Notebook E was written. On the one hand, it seems
to be a late manuscript, because it has the same format as Notebook D, which was
certainly completed in Eretz Israel aer March 8, 1944 (see Notebook D). Both of
the notebook s are without bindi ngs, their pages have 19 pri nted lines and they a re
the same color. It seems that the t wo are both part s of the same origi nal notebook.
On the other hand, Notebook D, which was written in a fragmentary style, seems
to be a continuation of either the short essays or the obituaries.
Notebook D focuses on the subject of girls in the underground. However, the
descriptions of Chajka’s friends (Lea, Irka, Idzia, Astrid, Hela, and Nacia) are not
connecte d to make a coherent picture or a rgument. ese appe ar to be incomplete
outlines for a long essay concerning the role of the girls in the underground. is
notebook was translated into Hebrew and published as an article entitled “Girls
in the Ghetto.” is publication does not solve the question of the circumstances
under which Notebook E was written. It might be the tra nslation of an early essay
that was written in Będzin, or a later essay written (in Polish) for the magazine
to celebrate the second anniversary of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. It contains
some new material about Lea and Nacia, which had not been included in the
previous notebooks. As such, it was also included in Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto,
pp. 140 –144.
17 e title was added by the editor.
18 Approximately mid-1941.
Supplements • 137
in the greenhouse. Her singing could be heard everywhere all
day long. She sang beautifully, her voice quiet, peaceful, and very
sweet. It spoke of spiritual balance and spread such peacefulness all
around. When you heard her singing, your heart became so light.
[2] Perhaps her singing was why she was likened to [Shalom]
Asz’s19 or [Maxim] Gorki’s20 mother. Maybe it was her full, rotund
gure with protruding breasts, or maybe her constant readiness
to serve, to dress wounds, to listen to somebody’s grievance or
complaint and to oer a word of consolation or help.
She was always calm, smiling, and composed. Nobody had any
idea [of] what was hidden under that calm. How many unfullled
dreams (how much longing for somebody far away, how many
storms, how much anxiety).
“I miss you, but I’m ne,” wrote Lea.
It’s no coincidence that Lea is in a labor camp. ere was a
roundup. Approximately 2,000 girls were assembled in a great hall.
Lea did not panic. She assembled the children and walked with
them to the Commission, to the gmina representative. All of them
were released.
[3] Everybody approached with his or her ID. e girls who
were working for the Wehrmacht were released. Lea was one of the
rst to leave. She waited for the girls who came out, took away their
IDs, and sent them back onto the square. And that was how a large
percentage of them were saved. Lea continued bustling around
outside the building during all that time. When they nished work
they were a few girls short to ll the quota, so they organized a
roundup. No ID could help then. Lea was deported.
“I miss you, but it’s good that I am here,” Lea wrote from
the Lager [camp]. She works half a day in the kitchen and the
other half as a nurse. Even though the Germans are watchful,
she can smuggle some food for a pale boy who is going to lose his
19 Shalom Asz, Di Muter (Warsaw: Kultur Lige, 1925).
20 Maxim Gorki, Di Muter (New York: Di Tag, 1915).
138 • I Am Writing These Words To You
strength soon. She knows that that the broad-shouldered one
won’t be hurt by a smaller ration and that he’ll get by anywhere,
whereas this one from the yeshiva [Orthodox institute for
Talmud studies] who doesn’t eat meat needs to have more meat.
[4] She’s very much loved in the camp. When her so
hands touch your wound, you feel better. And her smile has
such a positive inuence.
She doesn’t dare enter the command oce to intercede
on behalf of the sick who can’t go to work aer she was told a
couple of times to go to a German physician. But Lea’s terribly
afraid of that, as he’s threatened to remove her from the
position of a nurse.
Nursing is hard work, but she can’t resign
—
she has to
stay there.
“I will end up in prison, but I must do it.”
It was no easier in the kitchen as there was dreadful
corruption. e women cooks were stealing, giving better
rations to those they knew, accepting gis, and eating their ll.
Lea began to appeal to their consciences, but it had no
eect. But it [can’t] go on like that.
Perhaps.21
[5] One day they announce that two cooks have taken ill.
Nobody knows what happened, but Lea’s smiling under her breath.
ey were severely beaten up and they know perfectly well what for.
e corruption in the kitchen must cease.
But she’s not the only one who’s ghting in the camp. Rachelka
[Rosenkier],22 Hanka,23 and many other girls in the labor camp are
doing the same work and playing the same role.
ey are in a dicult situation there and yearn for a
21 As in the original.
22 Rachel Rosenkier (Schwartz)
—
Hashomer Hatzair member, survived and
immigrated to Israel.
23 Her family name is unknown. Perhaps another Hashomer Hatzair member or
Hanka Bornstein, a Gordonia activist.
Supplements • 139
word about us. And things are getting worse and worse here.
Deportations have begun.24 It remains unknown where the people
are being taken
—
perhaps to work or to a concentration camp.
We know one thing: the number of those who depart must be as
low as possible. As many of the Jews who are to be deported as
possible should be saved, snatched from German hands.
e people have been locked in the orphanage building. We
need access, no matter what. We give the Jewish representatives the
idea that nurses need to be [6] there. ey have to obtain passes for
the nurses from the Germans. ey succeed. Girls in white aprons
enter the building, disperse in all directions, and reach every
corner. ey console the people, calm them down, and bandage
the wounded, but that is not their main task
—
they must remove as
many as possible. One of them takes o her apron and says to one
woman, “Put it on quickly, take the ID, and leave, straight away,
without fear, past the guards, and send [the apron] back.” And
every couple of hours somebody disappears in a white apron. ey
have to watch everything: Which guard is by the gate? Is it the one
who was promised a golden watch? Has the Leutnant come? And
rst and foremost one has to smile beautifully and play innocent.
Irka directs the work there. She’s Lea’s sister. Even though she’s
younger, she has a lot of [7] experience.
She is tall, shapely, and t. e Germans nd her attractive.
She smiles beautifully at them, but hates them bitterly. She would
have strangled them with her own hands. “e time for that will
come. I will pay you back for this smile I am forced to give.” A
passage to the adjacent building was found
—
through the attic
—
and a hole was made in the wall. Every now and then a nurse
disappears with a man who has fainted while being escorted
24 Chajka moves here to another event
—
the rescue operation of the youth
movement activists during the large selection on August 12, 1942. Chajka wrote
about this in her 1944 revised version. For a full description of the selection, see
Avihu Ronen, “Ha-Punkt ha-gadol: Ha-gerush ha-gadol mi-Zaglembie, August
12, 1942” (Hebrew), Massuah Year Book 17 (1989), pp. 102–147.
140 • I Am Writing These Words To You
to the emergency area. ey sneak into the attic on their way.
Everything has to be organized: guards by the attic, messengers.
So much fear and anxiety caused by sending o one person, while
approximately 2,000 people were saved that day. Ocers rush
inside and begin to check IDs. is nurse does not have an apron,
another lacks an ID. ey make them join the deportees. ere
must be victims.
[8] But that eort of ours is not enough.
Idzia says, “We have to prepare ourselves for a hagana like the
one in Warsaw. I will go.” We can’t convince her otherwise.25 Idzia
is as if forged from steel
—
tough, curt, and stony. ere’s nothing
feminine about her.
“ere’s no time now for sentimentality, girls’ stories or love,”
she used to say. e times when that was one of our major problems
are long gone. She has torn that out of her heart. I have never heard
of her being involved with a boy either. “But you can’t go,” we are
trying to convince her. “You’re short-sighted and don’t have a good
appearance. ey’ll capture you.”
“I need to be the rst. First of all, because I have to see how
they are operating in Warsaw. Secondly, to embolden other girls to
do the same.”
She [Idzia] was stubborn and le. “I have learned a lot [9]
from them. I am not going empty-handed.” Astrid26 came without
Idzia. I can see her [Idzia] standing during a meeting, pale, her eyes
burning. She’s talking about Jewish dignity, about hagana. Her eyes
are sparkling. She can analyze events soberly, rationally. Having
an intellectual’s mind
—
at the same time she can attract, inspire,
and make people follow her. 27 It is utterly silent and everybody is
staring at her. I will follow her through re and water.
She is a revolutionary. Perhaps her father’s blood is running
25 Agai n, Chajka moves to Februa ry 1943, the approxim ate date of Idzia Pejsachson’s
trip to Warsaw.
26 A courier from Warsaw. See Notebook A, p. 24.
27 e Trotskyite argument (early 1942).
Supplements • 141
in her veins
—
the blood of old Pejsachson, a 1905 revolutionary.28
ere is a future ahead of her, a broad horizon of thought, where
there is a place for new ideas.
Idzia was captured in Częstochowa. She will never come back.
ere are many versions of how she disappeared. Some say
that a snooper appeared close to her on a street and that she saw
him and began to wander [10] in the area. Rather unfamiliar with
Częstochowa, instead of walking toward the “Aryan” area she was
heading toward the ghetto, which seemed suspicious. e snooper
began chasing her. She started running and that was when a
revolver fell out of the loaf of bread she was holding. ey caught
up with her and shot her on the spot. In another version, the
snooper began to follow her every step and she began irting with
him. He then invited her to his home and she went because she had
nowhere [else] to go. e messenger, our man, who was to approach
her in Częstochowa, le when he saw who she was walking with.
e snooper wanted to rape her, so she took out a revolver and
red, but he managed to escape and bring the police.
Astrit had nothing of the intelligentsia in her. She was only
skilled in her cra of being a messenger. She used to smuggle
people and arms. She knew all the railways, roads, and paths [11]
leading from Warsaw to the provinces. She traveled in a dierent
outt every day: once dressed as a village boy, another time as a
teacher with a big hat. She distributed arms, money, letters, news,
and false papers.
She performed her function well not only due to her “Aryan”
appearance, but predominantly because of her extraordinary
audacity and courage. She looked snoopers in the eye with a
puckish smile and it was she who asked them whether they wanted
to see her papers. She was very lucky, but she still oen ended up in
German prisons.
Many such girls oen traveled by train. In the end they were
28 Icek-Mordke Pejsachson. See Notebook A.
142 • I Am Writing These Words To You
all caught. Many died in concentration camps as Poles because
they had not confessed to their Jewish identity until the last
moment. People received letters from them and sent them parcels.
e girls wrote about their friends who had been deported. [12]
And even there they kept standing guard and sending food to
Jewish prisoners, because their situation [as non-Jews] was much
better.
Girls participated in hagana on a par with boys. ey knew
how to handle every kind of weapon, but most of the time they
were ordered to set re to buildings on the “Aryan” side or act as
messengers or paramedics, but they participated in active combat
as well. e numbers of girls and boys who took part in combat
were equal.
A new type of girl was emerging during the war, that is, one
ready to serve hagana. Its symbol was Hela,29 who le with the rst
group of partisans and went to the woods, wearing high boots and
trousers
—
few people would have noticed that she was a girl.
[13] e nights were full of anxiety. People couldn’t sleep
and were waiting to see what would happen. Every night whistles
ordering people to go outside, fusillades, and footsteps.30 We knew
those marching steps of military men. ey arouse fear. Perhaps
they will skip our house. ey enter and start pounding on the gate.
ey’re cursing and want to tear the superintendent into pieces for
not opening the door for so long. You hope that they’ll skip your
apartment, but they’re already inside. ey check every corner and
bed and order me to dress. Mother is crying, begging the Germans
to leave me alone. “Be quiet!” I shout. “Don’t you dare beg them or
humiliate yourself in front of them. I’m going. Be well.”
It’s dark on the street. (I can barely make out the dark
29 Hela Kacengold. See Notebook A, p. 45.
30 ese pages appear to be an opening to some narrative or the alternative opening
to this section. e page numbers seem arbitrar y and it is quite clear that they are
not the continuation of the previous pages.
Supplements • 143
silhouettes of girls surrounded by a convoy on the corner of a
street.) I can only hear the grate of opening gates.
A group of girls walks out of every gate surrounded by a
German convoy. e Germans arrange them in rows on the corner
of the street. [14] ere are so many of them. We are escorted into
the enormous building of the municipal school. ere are already
so many of us
—
approximately 2,000 girls. I’ve cooled down from
the initial feeling of panic and I look around the rooms.
ere must have been a roundup for girls for labor camps. I
am looking for my friends and I come across Lea. “How have you
ended up here?” “ey came to us too.” e roundup has been
going on since midnight. ere’s Nacia, Dora, and Hela
—
almost
all girls from the organization. What can we do? For now, nothing.
We are on the second oor. It makes no sense to jump out as there
are guards in the courtyard. ere’s going to be a classication in
the morning. ey won’t deport everybody. We’ll see what can be
done then. Now let’s see what’s happening here.
It simply feels like a market square
—
crying, shouting, and
laughing. It’s so stuy that one could suocate in here. ere are
also young girls, little girls [15] under the age of 13. e Germans
won’t send them, but the girls are all in tears. We shall assemble
them, take care of them, and ensure that the Germans check their
age. Nacia escorts these children into a corner. She smiles at them,
dries some of the girls’ eyes, strokes them on the cheek, and brushes
one girl’s hair. She also hands a piece of bread to another. “ey
shouldn’t see our tears. It’s a disgrace. Besides, you will be ne.
ey will send you home.” “Really? ey will send us home?” ey
begin to hug her, dry their tears, and smile. And Nacia’s happy. She
forgets that that fate may not spare her, that she will bow her proud
head before it.
144
Part Five
e Hagana in Warsaw
Notebook VII1
[113] e Hagana in Warsaw
Just as before the war, Warsaw during the war
—
or rather the Jewish
ghetto
—
remained the center of Jewish political and social life. e
headquarters of various organizations were located in Warsaw and
it was still a hotbed of new ideas and enterprises.2
1 Notebook V II had a blue binding in 1985, wh ich it no longer has. It contains ab out
30 pages of 18 printed lines each. e numbering is Bader’s. Notebook VII, which
follows the essays and necrologies, seems to be a specia l one dedicated to the ŻOB
in the Warsaw Ghetto. e handwriting is well shaped, steady, and straight. e
approximate dates of the events documented here are September 1942–May 1943.
2 One might ask why Chajka wrote some 30 detailed pages about the ŻOB in
Warsaw, although she had no personal experience of it and her report is based
on second-hand information. ere are two reasons: e rst is the great impact
of the Warsaw uprising on her and on her comrades in Będzin. e second is
anchored in her documentation duty. While writing in her hiding place in
September 1943, she was painfully aware that she was the only Hashomer Hatzair
leader to sur vive. She already knew that a ll of her comrades in Warsaw were dead.
Actually, she was the one who had to report this to Eretz Israel via postcards,
which were sent by regular mail to Switzerland.
Although Chajka did not visit Warsaw during the war, she was fully informed
about the events there by several emissaries who arrived in Będzin from March
1941 to June 1943 (Geller [twice], Anielewicz, Altman, and Płotnicka). She
could have also read some items in the underground press from Warsaw, which
were delivered by Geller, Anielewicz, and others. Other sources of information
were the Będzin-Warsaw couriers: Ina Gelbard (Hashomer Hatzair), Sara and
Renia Kukeilka (Dror), and Astrit (Warsaw Hashomer Hatzair). Folman and
Zylberstejn. ŻOB ghters from Warsaw who arrived in Będzin in late June 1943
could give rsthand reports about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Chajka also
The Hagana in Warsaw • 145
Various people came to us from Warsaw when it was suering
the worst hunger and the coldest frost. Yet they kept returning
there in their thoughts and could not stay here in the provinces for
too long. ey needed to go back. ey felt somehow drawn there.
For Warsaw was the Jewish center, home and heart. Both the
political and the social life were very active there. Books were being
sold for next to nothing. On a street one might hear Beethoven’s
Ninth Symphony played by an old beggar [114], or see paintings by
the best modern painters in a tiny room in an attic.
On a street every other passerby would shove an illegal
newspaper into one’s hand. Clubs, meetings, concerts for a few
pennies
—
those were the cheapest things in Warsaw.3
And Warsaw remained that center of Jewish life until its death
—
until the liquidation of the ghetto. e Warsaw organization
operated on a larger scale and we always looked up to it. at was
also where the concept of hagana was proposed, but in fact that
idea was born in Vilna, in our movement in Vilna. at was where
a brutal retaliation, predominantly against Jews,4 was rst launched
aer the Bolsheviks’ retreat. It was also where [the resistance in]
Nowogródek5 took place and where some Jewish gmina chairmen
mentioned several letters from Warsaw, which arrived in Zagłębie aer the great
deportation in July 1942, during the preparation for the uprising (January–April
1943) and its aermath. Last but not least, it is known that in the summer of
1942, there was still telephone contact between Warsaw and Będzin, and perhaps
it also existed later: Chajka and Frumka Płotnicka reported to Switzerland about
the death of Lubetkin, Altman, Anielewicz, and others before they had actually
died (letters to Schwalb, April 27–29, 1943). It seems that they had received some
mistaken information by telephone from the “Aryan” side of Warsaw. See Avihu
Ronen, “Saba Meir Yachol le-hiyot ge’eh be-nechadav: Michtavim me-Bendin le-
Schwitzerland
—
January–July 1943,” Yalk ut Moresh et 92-93 (2013), pp. 162–184.
3 ese vivid descriptions are seemingly based either on the Warsaw underground
press or the emissaries’ reports (Geller, Altman, Anielewicz, and others).
4 e famous call by the Fareynigte Partizaner Organizatsye (FPO) [United
Partisan Organization] on January 1, 1942: “Jews, don’t go to your deaths like
sheep to the slaughter.”
5 A footnote in Notebook A relates that the Nowogródek uprising was a myth
rather than a true story.
146 • I Am Writing These Words To You
were forced to submit lists for deportation, [115] but refused to do
so and instead wrote their own names and the names of their wives
and children.
It was from there that Arie [Wilner] arrived with a question.
“Everything’s ready. We are waiting for your decision. Should we
set re to it?” e order wasn’t given because the situation in Vilna
had improved.6
e deportation campaign took Warsaw by surprise, even
though they knew about Chełmno.7 A detailed report had even
been prepared [about] the operation there.8
e entire [population of] Warthegau was exterminated
and experiments on Jews were conducted there.9 e strongest
men and women were resettled from a certain small town to a
Landwirtscha [agricultural farm], where they cultivated some
special plants.
en all those people were loaded onto trucks. ey were
allowed to take [116] all their baggage.
ey arrived at an estate manor with a few poplars growing in
front of it. An old man looking like a nobleman gave them a very
polite welcome, helped the elderly alight, and asked if there were
any sick persons for him to escort to the hospital to see a doctor.
He ordered the people to put down their baggage. Some didn’t
want to, so he let them take it with [them]. He then escorted them
to a certain building and ordered them to undress because they
were about to enter a bathhouse. ere were already lots of clothes
6 Arie Wilner came from Vilna.
7 In her 1944 revised version, Chajka documents the Chełmno events according
to another source: Michael Laskier’s report. Laskier was a Zionist Judenrat
ocial from Będzin, who got the story from a Jew who managed to escape from
Chełmno.
8 e report was written by Szlama Ber Winer (1911–1942), who had escaped the
death camp in Chełmno, under the pseudonym Yakov Grojanowski. e report
described the entire extermination procedure. It was recorded by Oneg Shabbat
in Warsaw in early 1942.
9 A mistaken conclusion by Chajka, owing to the Chełmno story.
The Hagana in Warsaw • 147
lying about and inscriptions: “Fon dan geit men, shoin nisht arois”
[Nobody will leave from here].” en [he said] they were escorted
to another building where they boarded a truck, which did not
leave. It was a hermetic gas chamber, where death ensued from
suocation. Swi steps and shouts, “Shma Yisrael” [Hear O Israel],
were heard from the inside.
[117] at was the beginning of the experiments to nd a
perdious way to kill Jews.
It was some consolation that the chamber could kill only a
few hundred people a day and that consequently the Germans
would not achieve their objective. In the meantime, other more
perdious and ecient death centers for Jews were established,
such as Treblinka and Auschwitz. en it was Warsaw’s turn.10
Josef’s letter, which I have summarized, clearly shows the course
of that campaign.11
At rst a few thousand a day, then tens of thousands, nally
a few hundred thousand. Our people were concentrated together
(everywhere). According to Josef’s letter, a campaign could be
expected. ere was no hagana.
It was a total disappointment. e people were let down. ey
were still waiting for a response by the Warsaw youth.
[118] ere was no hagana in Warsaw at that time. It was not
long aer the formation of a bloc with the PPR, with the intention
of waging partisan warfare. e rst groups had not yet le.
Consequently, all the energy was put into preparing the
people for the woods. at consumed not only much energy
and eort, but also and predominantly a large sum of money.
e people were ragged, short of clothes and lacking boots. It
was the period of the most extreme hunger in Warsaw. But to
go into the woods they needed proper equipment. ey were
leaving the ghetto despite that unfortunate timing. A couple of
10 e great deportation from Warsaw, July 22, 1942.
11 Josef Kaplan’s letter arrived in Będzin in August 1942.
148 • I Am Writing These Words To You
groups were removed from the ghetto and this is where the tragic
story of people from the rst period of partisan warfare began.
Some ended up in wagons [119] with deportees. ere were a few
instances of suocation. e people who were perfectly healthy
and ready to join the guerrilla partisans ended their lives there.
e case of a certain girl was particularly tragic.
Another group in Międzyrzecze was betrayed by their
messenger and handed over to the police. As that group of young
people was walking on the streets of Międzyrzecze, evidence
was found on them, and they knew they were being taken for
interrogation. ey didn’t want that and preferred to die on the
spot, so they decided to provoke the Germans into executing them.
Shouts burst out from the young chests, “Away with Nazism!
Murderers! Long live socialism and the USSR!”
It didn’t work, so they attacked the soldiers, who nally
shot them. e young people died [120] on the spot. ey didn’t
denounce their comrades. I do not remember your names, but
perhaps somebody who knew you is still alive and will tell the
future generations about you. Or perhaps your young lives will be
our small contribution to the tomb of unknown heroes.
Other groups did not reach their destination either. As there
were no messengers who would escort them to the PPR groups,
they had to seek contact on their own. Almost all of the groups
perished and the girls were raped. at was the bloody price paid
for our rst attempts to participate in partisan combat.
And there was also the case of Zelcer.12 Heading for Lublin
(I don’t remember exactly), Zelcer and a group of boys [121] were
captured on a [train] station and they were to be executed, but
Zelcer managed to convince the Germans not to execute him, of
course at a certain price. He survived.
He [Zelcer] escorted them to Dror’s post on the edge of the
12 Chajka returns here to the “Zelcer aair,” which she mentioned briey in
Notebook IV.
The Hagana in Warsaw • 149
woods from where there was to be contact with the partisans.
ose who were with him quickly rushed in to give a warning, but
not everybody managed to escape, and 14 people were executed.
Zelcer was released. He arrived in Warsaw, where he was captured
for the second time. A (false) pass was found on him and when he
was asked who had made it, he oered Josef’s name.
ey drove to Lande’s13 factory to collect Josef [Kaplan], but he
wasn’t there. e owner of the factory
—
I will mention him later
—
did not realize what it was about [122] and Josef was sent for. And
he went, despite all his caution.
He was put in a car, where Zelcer was already waiting.14
Purportedly they did everything to save him. Every single day
prisoners from the Pawiak prison, where Josef was imprisoned,
were escorted to the Umschlagplatz from where he would have
surely been removed. But that day no prisoners were escorted out
and Josef was executed in the Pawiak courtyard, where he was
supposedly buried.
Josef’s death was a terrible blow to the entire movement. We
were grief-stricken for a long time.
e words from his last letter, which became our beacon,
lived on in our memories for a long, long time. As I have already
mentioned,15 during that period we lost a group of very valuable,
[123] young shomers who were supposed to survive on the “Aryan”
side.
During the rst deportation there were very heated asefot
in the Warsaw branch.16 All the young people without exception
demanded action against the deportations. ey wanted hagana.
13 Lande (Landau) was a Jewish businessman who managed one of the factories in
the Warsaw Ghetto. His daughter, Margalit (1926–1943), was a Hashomer Hatzair
activist in Warsaw and her father functioned as the patron of the movement.
14 Yitzhak (Antek) who undertook the post-factum investigation, wrote that there
was a man in the car who covered his face with a coat.
15 Chajka wrote the rst three letters of the name of the person she suspected to be
a traitor (Z[e]lc[er]), but she changed her mind and crossed them out.
16 ere are underlines in the original that were made by an editor.
150 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Very embittered about Josef, the people were waiting impatiently
for Mordechai [Anielewicz].17
e deportation campaign in Warsaw was discontinued.
Everybody working in the workshops and “Aryan” companies was
allowed to stay.
Our people were working at Lande’s workshop, which had
been opened especially to employ them. Lande, whose daughter
was a shomer,18 was an extraordinary man, privy to all our aairs
[124] and very devoted to us.
e Small Ghetto was established.
Jewish property was lying discarded on the streets. ere was
no more hunger or frost.
Walking on the streets was forbidden so everybody was
walking on the rooops, to where whole arteries and streets had
been moved.
When Mordechai returned to Warsaw,19 they [Hashomer
Hatzair members] resumed their previous activity, despite knowing
that its scale was minute. As I have already written, the idea of
partisan combat had already lost its importance for young Jews.
But hagana was still an act of historical signicance, which was
also important for its own sake.
Mordechai became the commander.20 eir main intention
was to ght the inner evil, the Jewish scum. A series of death
sentences was passed on [125] the Jewish police commander and
Jewish moiserim. [Jacob] Lejkin21 and Szrebniakow22 were nished
o. e plan was to get the Jewish gmina to revolt. ose acts of
17 Josef Kaplan was older than Anielewicz and took a more moderate approach
toward the issue of Jewish resistance.
18 Margalit Lande (Landau).
19 Late September or early October 1942.
20 e ŻOB, with Anielewicz as commander, was reestablished on October 30, 1942.
21 Jacob Lejkin
—
second in command of the Jewish Militia in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Assassinated by a Hashomer Hatzair group, which included Margalit Landau on
October 28, 1942.
22 Unknown. Probably a mistaken spelling of the name.
The Hagana in Warsaw • 151
terror were of enormous signicance for the Jewish society as they
awakened its spirit of deance. We also participated in a series of
anti-German terrorist acts carried out with PPR members.
e rst, historic
—
guratively speaking
—
shot was also of
great signicance for our movement.
Szmuel [Breslaw]23 had long been dreaming of killing Lejkin
and that was why he was caught on a street with a switchblade.
He wanted to do it in a very childish way and had long been
contemplating it.
Looking up to Chen,24 he sought consolation in acts of terror.
Initially, the biggest concern of the Fighting Organization
[126] was money, and it needed a lot. But that problem was solved
too.
Rich Jews were attacked and had to pay a contribution. “You
have to pay such and such an amount of money for the Fighting
Organization.” e attackers were armed and masked. Sometimes
shots were red.
e money had to be raised.
e enterprises undertaken needed arms, without which the
game was not worth the candle.
e rst expeditions were carried out with an old, faulty
pistol. In one district a boy and a girl attack a soldier, taking out the
revolver, which fails to re, but the soldier “shits his pants” anyway.
e couple managed to run away.
e subsequent expeditions were more successful.
[127] When the deportation campaign began in January they
had only a few guns. e people were divided into several groups.
e order was not to let oneself be taken alive.25
23 Szmuel Breslaw (1920–1942)
—
Hashomer Hatzair leader and co-founder of the
Jewish Fighting Organization. Breslaw was murdered on September 3, 1942, in
the wake of Kaplan’s arrest.
24 e protagonist of Malraux’s Man’s Fate. A Chinese communist who tries to
fulll his revolutionary mission by blowing himself up with his enemies.
25 e rst act of resistance in the Warsaw Ghetto, January 18, 1943.
152 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Soldiers walk into a at and order the resident to dress and
follow them. e man leisurely puts on his coat. Suddenly
—
boom!
He takes his hand out, shoots, gets the arms and ees.
In another apartment the entering gendarme is attacked with
a torch, as if with a gun. e man puts a sack on his head, disarms
him, and throws him out of a third-oor window.
A dierent trick in every apartment: blinding boiling water,
an axe, and a hammer.
[128] 40 dead Germans and a few wounded, while on our side
there were only a few victims, who didn’t even die in combat or
defense but by accident, as happens during every deportation. e
ghetto was on re. It happens that those who defend themselves,
those who are not empty-handed do not die, that hagana enthusiasts,
who would rather die on the spot than be deported, are those who
stay alive.
ey had been preparing [the uprising] since the January
deportation.
ey acquired arms and the Polish “street” began to take
them seriously. ere was a special issue of arms to the ghetto and
a place to buy arms was found. ey were gaining strength and
importance. Propaganda was conducted on a large scale and in
three languages for three nationalities.
[129] e workshops were operating on a large scale. ey
had chemists and engineers, who kept designing new formulae
for bottles with incendiary “cocktails,”26 grenades, bombs, and
mines.
ey were reluctantly sending us pistols. Greedy, they needed
everything for themselves and refused to take our needs into
account. e movement became somewhat Bohemian. e girls
and boys were smoking and drinking vodka. Each expedition or
arms purchase was celebrated. ey were partying a lot and eating
good food.
26 Homemade bombs made of glass bottles and a mixture of chemicals.
The Hagana in Warsaw • 153
When the possibility of internment came up it was turned
down. [Instead, they] opted for a shlichut, which they wanted to
preserve. Mordechai, Cywa,27 and Geller were forbidden to leave,
not even to go to Eretz [Israel].28
[130] At that time Mordechai wrote several letters.29
He succinctly described their operation, which we were to
emulate. He told us step by step how to develop our organization
and how to prepare for action. He demanded action, threatening to
stop sending arms.
A fragment of one of his letters:
Lots of work. Our arms are dropping o owing to the
excess of work
—
dicult, hard toil.
When you collapse exhausted aer a hard day, sad
thoughts beset you: that we’ll soon see each other there,
where none of us is in a hurry to get to. Few of us, veterans,
are le. Farewell, dear young friend.30
[131] ey’ve been expecting another campaign in Warsaw for
many weeks.
Anxiety. e atmosphere is dierent. You can already feel that
something’s up. Patrols keep walking outside our bunkers.31 e
organization has been mobilized and it’s waiting, ready for combat.
Final, frantic preparations. Twice a day a roll call of the entire
organization. It has a few hundred members. Everybody’s armed,
everybody’s holding some arms.
27 Cywia [Zivia] Lubetkin.
28 See Hirsh Berlinski’s diaries. It seems that Frumka Płotnicka, who was already in
Będzin, was appointed as the shlicha. See Notebook B.
29 e letters were not preserved. It seems that Chajka, who took an active part in
the correspondence, was familiar with their content.
30 Chajka, Cwi, and Dawid were three years older than Mordechai. It is unclear to
whom the letter was addressed.
31 Chajka, ident ifying herself with her comrades in Warsaw, switches to rst-person
plural.
154 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Orders have been given. Mordechai is the commander-in-
chief. None of us can go into the bunkers. e Germans enter the
ghetto. ere are [resistance] groups in various places.
We’re in combat. We’re ghting [132] mostly with grenades
and bottles of incendiary material. Lithuanians, Ukrainians, and
Poles are participating in the campaign. 80 German victims and
many wounded. ey didn’t expect such a resistance and they’re
retreating toward the ghetto gates. e next day they return with
tanks, two of which are seized.
A mine was planted at the brush makers’ workshop. It was so
skillfully prepared and planted that the Germans thought that it
was from the other world war. e battle lasted for two days. Who
among us would have dared dream about that? Why, our wildest
dreams didn’t exceed several hours.
e ghetto has been tightly sealed and there’s no access to it. 32
[133] Mordechai writes in his letter that he’s happy to have
lived until that moment.
e Fighting Organization is spreading terror in the ghetto:
the Jews who don’t want to ght or threaten museruf [informers]
are to get a bullet in the head.
Aer two days they retreat into the bunkers. e Germans
are appealing to them to not be afraid to come out. e gmina tells
the Germans that it has no authority in the ghetto. e Fighting
Organization is asked to assume power.
e Germans set out on a rougher course and drop incendiary
bombs from aircra.
Frightened Jews who want to save their lousy lives reveal
bunkers by walking into a courtyard and screaming, “Yiden geht
areus es iz schin nach der akzia” [Jews, go out! e Aktzia has just
ended].
And this is how they’re liquidating the ghetto. [134] And now
begins the most tragic period of the Warsaw hagana.
32 e details are in accord with information known at that time.
The Hagana in Warsaw • 155
Not many people died in combat. Nobody had expected that.
No way of retreat had been prepared. Our people descended into
the sewers. Without food, they were up to their waists in water.
On the “Aryan” side, Yitzhak [Zuckerman] was doing
everything he could and sought help from the PPR to get people out
of the ghetto. Finally, access to the canals was organized. e entire
street was cordoned o by our armed people. Nobody could get
through the cordon. 40 people in very bad condition were removed.
In the meantime, the Germans discovered that there were ghters
in the sewers [135] and they sent [poisonous] gas in.
Can you imagine a more horrible death for our people? Death
by suocation.
Some, for instance, Arie Wilner or Bareł [Berl Brojde]33 were
still strong enough to commit suicide by shooting themselves in the
temple. Mordechai didn’t manage.
e next day, aer an inspection of other bunkers Cywia
descends to her comrades and that horrible [scene] unfolds before
her eyes. Later there was a lot of talk about our people’s heroic
stance.
About Szymon [Heler]34 covering a retreating group armed
with a rie. He let everybody through and in the end perished
there.
About the accident that happened when a group of “brush
makers” were [136] planting a mine.
One more group, including Tosia [Altman] and Szyfra
[Sokółka], managed to get out. ey were in an apartment with a
barrel with gunpowder. Somebody accidentally dropped a match,
causing an explosion. e people were eeing from the burning
building. Everybody was captured. [Eliezer] Geller had some
33 Berl Brojde (1918–1943)
—
Dror member, company commander in the Warsaw
Ghetto Uprising.
34 Szymon Heler (1920–1943)
—
Hashomer Hatzair member, the ŻOB’s best sniper.
156 • I Am Writing These Words To You
address and survived on his own. Quite a feat. Wasn’t he supposed
to rehabilitate himself in action?!
e echo of the Warsaw hagana on the Polish street was
strong. People were saying that Pawiak had been seized, that there
were three ags hanging there: white and blue; red; and white and
red, and that all the prisoners had been freed. But they didn’t want
to believe that the Jews had accomplished that. “Eh, Poles must
have participated in that,” they were saying.
[137] What was the Polish aid?
e PPR deigned to donate 40 short arms35 and helped take
people out of the ghetto. e Sikorski people36 didn’t help. But they
sent a report abroad claiming that they had delivered arms and
food and that they had been supporting us in combat. But in fact
we learned about a secret order that if the Jews and the ghting had
spread to the “Aryan” side, the Poles would have had to suppress
the Jewish uprising hand in hand with the Germans.37
Forty people got out of the ghetto, of whom 12 were ours
[Hashomer Hatzair], 6 were members of Dror and the PPR, and all
10 Gordonia members
—
there were as many there now as there had
been [in the ghting]. ey were escorted to a ranger’s cabin near
Warsaw, where they were in mortal danger [138] of starvation or
discovery.
But a local peasant, who was a Sikorski man, went to the
command to inquire what to do with them. In the end, he took
care of them, brought them food, and presented them with an old
shotgun as a token of respect. e people were given three options:
the woods, internment [for foreign citizens], or departure to
Zagłębie. ey chose the woods. One of the main reasons for that
was that they didn’t want to part with their arms. Today, most of
them are dead. Oh, how I’d love to see at least one of them again!
35 e guns were supplied by the Home Army (Armia Krajowa, AK).
36 e Home Army.
37 e source for this rumor is unknown. It seems to be an exaggeration of the AK’s
attitude toward the ŻOB.
The Hagana in Warsaw • 157
e hagana and [the uprising in] Warsaw are among the
grandest acts of the conquered people living under the Nazi boot.
[139] ey rehabilitated the Jewish nation in its own eyes and in
the eyes of others, but that did contribute to the speeding up of the
liquidation of the remains of the existing yishuv.
e Sikorski people reported abroad that 80 Germans had
been killed and 400 wounded,38 which agreed with the facts. e
history of the Warsaw hagana is the history of another Musa Dag.
It’s another Man’s Fate by Malraux. It’s Brzozowski’s Płomienie.
e people of hagana are extraordinary individuals, men of
the cause, which was closer and dearer to them than life. ese
are not meaningless words or empty phrases. ey gave their
lives for them. [140] So young, so young, they loved heroic death
uninchingly.
ere was Chen among them, and Kyo, and both a young and
an old Gisor.39
Will anybody be able to depict our unfathomable tragedy
and the heroism of the nal days like Malraux rendered China’s
heroism or like Werfel rendered the tragedy and heroism of the
Armenians?
Can a reasonable, sane person comprehend that the Germans
have been liquidating the Jewish ghetto for four weeks?
ey mined and blew up building aer building (even aer
the campaign). [141] Shocking scenes were taking place there.
People were burning alive in the buildings. A mother dropped
her children from the third oor of a burning building and then
jumped out herself. Our hair would stand on end and our hearts
would stop from the pain.
at was why there had to be a bloody retaliation
—
so that the
38 Today it is known that only 16 Germans were killed and 93 were wounded.
39 Chen Ta Erh, Kyo Gisors, and Kyo’s father “Old” Gisors are protagonists in La
Condition humaine.
158 • I Am Writing These Words To You
nation wouldn’t be disgraced. Tabenkin’s telegram was ridiculous
to a grotesque degree.
e reaction of the people who survived in Warsaw was
human, understandable to us even more now than then. But it was
subjective.
An outsider witness will be able to evaluate the historic
signicance of hagana in Warsaw, and so will we many years
later. [142] ere were certain outstanding individuals in the
ghetto who might have grown up to be extraordinary people,
but a social movement doesn’t busy itself with philanthropy
or humanitarianism. Having certain tasks to fulll, it can’t be
concerned with victims.
If Mordechai had survived, I’m sure he wouldn’t have
regretted hagana even for a moment.
159
Part Six
Eulogies
Notebook B1
e Fall of the Fighters’ Bunker
[1] One building in the ghetto attracted popular attention.
Pilgrimages of Germans
—
high military and civilian dignitaries
—
went there every day. Strangers would wonder what was so
attractive about a low, modest building, rather uglier than grander
than others, but we were well aware of what the attraction was. e
Jewish deportees would also like to go and see that building, or
actually the bunker that used to be there, but they were afraid and
dared not pass by it too closely. ey walked around it with fear
and anxiety, as if it had breathed the plague on them. ey passed
by it quickly, afraid to look back. In that building, or actually in
the annex to the large mechanized laundry, there used to be the
[Kibbutz Dror] kibbutz bunker.
I remember those nights when the boys would sneak out of
1 Noteb ook B has a yellow bindin g, with 23 printed l ines on a page. e handw riting
is steady and the letters are rounded. ere are only a few corrections and
additions. According to its date (November 1, 1943) and content, Notebook
B seems to be one of the last notebooks written in Będzin. It contains three
eulogies, the most poignant parts of which were included in Klinger, Mi-yoman
ba-getto: “e Fall of the Fighters’ Bunker,” pp. 104–109; “Dawid Kozłowski,”
pp. 128–135; “Cwi Brandes,” pp. 136–139. e eulogies are written in a literary
style and their content is a mixture of facts and ction. Chajka is mourning her
beloved comrades by telling their stories and imagining their last moments.
160 • I Am Writing These Words To You
the house dressed [2] in working clothes with spades in hand. It
was obvious that they were going to construct the bunker. ey
used to return tired at dawn and collapse on their beds. Many had
to be dragged out by their legs, “Get up, man. Wash yourself before
going to bed.”
“e bunker by the laundry will be the best. Even if the
Germans bend over backward they won’t discover it.” “Is there
going to be another entrance?” I asked. “No, it can’t be made.” “So
I don’t believe in that entire enterprise.” ey were angry with me
that I dared criticize them, as if I knew better. Why, the purpose of
the bunker was not to survive the war in it. It was made for us to sit
there until we understood the situation, organized everything and
then commenced action. We never discussed that subject again.
e boys were so exhausted and they still had so much to do [as]
our bunker was not ready yet.
[3] at bunker by the laundry needed two more days of work
and they also had to help the kvutza. Dawid assigned the workers
every day. Today, Alter and Dow go to Baruch
—
upstairs to nish
up; Szymcha2 and Szmulek [Finkelsztajn]3 to the kibbutz, and the
rest to work here. e boys were on their last legs.
When it was nally nished, they sighed with relief. ey
talked secretly with one another about various bunkers, but they
still stubbornly claimed that the one by the laundry was the
best. “We’ll make a bet with you, Chajka, that you won’t nd the
entrance.” “We’ll see,” I smiled ironically.
e next day I went to the laundry and into the adjacent room.
I looked around curiously. Everybody was watching me, hiding
their smiles. ey already knew what I was looking for.
“I won’t ask. I don’t want to know,” I say to myself out loud and
everybody bursts out laughing. “So why are you looking around?”
I’m laughing too, “I really can’t nd [4] the entrance.” Several days
2 Unknown.
3 Szmulek Finkelsztajn from Kibbutz Dror.
Eulogies • 161
later Baruch nally shows me the entrance. You slip out a small
board, xed inside, through the window. e wall is hollow and
you slide down the wall. ere is electricity, water, and an electric
heater inside. It is indeed a rst-class bunker.
But it was the rst of the bunkers to be discovered.
e cause of that remains unknown: was light coming out of
a crack because the board had not been closed properly? Or did the
Jew from the AK living in that courtyard squeal?
ere were two of them
—
the Germans who approached the
bunker: a Leutnant, purportedly a kind-hearted, good man and a
father of two; and the other, a young one.
ey tear o the board. A shot is red. e Leutnant jumps
back. en another [shot]. An alarm. Noise. Panting Germans
come running. ey’re afraid to approach the bunker. ey carry
away the corpse of the Leutnant and the wounded [5] soldier.
ey emit a cry of fury and vengeance, but are afraid to
approach. And it is deathly quiet underground. It was Baruch who
red that shot. He takes out arms and distributes them.
We have been taken by surprise. We won’t have time either to
communicate with our comrades or to send them at least some of
what we have.
“ese are our nal moments. We will not be able to organize
anything. ere’s nothing in the other bunkers. We have to die an
honorable death aer killing at least a few,” Frumka says.
“Should we go out?” “No, on the ground, we will not be able to
re even a single shot. We’ll stay here.”
ere are a few of them, all young. Our hearts are pounding.
So this is the end. If only each of us would manage to re at least
one shot and avenge our deaths! [6] Dead silence. Baruch has
turned his back on the others and is staring at the hole. Somebody
embraces him from behind and cuddles up to his side. He’s so big
and broad-shouldered. He red the rst shot. Maybe he’ll defend
162 • I Am Writing These Words To You
her. It’s Frumka,4 his girlfriend, who is so beautiful. She resembles
her surname
—
Polna Róża.5 She looks so much like a rose, red and
blooming. And he embraces her so tightly that you can hear her
bones crack and says, “You see? I returned to you this night (he was
supposed to go to Hungary)6 to die with you. I was a hagana leader
and apparently I have to re the rst shot.”
And the other Frumka, Frumka Płotnicka, is standing pale
and tall, taller even than she usually seems, smoking one cigarette
aer another despite the ban in the bunker. And she’s holding a
revolver ready to shoot. “I told you that I’d perish with you, that I
wouldn’t survive.”
“Be quiet!” they tell her. “You could have already been on [7]
the Aryan side.7 Your death here is unnecessary. You should have
survived. Who could tell our story better than you? Apparently you
wanted our names to sink into oblivion.” ey’re angry at her. ey
hate to lose her, because she could have done a lot. Frumka knew
4 Frumka Polna Róża
—
Baruch Gaek’s girlfriend.
5 Polna Róża’s surname means “wild rose” in Polish.
6 A delegation of four underground members (including Gaek) tried to nd a way
to save themselves by getting to Hungary, on July 31, 1943. e delegation failed
and its members returned to Będzin.
7 Frumka Płotnicka was appointed as a shlicha by ŻOB headquarters in Warsaw in
January 1943. One of the reasons for her arrival in Będzin in late 1942 or early
1943 was the repeated and recurrent eorts of the ŻOB to send an emissary to
the outside world (see Anielewicz’s visit to Będzin and his contact with Merin,
Notebook VI, p. 112). Płotnicka unwillingly agreed to escape from occupied
Poland (see Płotnicka’s letter to Schwalb, Febr uary 1943), but the planne d mission
failed and she stayed in Będzin. She had another chance to leave Poland when a
German courier from Istanbul arrived in Będzin on July 17, 1943, just two weeks
before the last deportation. e courier, who brought with him letters and a large
sum of money (50,00 0 RM) from the Eretz Israel delegation in Ista nbul, suggested
that Płotnicka return with him, but she refused. However, she wrote a detailed
report to Ist anbul, which wa s signed by the leaders of t he Zagłębian und erground:
Płotnicka herself, Cwi Brandes (Hashomer Hatzair), Azriel Kozruch (Hanoar
Hatzioni), Herszel Springer (Dror) and Shlomo Lerner (Gordonia). At the end of
the letter, which was written on July 17, 1943, Płotnicka noted, “When this letter
reaches you (in Istanbul), we will probably no longer be alive.” See Ruth Zariz,
Mikhteve chalutzim mi-Polin ha-kevushah, 1940–1944 (Hebrew) (Ramat Efal: Yad
Tabenkin, 1994), pp. 200–202.
Eulogies • 163
the most about the history and fate of the individual provinces, as
she had traveled all over Poland. She should have survived.
And she’s standing there, tall, taller than all the others. She
is tough and cold, with an ironic sparkle shining in her usually
dead eyes.
Suddenly they hear a rattle, a horn, many nimble steps of
soldiers
—
it seems that there are hundreds of them, but there
are only a few dozen. ey’re shouting and calling loudly to one
another.
e Germans drop a bomb. It suddenly gets dark in the
bunker: the smoke and haze make their [the ghters’] eyes smart.
ey begin to suocate. ese are Nebelbomben [smoke bombs].
e people grab their throats. [8] It is dark before their eyes.
ey cannot see anything, but they’re still fully conscious. A cry
of pain comes out of their throats. It’s a cry of despair that their
weapons won’t be put to any use, that they won’t be able to avenge
their deaths.
ey are not afraid of death because they are ready for it. But
the pain and the despair of not being be able to do anything makes
them furious. ey feel like breaking the wall with their heads.
“Mörder” [barbarians]! they shout, but to no avail. e Germans
are trying to mue their cries with their own shouts. e cries of
vengeance and anger are soaring high up into the sky. “ey’ll soon
stop,” I say to myself, but suddenly they scream with terror
—
a
grenade is skillfully thrown out from the bunker. But the Germans
manage to jump aside and only a wall is shattered into pieces.
“We’ll show them!” they [the Germans] shout in anger and
pump water into the bunker using a special vehicle brought [9]
from Auschwitz. Loud shouts and cries can be heard from the
bunker again, yet quieter and sparser.
And the Germans are triumphant, “ey’re already dead.
We’ve nally nished them o!”
ey call the Jewish Militia, their lackeys, and order them to
descend into the bunker.
164 • I Am Writing These Words To You
ey’re carrying the people out. Almost all of them are still
alive, breathing with diculty and wheezing. Frumka Płotnicka is
carried out rst. She lis her head high and proudly in an attempt
to talk, but her head droops. ey dash to her and a shot is red
at her head and another in her chest
—
heart. She’s already dead,
but the German keeps ring again and again as if totally berserk.
Making matters worse, others dash up to her and kick and maltreat
her naked corpse in a barbarous way. And they kick them all, one
by one, shooting at the dead people, at the corpses. ey pounced
on them like hyenas on carrion.
[10] is is what a witches’ Sabbath must have been like.
Armed, healthy, tall, and strong, they maltreat this handful of
dying people.
Another kick in the stomach, one more, don’t stop, re again
until the face is but a sticky, red pulp of blood and esh.
ese are no longer people lying on the ground. ese are
maltreated, blue, bloodied, smashed pieces of humans, pieces of
esh.
And the Germans are already satiated; they have quenched
their savage lust. ey have had enough of the sight of blood.8
ey have le but for one, who is still standing there, looking.
He looks somehow dierent from the others. His face did not
redden with raging blood. He is not laughing. On the contrary, he
seems sad, appalled, and repulsed.
[11] He’s looking at one body in particular. It’s a woman. She
must have still been very young and she had a beautiful body. It
seems to me that this body is screaming at him, “Remember, I will
take my revenge and you shall not escape me alive.”
And those eyes are laughing so. And those teeth, so [white]
and large, are bared in anger at him and they’re calling, “I will have
my revenge. I will come and take you!”
8 ese were the known details, according to Abraham Potasz, who cleaned up the
bunker (see the Potasz testimony, Notebook P).
Eulogies • 165
He ees from there as fast as possible, but that image is still
chasing him.
He turns back, stops, and suddenly looks around to make sure
that nobody is watching him and he takes o his cap. He calms
down and slowly walks away, pensive.
166 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Dawid Kozłowski9
[12] To My Dear Boy10
Nobody paid any attention to him when he rst visited our
Hashomer Hatzair oce. A tall, slim boy. I can only remember that
all his pockets were stued with newspapers.
I glanced at him once in the library, where I was with a group
of my schoolmates. I asked the librarian for a book, but she refused
me for the rst time, saying, “No, I’ve promised this one to Mr.
Kozłowski. You must excuse me, but I have to give it to him. He’s in
a privileged position because he’s our rst reader.”
Discontented, I turn back and he’s standing behind me,
smiling mockingly. I turn around quickly to avoid the risk of my
friends jeering me, “Oh, it’s your shomer friend.” I pretend that I
don’t know him. He never forgave me for that.
He had a stutter. I never had the patience to hear him out.
I was carefree, joyful, and loved to smile and frolic, while he
was [13] serious. He didn’t exist for me.
I didn’t know him. ey were saying that he had come for
Esterka,11 that as a matter of fact he was a communist and that he
would not stay.
Esterka le for the hachshara,12 whereas he stayed. We were
publishing a newspaper, of which I was the editor. He gave me a
poem
—
a beautiful one with a wonderful rhythm and composed
with artistic taste. It was a song lled with sadness and longing,
9 Chajka married Dawid Kozłowski in the spring of 1943.
10 In Hebrew handwriting.
11 Ester (Esterka) Zborowska (born in 1916, now Ester Shushan) was Kozłowski’s
rst girlfriend.
12 e hachshara of Dawid Kozłowski and Chajka was in Kalisz. Kozłowski arrived
there in early 1937 and Chajka several months later.
Eulogies • 167
about a lonely, lost soul. So much emotion and lyricism emanated
from it and so much sadness and pain.
Everybody was wondering who had written it and I was the
only one who knew that it was Dawid. And that was the rst time
I noticed him. e rst time I saw his eyes, brown and deep-set.
ey were so beautiful, so velvety, brown, and oblong. So much
unfathomable sadness was apparent in them.
“Those are the eyes of a dreamer,” I said to myself. [14] I
wanted to know him better. He intrigued me. He used to read
a lot. He simply devoured books, each leaving its imprint on
him, each depositing something in his soul. Once it was Jean-
Christophe13 speaking through him. Another time it was
Antoinette14 or phantoms15 that caused unrest in his soul.
Another time it was Shakespeare who made a tremendous
impression on him.
He was consuming books chaotically: ancient classics, poetry,
and Celine’s Voyage au bout de la nuit [Journey to the End of the
Night]. 16
Consequently, he oen shied from a ne mood into sheer
depression. One minute he wanted to embrace the whole world and
everybody and love them in his heart, and then he thought that
the entire world was one big mess,17 men
—
degenerates, women
—
whores, muck, corruption, and decadence. He didn’t want to live.
He wanted to fall asleep, die, commit suicide and not exist.
He was in need of a kindred spirit and support. [15] I oered
him my hand. He was like a young tree, blown by winds yet tall,
slender, and growing up toward the sky, the sun. To bloom and
13 Romain Rolland, Jean-Christophe (Paris: A. Michel, 1931).
14 Romain Rolland, Antoinette (Paris: A. Michel, 1931).
15 Probably Tadeusz Jaroszyński, Zmora (Warsaw: W. Jakowicki, 1914).
16 Louis-Ferdinand Céline, Voyage au bout de la nuit (Paris: Gallimard, 1932).
17 Chajka used the Polish word “burdel,” which denotes a mess and a whorehouse at
the same time (translator’s note).
168 • I Am Writing These Words To You
grow he needed strong, down-to-earth support
—
also a sun, a
kindred feeling, and spirit and love and caresses.
I saw his soul in his speech, which was emerging with such
diculty.
He suered greatly on account of his speech [impediment]. Few
people realized it as he didn’t have a xed Minderwertigkeitsgefühle
[inferiority complex]. Nonetheless, he did suer for he had to
remain silent when so many beautiful words during ceremonies,
or so many factual arguments during discussions
—
for he was very
knowledgeable
—
were springing to his lips too late.
And that was why in his heart he dreamed about writing.
Talented, he wanted to continue learning and to excel, to learn
more and more. He wanted [16] to fathom, absorb, know, and
comprehend everything. His heart was insatiable too. He wanted
to embrace and absorb every feeling, all pain, longing, joy, sadness,
and love in all their shades.
His heart was so insatiable.
Dawid could love madly for he knew no half measures and
gave his entire self. He loved with all his senses and his passionate
soul.
One minute he was passionate, the next moment delicate like
a most aectionate friend.
Dawid could not live without a girl, could not live without
love.
He had a dicult life
—
away from his family home and having
experienced neither warmth nor protection.
His father came once a year, collected his annual salary, and
le
—
he [the father] was selling a servant.
Dawid didn’t complain and was happy to support his family.
But rebellion was welling up within him, [17] rebellion against his
father. He did not want to follow in the footsteps of his father, for
whom money was the greatest power. He had all the predispositions
to work his way up and earn a fortune, but was unwilling to become
a servant of money.
Eulogies • 169
He was talented and lucky as hell, but he despised money and
was careless with it. When the kibbutz purse was empty, he lled it.
When somebody fell deeply into debt, Dawid would provide some
secret help.
All of his friends owed him money, but he kept forgetting
about those debts. He would only wave his hand.
He was criticized for that, but that was how he was. “You can
even strip him of his trousers,” people used to say.
He was so kind that it bordered on gullibility.
[18] Dawid went to the kibbutz without paying attention to his
father’s protests and his empty promises that he would give him
money to go to Eretz [Israel]. e rst days were dicult and full
of disappointments.
Dawid had imagined and dreamed of everything dierently
in his mind. He had expected that the people would be ideal, that
there would not be any petty, stupid, and trivial issues. at life
would be bustling with new content and that it would sweep him
away with its fullness. But there were days that were monotonous,
dead, and horribly empty.
And the labor was strenuous and hard. It was dicult to
transform from a Jewish intellectual [and] a merchant into a
laborer. Dawid had to be taught that the collective was yet to be
created. at he had to rst shed the small, petty things to be able
to sprout and grow.
at in order for days not to be [19] monotonous, he had to
put his soul into them. at he must invest his labor and eort.
He must become completely engaged in the work and sacrice
his sweat and blood in order for the work to become a part of him.
And only then
—
much, much later
—
would he suddenly realize
that he could not live without it and that he had come to love it.
He had to be taught life like a little child. And he needed to be
brought down to earth from the clouds again and again.
A stupid incident made Dawid want to leave the kibbutz. He
was denounced once. He did not want to, could not continue to
170 • I Am Writing These Words To You
live with those people, because they did not understand him. ey
said that he was angry that food was brought to him too late when
he was working. ey accused him, for whom food was completely
unimportant and who was always ready to give it to somebody else.
[20] Dawid wanted to leave the kibbutz. Being sensitive, he did not
wish to live among people who did not understand him.
It was a major shock in the life of our kibbutz. His leaving was
averted. He was already respected and very popular.
He was already nicknamed “Chamele.”18
is is what he had once called one of the young kibbutz
members. ey gave the nickname to him instead and it stuck.
He was just a Chamele, an ordinary stutterer, Dawydka in
unkempt clothes. Trousers without creases and baggy like two
sacks, particularly at the knees. Holes near the elbows. And he used
to pick his nose. On familiar terms with everybody, including the
stupidest and the worst. Guileless and candid. A simple, ordinary
Chamele.
What was both touching and beautiful about him? It was the
re constantly burning in him, the re of emotions, the reverence
for heroism and that constant [21] readiness, that readiness to ght
for liberation.
At rst [he yearned for] vague, Weltschmerz [world pain],.
liberation of all mankind and then [for] liberation of the proletariat
based on a thorough knowledge of Marxism.
I remember him talking beautifully about Malraux’s Man’s
Fate,19 the revolution in China, Chen, and Mary.
One could feel that he was standing by them, that he was ready
to go with them, and that he was one of them.
When Dawid was speaking long and inspiringly, one forgot
his stutter.
18 Probably a Yiddish nickname.
19 Malraux, La Condition humaine. e Hebrew translation was published in 1935.
Eulogies • 171
And then during the revolution in Spain20 he wrote an
excellent article, and once again you felt your soul reaching out to
them, to those ghting for freedom.
ere was no posturing or insincerity in him. One felt that he
was ready to join them on the barricades that day or the next.
[22] His words were not idle chatter, platitudes, nor were they
dry, Marxist populism. He was a revolutionary.
Dawid kept abreast of the times and was always on the side of
those who were ghting for liberation.
He kept moving forward. He was not like a young youth
movement menahel [leader] who eventually will pump out all his
knowledge and become empty, nally realizing that his students
have outdone him.
Dawid kept developing and learning, constantly saying, “I
still can and [I] know so little.” He was still capable of admiration,
inspiration, and excitement.
I had always envied him that freshness of emotions, because
in me that re had long [since] turned into ashes, and my mind
was completely occupied with making decisions. While he had
remained emotionally youthful.
[23] e war began and foiled our plans. Dawid had wanted
to leave for Eretz [Israel], build a kibbutz and participate in the
laying of the foundations for the new life. It was his wish to take
part in that rst Sturm und Drang [storm and stress period] when
everything has to be built with one’s own sweat. But he did not have
that chance.
e war had a negative eect on him.
Dawid pined away and lost weight; his skin became sallow
and a cough began to rattle his lungs more and more oen.
His Weltschmerz disappeared, [giving way to] an outlook
20 e Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939.
172 • I Am Writing These Words To You
well-grounded in Marx’s philosophical and economic theories.
Dawid was becoming a supporter of Stalin.
When everybody was condemning Stalin’s treacherous policy,
Dawid was talking about his genius.21
When everybody was throwing stones and dirt at the Soviet
Union, Dawid was talking about the Red Army.
[24] Oh, he loved the Red Army more than life.
Totally xated on it, he would be literally taken ill whenever it
suered defeat
—
he couldn’t eat, sleep, or live.
And when it was victorious, he revived, shone with joy and
embraced everybody out of happiness.
“My brother,” he would write to the Red Army soldier, “I’m
with you. I oer you my hand. Take it.”22
And the day came when he went to them, reached out to them.
He was the commander of the rst group that went into the
woods to join the partisan forces.
Joie de vivre [joy of living] died out, giving way to deep,
bitter hatred. He wanted to be a GPU23 man, a Dzerzhinsky.24 He
wanted to take revenge, [to] brutally avenge his people, beat and
murder, and expunge our absolute disgrace, misery, [and the
death of] the innocent victims and of the Jewish children he loved
so [25] much.
He lost everybody on one day: his father, mother, and
sister
—
the child he loved so much
—
and brother, whom he
adored and worshipped. He did not shed a tear, but hardened and
toughened up instead.
e PPR and the hagana organization were established and he
21 e Ribbentrop–Molotov Pact
—
on the Hashomer Hatzair attitudes toward
communism and the USSR. See Notebook V.
22 Similar attitudes toward the Red Army were typical of Hashomer Hatzair in
War saw.
23 See footnote 24.
24 Felix Dzerzhinsky (1877–1926)
—
the head of the Cheka, which later became the
GPU (Soviet State Political Administration).
Eulogies • 173
was its soul beside Cwi. He did not sleep, but forged and created.
Omnipresent, he dreamed about action.
Harsh times came. Our loved ones, our comrades
—
Jankele,
Lea, Irka25
—
were taken away. He did not want to live. Who for?
What for? For action. Yes, this is what life is worth living for. But
will there be any? Yes, there must be!
e shlichut to be sent abroad was selected. Dawid was chosen
but did not wish to go. He did not wish for cowards to take shelter
under his name, happy that they had to go too, that they had been
selected. “Besides, since Dawid is going,” they’d say.
Dawid refused. He did not wish to go.
How could he leave the boys whom he had prepared for action,
to die, to [participate in] hagana? [26] He had to stay to perish with
them. He knew that he would not survive and did not wish to. “is
is where my role ends,” he used to say.
But sometimes, in moments of weakness, he would dream.
He dreamed about the new world that would be born. He dreamed
about seeing somebody from the Hakibbutz Haartzi and telling
him, “Brother, it’s high time you dropped the turiya [hoe], put on a
helmet, and joined the ranks of the Red Army.”
“If only I could take at least one,” he would say. “Chaj,” he
would tell his girlfriend, “you must survive. You must tell them all
about us.”
He was xated on her survival. I don’t know if it was because
he loved her so much, or because it was necessary.
And she didn’t dare oppose him, so that he wouldn’t accuse
her of cowardice.
And she would have loved to go with him, even to die, for she
could not imagine a life without him.
[27] ey had spent many years together. Never seen
apart, they seemed like one person. It’s rare for people to
25 See Notebook A.
174 • I Am Writing These Words To You
complement each other to such an extent, [despite being so] oddly
matched.
ey were simply comrades, friends, and lovers. “Do you
remember, Didia,” she used to say, “the time when during our
wandering we looked death in the eye when bombs were falling
all around us and you lay down on me and I kicked you to get o
of me.”
“And do you remember, Chaj, the time when you protected
me with a knife against that cutthroat?”
He was carrying her in his arms during the fatal illness26 and
he did not wish to live without her.
And when he was about to go to the forest without her, they
cried together for a long time at night. But he did not say that he
wouldn’t go without her and she did not tell him to stay.
He le.
ere were ten of them.
Like peas in a pod
—
ten tall, [28] strong, young men
—
the
best we had.
ey all wore high Stiefel [boots], trousers, windcheaters, and
jackets and they had haversacks.
e farewell in the packed room was quiet: a rm handshake,
a hard kiss. “Farewell, comrade.”
eir eyes were sparkling with joy and happiness. ey looked
like groomsmen going to a wedding and Dawid seemed younger.
My eyes couldn’t get enough of the sight of him
—
a Red komandir
[commander]. His dreams had nally come true. He has never
worn such trousers, Stiefel, a windcheater, and a jacket all at the
same time, while today he’s wearing an ocer’s Stiefel made of the
best quality cord and Gämse [suede].
He keeps looking at them and his eyes are laughing. He’s
always dreamed about Stiefel.
Finally they leave and everybody’s looking at them with joy
26 Chajka was very ill in the winter of 1942–1943.
Eulogies • 175
and concealed jealousy. “One day I’ll go too,” everybody’s thinking.
“But will I manage? Won’t there be a deportation rst?”
Happy, they leave the town, discard the Jude [badges] and
breathe with relief. [29] Initially, they’re walking slowly, scared,
their hearts pounding. en their steps begin to get bolder and
more resolute.
ey enter a forest. eir hearts are swelling with joy and
emotion, wanting to jump out of their chests.
“We’re nally free. We can hold our heads really high now.”
ey feel like singing but they cannot, because the one walking in
front doesn’t let them
—
it’s Dawid with the guide. e two men are
talking about the Germans, guerrillas, and the life they’re about to
start.
e man [the guide] is working his way into Dawid’s
condence. Dawid is becoming more and more trusting and his
answers are bolder and bolder.
e other man [the guide] wants to take his weapon
—
“It will
be safer this way”
—
but Dawid refuses to surrender it. “No, I won’t
part with it,” he says.
ey walk on, talking calmly with each other. ey enter a
forest again. e guide leaves them. “Sit,” he says. “We’ll eat here.
I’ll fetch water.”
ey sit down and look at one another, happiness [30] and joy
emanating from their eyes. ey’re making plans for the future.
ey want to have a German on their conscience as soon as
possible. “We’ll get down to it right away,” one says. “But there has
to be discipline,” adds another.
Suddenly
—
boom, rattle, noise. ey want to get up. Shots.
A submachine gun. Grenades. A few dozen armed Germans on
horseback are surrounding them.
e men jump to their feet but don’t manage to stand. One,
two, three of them collapse, dead.
Only Didia [Dawid] managed to take his grenade out and
throw it. He didn’t know what happened because at that very
176 • I Am Writing These Words To You
moment he clutched his chest. He only managed to think, “Farewell,
Chaj,” and died.
It is good that they died so quickly, that they didn’t suer, and
that there was no time to think.
It is good that they didn’t realize that the one who was leading
them was not a leader, [31] but a Gestapo lackey.
It is good that they didn’t realize they were being led into a
trap.
It is good that they didn’t know that they were handed to the
enemy owing to [their] leaders’ incompetence.
It is good that they did not even have the time to curse.
Eulogies • 177
Cwi Brandes
[32] To Cwi and Dorka
I don’t know why but when I think about him I see the image we
oen used on the cover of our newspapers: a man with a raised st.
Can you recall that cover?
I don’t know why my mind makes that association!
It might be because he had thick, sinewy, muscular arms.
It might be because his features were coarse, as if chiseled from
stone or granite
—
stern, sharp, and simple. ick, bristly eyebrows
standing out on his face, appearing to be grown together into one.
ey testied to his energy and strong will.
Cwi used to step heavily and clumsily, yet condently. His feet
were rmly on the ground as if wanting to press into it.
And that was also how he was in life.
He took life as it was and was never beguiled or disappointed.
No depression or hesitation.
Cwi looked at the world and people in a wise and reasonable
way and he knew what he wanted and where he was going.
He was rarely angry, irritated, [33], or upset.
“I always know the motives and reasons pushing people to
particular actions and that is why I am rarely angry.” at was
also why he was very respected and popular. In the kibbutz they
nicknamed him Chaszele.
I remember when he rst visited our farm in Zagłębie. ere
was a shortage of laborers.
In the morning he grabbed a hoe and went with everybody to
dig up potatoes. He was working like any other man, even though
he had come to do dierent work in the galil [district].
He had won everybody over.
And the ordinary members of the kibbutz ocked to Cwi the
most [and] conded in him about all their injuries and injustices.
178 • I Am Writing These Words To You
He had time and understanding for everyone. ey trusted
him.
ey could see that what he was saying about working and
living in a collective was not empty words. ey knew that he had
worked in a kibbutz for years and that he knew how to live [34] with
people in a collective.
Cwi hated words spoken to impress or lectures given for the
sake of loy words. His every sentence was replete with content and
information.
He had an excellent grasp of international policy and the
problems troubling the working-class movement and the USSR.
He would assess a situation soberly, wisely, and rationally
and also disliked “building castles in the air,” whereas we were
hotheads, whose ardor he frequently had to dampen.
On the other hand, during the Hechalutz yeshivot he had to
push those [members], with their pedestrianism and tortoise pace.
Oh, he had a dicult task.
ere was lots of talk about hagana, but there was more
chatter than actual work.
ey kept procrastinating, postponing, debating.
We did not have time to wait. “We are yearning for even a most
insignicant act because we really don’t want to wait anymore.”
And he’d say, “[If we act,] it would be our end, which we cannot
let happen.” [35] For as a matter of fact hagana would have long
been given up had it not been for Hashomer Hatzair and Cwi’s rm
stance. Almost everything depended on his stance. ey wanted
to win him over and send him to the Internierungslager almost by
force. But he didn’t want to go and did not yield to the temptation.
[...].27
When he said that something had to be done, it was not right
27 Two illegible words. Perhaps the militia came to take him to the internment
camp.
Eulogies • 179
for them to oppose him, but in fact they were hampering his work
instead of helping him.
Everything had to be his responsibility: the purchase of
materials, work in the workshop, collections, smalim [symbols],
newspaper, leaets, conversations with Böhm, grenade tests.
Consequently, he oen woke up in the middle of the night, at
4 A.M., and disappeared.
At other times he would wander all night long and return to
sleep at dawn.
Cwi would oen spend entire nights by the newly constructed
radio.
He was persistent
—
he would sit in the bunker, constantly
turning the dial in order to nd an underground radio station.
e next day he’d tell us the news and everybody listened to
him attentively.
“We have to do something great, huge.” [36] We would
impatiently wait for Cwi’s return and feel somehow safer, happier,
and [more] secure when he came home.
We loved him dearly.
But his visits were becoming less and less frequent because of
the growing number of duties falling on his shoulders.
Cwi was the spirit of hagana and the Hechalutz movement
in Zagłębie. While it was disputable whether many others really
wanted hagana and were ready to die, nobody had any doubts
about him. He would always take the most dicult tasks on his
own shoulders.
“I’ll kill Moniek [Moshe Merin]. I’ll go,” he used to say.
I will never forget the day that we received the rst two guns.
Happy as a little child, he was smacking his lips. And when he
grabbed them, his hands were shaking with emotion and joy.
And when harsh days came aerward, when it turned out
that the groups he had sent to join the guerrillas had fallen into the
Gestapo’s hands, he wanted to take his own life.
180 • I Am Writing These Words To You
“I’ve sent them to die. I killed them and Dawid, my dearest
friend. I don’t want to live anymore.”
[37] I had to persuade, beg, and threaten him for a long time,
“You are needed here. Without you there won’t be anything here.
You have to stay.”
In the end I managed to convince him. He said, “If I thought
even for one second that I’d survive, I’d nish myself o but I’m
sure that I shall die.”
ere was so much condence in his words that it scared me.
It was like gravitation toward death or some strange fate. ose of
us who talked a lot about death died.
And he died too. His dream did not come true.
Once he dreamed out loud, during the day, “We’re going to
construct a plane and go far away, abroad, to Eretz [Israel]. I’m
going to go and ask, ‘Why are you still sitting here as if nothing were
happening? Why do you still sow and enjoy your harvest? [38] Why
do you continue to build your colonies as if nothing was happening
in the world? Do you not see how the power of the USSR grows
every day? e time has come that you manifested your aliation
to it. at you completed your mission in the Middle East.’
“But I would not stay with them. I would come back to you
with a cargo. Bombs, grenades, Submachine guns.
“And we would begin to work
—
we here and they there.”
His dreams were not fullled.
He perished because he did not wish to patiently wait with
everybody for a death sentence. He did not wish that they, the
enemy, would decide his fate, his life. He knew that he would die
but he still ran straight into the arms of death.
“And what if I succeed? I might notify someone and save my
comrades.”
He perished because he was the bravest of us all and he wished
to determine his life or death himself.
181
Part Seven
e Potasz Testimony1
Notebook P
[143] December 17, 1943
As a member of a Leichenkommando [corpse unit] I was witness to
all the bestial murders that took place in the Kamionka Judenviertel
[Jewish district] in Bendsburg. I saw corpses and numerous
murders at every step, and all that became engraved in my heart
with letters of blood. I was utterly confused. at inhuman brutality
deprived me of all human reactions. One tragic fragment of that
1 is is the only testimony that was clearly recorded by Chajka. Potasz was a
member of the Jew ish Militia who joined Chajka a nd her underground comrades
during the preparations for crossing the border to Slovakia. It was a strange
cooperation of two extremes of Jewish institutions during the Holocaust: the
Jewish Militia and the underground. However, it was four months aer the
last deportation and the surviving Jews in the liquidation camp were close to
having completed their forced labor of cleaning up the empty ghettos. A weekly
transportation vehicle traveled to Auschwitz, carrying the unnecessary Jews
(see Notebook II). e others were afraid that their turn was coming. Under
those circumstances, old hostilities no longer mattered and new connections
were established
—
intended to suppor t the survival eort. e new relationships
were instr umental: Chajka and her comrades had the “contacts” to Polish border
smugglers , and the Jewish M ilitia men had a lot of money. e two groups ne eded
one another. It seems that during the preparations for crossing the border (in
late 1943) Chajka met Potasz and recorded the story of the fall of the ghters’
bun ker.
e Potasz testimony was included as the last part of the “Bader Photocopy” and
the numbers are in accord w ith it. In its Hebrew tra nslation, it was included i n the
memorial booklet Chajka (1958), mistakenly attributed to Chajka herself, and in
Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto, pp. 141–143.
182 • I Am Writing These Words To You
one great chaos has stuck in my memory, particularly that these
were my brothers from the kibbutz, who died a heroic death, having
dedicated their young souls, full of vitality, to an idea.
ese are the names of the heroes who, despite their
considerable eort and sacrice, unfortunately did not take even
one gasp of the air of Eretz [Israel], which they loved so much.
Two men: Tojwija Dworski and Baruch Gaek.
[Five] Women: Frumka Płotnicka, Frumka Polna Róża,
Cipora Bocian, Pnina Jakubowicz, and Hedwa Bernad.2
And now I will describe in great detail the scene that took
place in the kibbutz. While sitting at my post I heard a cannonade
of shots, which lasted nonstop for more than half an hour. en
two Gestapo chiefs, Kommissar Baüke [Baucke]3 and Kommissar
Dreyer,4 rushed in and took me to the place where the rattle of
the machine guns had been coming from. Having reached the
destination, I was happy to spot dead Germans of the Waen SS
from Auschwitz who had died at the hands of our chalutzim.5
But my joy was short-lived. I was [144] suddenly approached by
Kommissar Baüke [Baucke], who put the barrel of his revolver to my
temple and ordered me to enter the bunker. Normally, one entered
it through the window, but I had to enter through the hole made
as a result of the hail of machine gun bullets. I squeezed through
the hole and fell in. A horrible, bloody sight unfolded before my
eyes. At rst I saw chalutz Tojwija Dworski, his skull smashed and
his brain spilled out. Lying next to him was Frumka Płotnicka,
who was squeezing a six-shot revolver. e bottom half of her
body was burnt. An inhuman moan resembling a hum of a whole
2 All of them Dror members.
3 Kriminalkommissar Walter Baüke [Baucke]
—
head of the Gestapo eld oce in
Sosnowiec. In addition to Sosnowiec itself, his eld oce was responsible for the
districts of Będzin and Olkusz.
4 Dr. Hans Dreier (Dreyer) (1907–1945)
—
head of the depar tment for Jewish Aairs
at the Gestapo in Katowice.
5 e police president of Sosnowiec, in his nal deportation report, mentions only
one German dead and one German wounded. See Yad Vashem Archives.
The Potasz Testimony • 183
aircra squadron was coming from the mouths of the prostrate
chalutzim, both the corpses [sic!] and those barely alive. e inside
of the bunker looked awful aer the fusillade. e eiderdowns and
pillows had caught re and choking smoke was rising from them.
With my teeth clenched and my heart bleeding, I personally
carried the seven corpses out into the garden by the bunker. e
murderers ordered me to lay the corpses face up and to strip the
women naked. When I had carried out that repugnant task they
told me to return to the bunker and bring as many revolvers as
there had been people, that is, seven, under threat of death as they
put the barrel to my temple again. I brought the required number,
but aside from those seven guns I found ve more, which I buried
in the wet dirt in the bunker. For the dirt had become so from
the water used to put out the re. I also spotted a dynamo lamp,
which I wanted to hide as well, but one of the sadists noticed that
and shouted, “Du Schwein, komm heraus und nimm die Lampe mit”
[You swine, come here and bring the lamp with you]. When I came
out of the bunker he gave me all of the revolvers to clean.
[145] e commander then ordered me to turn all the corpses
face down. Having approached them, I noticed that one of the
women, Frumka Płotnicka, lied her upper body and opened her
mouth to say something, her look horrible and blind. One of the
Gestapo functionaries suggested letting her be, hoping that she
would say something and perhaps give away the kibbutz’s secret,
but another one approached her and kicked her face with his
heavy boot with perfect, stoic, sadistic calm. Frumka collapsed,
unconscious. When everybody was lying face down he gave an
order: “Fire!!!” And shots were red from seven machine guns.
e bodies of our best ones were as full of holes as sieves. But it
was not enough for those sadists as they stepped onto the corpses’
buttocks and jumped and swung as if those were not people but the
ground or a swing. e sight was so appalling that I only stared,
feeling as if it was some horrifying dream and not bleak, macabre
reality. e murderers le and I stood there looking blindly at those
184 • I Am Writing These Words To You
barbarians’ accomplishment. I was weeping, each tear a drop of
blood spilled in the mourning for those comrades. e voice of
one of my friends roused me from that daze and I returned to my
post with that ghastly image in my heart and collapsed senseless
onto the oor. e next day a vehicle came and took away all my
brothers, who had died a heroic death.
And this is how our brothers, our chalutzim, died at their post.
May their suering and blood compensate all the torment suered
by Jews in the entire world and may their heroic names be passed
to future generations.
Abram Potasz
[146] is tragic incident took place on the third day of the
Ausrottungsaktion [extermination campaign] on Tuesday, August
3, 1943.
185
Part Eight
Epilogue
-
Like Leaves Detached from
eir Old Mother Tree
Notebook D1
[1] e war was a terrible blow to the entire generation of our
century, which had to endure that historic cataclysm once again.
But it had even more severe consequences for the Jewish youth,
particularly the chalutz youth.
All plans, thoughts, and eorts had been directed at Eretz
[Israel]. All that was interrupted in the middle [of preparations].
In Poland it happened at the beginning of the war and in other
countries during the subsequent years. Some had to return from
their path
—
unpack their suitcases and give up hope of swi arrival
at the kibbutz in Eretz [Israel]. Others were packing their things on
1 Notebook D is the same as Notebook E: without binding and containing 17
pages with 19 printed lines per page. Apparently, they are two parts of the same
notebook. e circumstances in which this notebook was written are unclear. It
is certain that it was completed in Eretz Israel, aer Chajka arrived in Haifa on
March 6, 1944, and the meeting in Kibbutz Galon two days later, events that are
mentioned in the notebook. But it is u ncertain when and where the sta rting point
was: it could have been in Budapest in January–February 1944 while awaiting
her certicate; it could have been on her way to Eretz Israel, in Istanbul (late
Februar y 1944) or on the train, or i n Israel. e content of Notebook E is a painfu l
introspection about her personal conclusions and the ghetto generation. Selected
parts of it served as the epilogue of Klinger, Mi-yoman ba-getto, pp. 145–148 .
186 • I Am Writing These Words To You
hachshara [posts], which were being liquidated [one] aer another
(but that was done mostly by others).
ey had to return home, with which most of them had
already severed all relations and ties. We were neither physically
nor spiritually prepared for that.
[2] Usually without an occupation and absolutely unable to
ght for survival, our people also took up various shady lugeshes
[street vending jobs]. e ideals of becoming productive (the
hachshara years) were cast aside when dicult living conditions
forced one to take any job. Former ardent opponents of taking jobs
in shops during hachshara could now be seen working (in a shop)
in a stall and arguing with their father’s clients, who smuggled meat
or even traded gold or dollars. And that was how the many years
of becoming used to physical, productive labor during hachshara
went to waste.
But the actual warping of the young people’s souls, souls in
which we had invested so much work and eort, began with the
German occupation.
e entire older generation (on which I want to fully [3]
concentrate today), which should have been in Eretz [Israel] long
ago, was stopped in its development, which should have gone on
with the construction of a kibbutz in Eretz [Israel]. ose people
had no opportunity to form a cohesive group, a social unit.
ere were only some individuals and some small, detached
groups here and there. ey once again became engaged in
managerial tasks and clandestine educational work. And they
once again began to teach the shichvat bnei midbar, read books on
psychology, and organize the tzom. ey were regressing instead
of developing, particularly when it came to social life, as many years
of associating with younger people had le a permanent imprint
on them.
ey couldn’t fully devote themselves to that work either, as
they had outgrown such tasks. eir places began to be taken by
younger people with more calling.
Like Leaves Detached from their Old Mother Tree • 187
ey had no lives of their own.
[4] And this was the beginning of the tragedy of the older
generation of shomers who stayed in the golus [diaspora].
at constant state of being torn between tasks they had been
prepared for but could not complete
—
the tasks in Eretz [Israel]
—
and the reality that contradicted their upbringing, which had
loaded entirely dierent tasks on their shoulders.
And the reality was becoming ever more appalling and
frightening. e Nazi regime was becoming more and more
oppressive, the noose around the neck was becoming tighter, and
life was increasingly harsh and dicult. (We also were becoming
tougher and hardened. Time was doing its job.)
Our only weapon that could keep us aoat was to make the
entire movement one big, strong family. What used to be our most
important activity
—
papers, lectures
—
[5] became of secondary
importance. [We] focused on material aid, real help in looking for
work or accommodation. Somehow the tzom always knew who
would be evicted on a given day and they went and looked aer their
things or carried them from one street to the other. ey always
managed to acquire a cubic meter of coal or potatoes for winter for
this or that family. ose were not isolated cases
—
every two shomers
in three needed assistance. We were bound together for life or death.
But as we were caring for everyone, human life lost all its importance.
ousands were perishing on the front line and dying of starvation.
We learned not to cry when even our nearest and dearest
were dying.
We were persistent when it came to fullling our tasks.
Old problems, once so vital and [6] important, ceased to exist
for us. ings like leaving one’s girlfriend or boyfriend, love.
e criteria for evaluating people changed. Education and
intellect2
—
qualities so esteemed in our movement
—
ceased to
2 Intellect was quite important in Hashomer Hatzair as a selective (and elitist)
movement.
188 • I Am Writing These Words To You
constitute criteria. Readiness to perform any work, fulllment of
a task. ere were no discussions or persuasion. You were either
ready or not. at was the deciding factor. e glory of being a
veteran shomer became totally insignicant. e vetek [seniority]
[no longer] played any role either. A member of the hanhaga could
lose his status in a day. Many people disappointed us. Many people
broke down. We became pessimists. We began to doubt the value
of our education. e harsher the times, the thicker our armor had
to be to fend o resignation and surrender. [7] First of all, [we had]
to learn how to control ourselves and not cry or wring our hands.
e deportations were reaping a bitter harvest. It was becoming
emptier and emptier around us.
How could one not cry when one’s mother, father, and sister
were no longer at home? How could one stop oneself from going
and joining a transport when one’s family was already gone? How
could one leave one’s old mother at such a moment? We obtained
arms and became cynics. Our cynicism beggared belief.
We’re passing a shop window with soap and somebody says,
“It’s my grandma, but they’ll make toilet soap out of me, because
I’m younger and fatter.” If you heard that, wouldn’t you think that
she had a heart of stone?
[8] But there was so much sorrow behind that.
But it was necessary to refrain from crying and moaning. One
could not respond to the old sentiments and report for deportation
with one’s parents either, because other, more important tasks were
awaiting one there
—
a retaliation in the name of those who had le.
But cynicism knows no bounds. It wreaks havoc in man’s spirit
and laughs at what used to be sacred. And this is what happened to
our attitude toward Eretz [Israel]. ey le us for the ve years of
war without any sign of life, without any help. Neither the mosdot
[institutions], the Hakibbutz Haartzi, nor the chaverim [members]
of the kibbutzim [helped us]. We were receiving letters that they
were thinking about us, loving us, embracing and kissing us, but
there was no actual help. Long letters about setting up a new colony
Like Leaves Detached from their Old Mother Tree • 189
or the fact that this or that kibbutz reached a hityashvut [settlement]
on the eve of the deportation. We laughed at those letters and did
not even wish to read them.
[9] We began to doubt the power and potential of the yishuv
[in Eretz Israel]. We, a handful of youths and greenhorns, were
capable of even great achievements, while they, our directors, from
whom we had learned everything and who were our role models,
grew silent. We did not even want to hear about Eretz [Israel]
anymore, because they did not want to hear about us. ere were
some who found it easy to completely dismiss Eretz [Israel]. It was
the young generation that matured during the war, but those old
ones who grew up in the love of Eretz [Israel], the Hebrew language
and culture, and close ties with the kibbutz and chaverim found it
dicult, particularly now, with the spreading cult of the USSR.
And young Jews wanted to participate in that titanic, ongoing
struggle between fascism and socialism, which negated the peaceful
development of a colony while historic events were taking place in
the world. e settlement period was over and it was time for a
revolution.
[10] ey saw their place in the ranks of the partisans ghting
at the Red Army’s side. And they did go, without any reservation
and with all the zeal of Jewish youth. ey did not worry
unnecessarily about the fate of Zionism. ey knew that their fate
was connected with the fate of the Red Army, which was the only
one that provided actual aid to Jews. But they knew, in any case,
as if logical reasoning did not convince them, that there had been
many changes in the Jewish reality: the obliteration of Polish Jewry,
the possibility of a socialist political system in certain European
countries, the doubts about emigration from Soviet territories and
America. All those doubts undermined our Zionist worldview, but
they did not undermine our emotional sphere, our attachment to
Eretz [Israel].
And we again encounter that state of being torn, which I have
already mentioned.
190 • I Am Writing These Words To You
[11] Between logic and feelings. Torn between the old
upbringing and the new reality. But all those problems and doubts
soon ceased to bother us. Our days were becoming numbered.
We were waiting for a death sentence, knowing that none of us
would survive, that there was no way out, that the Jewish nation
was destined for complete extermination. We were preparing for
hagana and at the same time for death. We did not think even
for a moment that any of us would survive. Life ceased to play
any role whatsoever. We were rushing to our doom. As for our
lifestyle, we became somewhat Bohemian. Did it matter that some
[of us] were smoking? We even began to drink enough vodka to
relax and become quite free in the sexual sphere. I noticed the
same symptoms. at spirit of carpe diem [seize the day] [12]
had an impact on the nation, on the life of emigrant shomers in
Slovakia and Budapest. at provisional lifestyle le an indelible
imprint on them.3
And then came the nal days. All of the best individuals
in the nation and the movement had le. Only individuals
—
unextinguished embers
—
remained, owing to some coincidence.
ey were not strong enough to “nish themselves o.”
Perhaps they could not because of the long-enforced rule that
suicide was not our path, or perhaps because of the will to live they
felt deep in their hearts.
And the people start coming from all directions: from Poland,
Slovakia, Transylvania, and Hungary. Each of us has been through
something terrible: immigrant life, prison, bunker, deportation, or
a sinking ship.
ese people have a lot in common. Everybody is haunted by
the same thoughts
—
yeud [destiny]. People from a dierent epoch
—
that epoch and those people are already dead. Perhaps they
should have died with them. ey are like leaves detached from the
tree on which they grew, their old mother tree. Swirling in the air,
3 Chajka was a guest of Hashomer Hatzair members in Slovakia and Budapest.
Like Leaves Detached from their Old Mother Tree • 191
they are unable to nd their place. ey cannot attach themselves
to a new tree, and the old one has been cut down and no longer
exists.
[13] Five years separate them from the kibbutz
—
ve years,
which opened a chasm between them. Can they nd their own
places? Will not life seem too conned, petty, and bleak to them?
Will they be able to sit in one place? ey have always been drawn
—
[to] somewhere or someplace. Will they be able to satisfy that
internal drive? ey have been constantly on the move. Always
some issues, tasks, or problems. ey did not expect that they
would arrive in Eretz [Israel] like that
—
individually, on their
own. But they did not come alone
—
they brought baggage, heavy
baggage that they will have to discard. ey had grown into
the hate. It was not only that life was forcing them to hate, but
that they also cultivated that feeling in themselves. Each image
of horror, of the German brutality, of their inhuman attitude
toward man, of the Jewish plight
—
we wished to absorb all that.
We did not try to avoid images of horror. On the contrary, [14]
I did not close my eyes when a Jewish child was being beaten.
Quite the opposite, I was looking with my eyes wide open. I went
to look at the transports departing to the Konzentrationslager
[concentration camp] and the Arbeitslager [labor camp], [as well
as the] deportation transports. I took o the tarpaulin from the
carts transporting corpses from the deportation square. I looked
at suocated children. I wanted my hatred to increase and become
blind, because it should be the source of a savage, merciless act.
Will such a man ever again be capable of loving and building? I
very much doubted that. We will be incapable. We will only be
capable of destruction and ruin. I arrived in Eretz [Israel] [and]
I saw. ere were moments when even I hated the Jewish nation,
when I regretted the youth [who] sacriced for it, while those
sentenced to death did not even deign to bring us water then in
the deportation barrack. Not even to us, who wanted to conceal
their [15] disgrace with our lives.
192 • I Am Writing These Words To You
I arrived in Eretz [Israel]. I saw the tears in the eyes of the girls
who came to welcome me in Haifa.4 And I began to melt. ose
were the rst drops that caused my hatred to begin to melt.
I saw a group of elderly Jews in Ness Tziona.5 Arms in hand,
they were training. I felt overcome by a strange emotion
—
so not
all old Jews were cowards. Perhaps these would not go to slaughter
like the others.
And love, buried deeply under the layer of hatred, which had
been intensifying over the ve years of the war, saw the light of day
again. For I really love them the way they are, only that pain had
dimmed my eyes.
I saw young people who were and still are ready to go to those
who had stayed there. I could see in their eyes that they were ready
[16] for anything to reach their goal. And my heart trembled with
joy. So they really had not forgotten us. And I believed again in
the man of the yishuv, in the man of the kibbutz. But I still do not
believe in the yishuv as they were able to spend 2.5 million pounds
on the election and another 1.5 million pounds on the hatzala
[rescue] matters throughout the war. I am still worried about the
fate and future of Zionism, but I saw so many beautiful mifalim
[projects], kibbutzim, and old love renewed that the belief in the
internal potency and potential of the yishuv is becoming stronger
again.
When I rst saw the children, the young, they made me
angry about those little, innocent Jewish children who had been
murdered, deported, strangled
—
about the fact that these ones were
too well o. But how can one not love the children in Eretz Israel?
And once again that old concern about the young population.
[17] We gradually became absorbed in educational matters.
What about the kibbutz? ere are many petty, trivial things
4 Chajka traveled through Istanbul, Syria, and Lebanon, and nally arrived in
Haifa.
5 e closest town to Kibbutz Galon in those days was Ness Tziona.
Epilogue - Like Leaves Detached from Their Old Mother Tree • 193
in the kibbutz, but this is what life is like. It consists not only of
great matters. Sometimes, however, these small matters obscure
the horizon and one forgets about those other matters. ere is
something happening outside the four walls of our house. We must
not forget that.
One oen hears the opinion that we have not integrated the
new olim [immigrants] yet, but has everybody who asser ts that asked
themselves whether they have contributed to their integration?
Hatred begins to wither in our hearts, because we were
brought up in love, in belief in one’s neighbor, but the cynicism,
pessimism, and inner anxiety have not passed. e horrors of those
days keep disturbing our peace. It is your responsibility to uproot
it from our hearts.
195
Selected Bibliography
Archival Sources
Chajka Klinger Original Diaries: Notebooks A, B, C, D, E, P, Z, I,
II, III, IV, VI, VII, OGEN I, OGEN II, Moreshet Archive, Givat
Haviva, D.2.211
“Bader Photocopy,” pp. 6–8, Moreshet Archive C.36.3.1
Chajka Klinger Publications
Ch. K., A. B. [Chajka Klinger, Aharon Brandes], “Ele divrey ha-edut”
(Hebrew), Mishmar, March 17, 1944.
Klinger, Chajka, “He-chalutz im amo: Divrey chavera she-nitzla”
(Hebrew), Dvar Ha-poelet, July 1944, pp. 49–51.
, “Linkom ve-lihyot: prakim mi-toch yoman ba-getto”
(Hebrew) Mishmar, September 1, 1944.
, “Ha-raayon she-hisiir et ruhenu” (Hebrew), Mishmar, March
4, 1945.
Rosenberg, Chaja, “Chaverot ba-getto” (Hebrew), Hedim, April 1945,
pp. 40–42.
, “Shney bikurim: kitei yoman” (Hebrew), Mishmar, April 18,
19 47.
, “Ha-shomrim be-bendin al mishmar kvod amam,” in
Israel Rozenzweig and Levi Dror, eds., Sefer Hashomer Hatzair
(Hebrew) (Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1956), pp. 691–705.
196 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Chajka (Hebrew) [Memorial Booklet] (Kibbutz Haogen, 1958).
Klinger, Chajka, Mi-yoman ba-getto (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Sifriat
Poalim and Kibbutz Haogen, 1959).
Ronen, Avihu, ed., “Pamiętniki Chajki Klinger,” Zagłada Żydów.
Studia i Materiały, Pismo Centrum Badań nad Zagładą Żydów
(Polish), vol. 9 (2013), pp. 335–379.
Documents Collections
Blumental, Nachman, Joseph Kermish, and Artur Eisenbach,
Dokumenty i materiały do dziejów okupacji niemieckiej w Polsce
(Polish) (Łódź: Centralna Żydowska Komisja Historyczna w
Polsce, 1946).
Ronen, Avihu, ed., “Saba Meir Yachol le-hiyot ge’eh be-nechadav:
Michtavim me-Bendin le-Schwitzerland
—
January–July 1943”
(Hebrew), Yalkut Moreshet, vol. 92–93 (2013), pp. 317–327.
Zariz, Ruth, Mikhteve chalutzim mi-Polin ha-kevushah, 1940–1944
(Hebrew) (Ramat Efal: Yad Tabenkin, 1994).
Memoirs, Diaries and Testimonies
Brandes, Aharon, Ketz ha-yehudim be-drom maarav polin (Hebrew)
(Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1945).
Brandes, Aharon, and Chaim Reshef, Tzvi Brandes mi-rashei ha-
mahteret ha-chalutzit be-zaglembia (Hebrew) (Moreshet and
Sifriat Poalim, 1978).
Gershuni, Grigory Andreyevich, Mein Entrinung von Katorga
(Yiddish) (New York: Parey sotsyalisen reolutsyoneren in
Ameria, 1907).
Liwer, David, Ir ha-metim (Hebrew) (Tel Aviv: Twerski, 1946).
Lubetkin, Zivia, Die letzten Tage des Warschauer Gettos (Berlin-
Potsdam: VVN-Verlag, 1949).
Selected Bibliography • 197
Mazia, Fredka, Reim ba-saar: noar tsiyoni be-maavak im ha-Natsim
(Hebrew) (Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1964).
Ranz, Jochanan, In Nazi Claws: Bendzin 1939–1944 (New York: J.
Ranz, 1956).
Wiederman, Pawel, Płowa bestia (Monachium: Eucom, 1948).
Zuckerman, Yitzhak (Antek), A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of
the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (Berkeley: University of California
Press, 1993).
Zylbersztejn, Avraham, Be-getaot varsha ve-chenstochova (Hebrew)
(Merhavia: Sifriat Poalim, 1945).
Research
Bartoszewski, Wladyslaw, and Zoa Lewin, eds., Righteous Among
Nations: How the Poles Helped the Jews 1939–1945 (London:
Earlscourt Publications, 1969).
Friedman, Philip, “Two ‘Saviors’ Who Failed,” Commentary, vol. 26
(1958), pp. 479–491.
Fulbrook, Mary, A Small Town Near Auschwitz: Ordinary Nazis and
the Holocaust (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012).
Gutman, Israel, e Jews of Warsaw, 1939–1943: Ghetto, Underground,
Revolt (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982).
, Mered ha-netzurim (Hebrew) (Sifriat Poalim 1963).
Hilberg, Raul, e Destruction of the European Jews (New York:
Holmes & Meier, 1961).
Kirschner, Ann, Sala’s Gi: My Mother’s Holocaust Story (New York:
Free Press, 2006).
Konieczny, Alfred, “Die Zwangsarbeit der Juden in Schlesien im
Rahmen der ‘Organisation Schmelt,’” in Goetz Aly, et al., eds.,
Sozialpolitik und Judenvernichtung: Gibt es eine Ökonomie der
Endlösung? (German) (Berlin: Rotbuch, 1987), pp. 91–110.
Namysło, Aleksandra, ed., Zagłada Żydów Zagłębiowskich (Będzin:
198 • I Am Writing These Words To You
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—
Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni
przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, Oddział w Katowicach, 2004).
Paldiel, Mordecai, “Alfred Rossner: e German Hemophiliac
Who Died Attempting to Save Jewish Laborers,” in Saving the
Jews: Amazing Stories of Men and Women Who Deed the “Final
Solution” (Rockville: Schreiber Publishing, 2000), pp. 126–132.
Porat, Dina, e Blue and the Yellow Stars of David: e Zionist
Leadership in Palestine and the Holoc aust, 1939–1945 (Cambrid ge:
Harvard University Press, 1990).
Ronen, Avihu, “Ha-Punkt ha-gadol: Ha-gerush ha-gadol mi-
Zaglembia, August 12, 1942” (Hebrew) (Massuah Year Book 17,
1989), pp. 102–147.
, “Institutionen, Politik und Identität der jüdischen
Selbstverwaltung im Getto von Zaglembie,” in Doron Kiesel, et
al., eds., “Wer zum Leben, wer zum Tod...”: Strategien jüdischen
Überlebens im Ghetto (Frankfurt and New York: Campus Verlag,
1992), pp. 97–114.
, “e Jews of Będzin,” in Kersten Brandt, Hanno Loewy, and
Krystyna Oleksy, eds., Before ey Perished: Photographs Found
in Auschwitz (München: Kehayo Verlag, 2001), pp. 16–27.
, “Women As Leaders,” in Paula E. Hyman and Dalia
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org/encyclopedia/article/poland-women-leaders-in-jewish-
underground-during-holocaust (5 November, 2016).
, “Moshe Merin,” in Gershon Hundert, ed., e YIVO
Encyclopedia of Jews in Eastern Europe (New Haven and London:
Yale University Press, 2008), pp. 1157–1158.
, Nidonah le-hayim: Yomanah ve-hayeha shel Haikeh Klinger
(Hebrew) (Haifa: University of Haifa Press; Tel Aviv: Yedi’ot
Aharonot: Sifre Hemed, 2011).
, “ e Cable at Vanished: Tabenkin and Ya’ari to the Last
Surviving Ghetto Fighters,” Yad Vashem Studies, vol. 41, no. 2
(2013), pp. 95–138.
Selected Bibliography • 199
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Centralnej Żydowskiej Komisji Historycznej w Polsce, 1946).
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(5 November, 2016).
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1932).
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Gorki, Maxim, Di Muter (New York: Di Tag, 1915).
Jaroszyński, Tadeusz, Zmora (Warsaw: W. Jakowicki, 1914).
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Perec, Icchok Lejbusz, Collec ted Works, vol. 3, book 2 (Tel Aviv: Dvir,
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Rolland, Romain, Antoinette (Paris: A. Michel, 1931).
Rolland, Romain, Jean-Christophe (Paris: A. Michel, 1931).
Shneur, Zalman, Noah Pandre (Warsaw: Yovel Komitat, 1938).
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201
Glossary
Aliyah [Hebrew: immigration to Eretz Israel]
Arbeitseinsatz [German: work assignment, labor group]
Asefa, asefot [Hebrew: meeting(s)]
Bau [German: building, construction]
Bnei midbar [Hebrew: children of the desert]
Bogrim [Hebrew: senior members, adults]
Bund [socialist Jewish movement]
Chalutz/chalutzim [Hebrew: pioneer(s)]
Chaverim [Hebrew: members, comrades, friends]
Chevra [Hebrew: group of comrades]
Chutzpa [Yiddish, Hebrew: impudence]
Eretz /Eretz Israel [Hebrew: land of Israel; also country, homeland]
Gmina/gminy [Polish: community/communities; also: Judenrat]
Hachshara [Hebrew: training]
Hagana [Hebrew: defense]
Hanhaga [Hebrew: leadership]
Hakibbutz Haartzi [federation of the Hashomer Hatzair kibbutzim
in Eretz Israel.]
Hashomer Hatzair [Young Guardian]
Hatzala [rescue]
202 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Hauptmann [German: captain, director]
Hechalutz [Hebrew: pioneering (movement)]
Internierungslager [German: internment camp]
Irgun [Hebrew: organization]
Judenrat [German: Jewish Council]
Judenrein [German: purged, cleansed of Jews]
Kriegswichtige [German: important for the war eort]
Kvutza [Hebrew: group]
Leutnant [German: lieutenant]
Merkaz [Hebrew: central leadership]
Menahel/menahalim [Hebrew: youth leader(s)]
Moatza [Hebrew: assembly]
Moiserim [Yiddish: traitors/informers]
Mörder [German: murderers]
Shlicha/shaliach [Hebrew: missionary, delegate, messenger]
Shichva/shichvot [Hebrew: age group(s)]
Shlichut [Hebrew: mission]
Shomer [Hebrew: Hashomer Hatzair member]
Tzom [Hebrew: scouts]
Wehrmacht [German Army]
Yeshiva [Hebrew: meeting]
Yishuv [Hebrew: settlement, community]
Zchut [Hebrew: privilege]
203
Blumenfrucht, Hari (Arie), 123n131,
126
Bocian, Cipora, 40, 182
Böhm, Wolf (Władysław), 51, 179
Bornstein, Hanka, 138n23
Bornstein, Heini, 115
Borochov, Dov Ber, 35n8, 92n31
Brandes, Aharon (Uncio), 50, 61, 64,
67
Brandes, Cwi, 12, 26n5, 34, 36–38,
39, 40, 44, 45, 47, 50, 51–52, 54, 59,
61, 64–65, 107, 122, 126, 153n30,
159n1, 162n7, 173, 177–18 0
Brandes, Pesa (Pola), 38, 39, 50, 52,
60, 68
Braun (German Workshop owner), 56
Breslaw, Szmuel, 81n6, 100n57,
103n66, 105, 107n80, 151
Brojde, Bareł (Berl), 155
Brzozowski, Stanisław L., 19, 89n22
Buber, Martin, 27n6
Budapest, 10, 185n1, 190
Céline, Louis-Ferdinand, 167
Chaim Merin, 110n89
Chełmno, 97, 98, 146
Chmielnicki, Bogdan, 30n13
Chrzanów, 51n39
Cooper, James Fenimore, 103n67
Costa Rica, 115n107
Czechoslovakia, 95, 119
Czerniaków, Adam, 102
Częstochowa, 72, 120n120, 123, 124,
126n138, 141
Altman, Tosia, 21, 81n6, 128–129,
144 –145n2, 155
Anielewicz, Mordechai, 14, 18, 65,
81n6, 87n17, 93–95, 96n44, 97, 98,
99–100, 105–106, 107, 113, 134,
144–145n2, 150, 153–154, 158
Annenberg, 56
Astrid/Astrit (Miller, Zosia), 112, 113,
136n16 , 140, 141, 144n 2
Asz, Shalom, 137
Auschwitz, 9, 14, 33n6, 43n24, 43n26,
59, 63, 66, 73, 98, 99n54, 109, 111,
117, 117n115, 147, 163
Bader, Menachem, 55n43, 99n52,
101n58, 114n105, 144n1
Banasik, Klara, 25n4
Banasik family, 9, 25n4
Bartoszewski, Wladyslaw, 26n4
Baüke/Baucke, Walter, 182
Będzin, 7–9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14–16,
17–18, 19, 21, 25n2, 33–79, 83,
86n14, 99, 127n139, 128n1, 130,
131, 132, 136n16, 144n2, 153n28,
159n1, 162, 181
Begin, Menachem, 72n61
Bełżec, 97, 98
Bendsburg. see Będzin
Ben-Gurion, David, 86n15
Berek (boy), 68
Bernad, Hedwa, 182
Bialik, Chaim Nachman, 62n53
Białystok, 97n46
Bidner (Judenrat ocial), 58
Index
204 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Dąbrowa Górnicza, 131
Dąbrówka, 9
Darr, Adam, 62n52
Dreier/Dreyer, Hans, 33, 182
Duński, Cwi, 16, 108, 109–111, 116
Dworski, Tojwija, 182
Dzerzhinsky, Felix, 172n24
East Upper Silesia, 14
Eck, Nan, 116
Eichman, ?, 100n56
England, 85, 90
Eretz Israel. see Palestine
(Mandatory)
Erlich (lawyer), 92n32
Finkelsztajn, Szmulek, 160
Fischer, Maks (Max), 50, 51n38, 122
Folman, Marek, 124–125, 126, 144n2
Frank, Leonhard, 85n12
Fruchtzweig, Berek, 117
Fruchtzweig, Dow, 122, 160
Gaek, Baruch, 12, 35, 40, 112,
161–162, 182
Gelbard, Ina, 112, 127, 144n2
Geller, Eliezer, 87–88, 113n104,
144 n2, 153
Geneva, 15, 121
Germany, 132n12
Gershuni, Grigory Andreyevich,
30n16
Glanc, Rywka, 120
Goldblum, Alter, 125n136, 160
Goldminc, Romek, 107, 110, 111
Gordon, Aharon Dawid, 86n15
Gorki, Maxim, 137
Graubart, Benjamin, 83n9
Graubart, Dov (Bobo), 111n92
Great Britain, 85n11
Gregroy VII, Pope, 111n93
Grojanowski, Yanov (Winer, Szlama
Ber), 146n8
Grossman, Chajka, 22, 81n6
Gutman, Israel, 89n22
Haifa, 10, 185n1, 192
Hanegbi, Dawid, 90n27
Hanka (unidentied), 138
Heinrich IV, Holy Roman Emperor,
111n93
Hela (unidentied), 117
Helena (from Zawiercie), 122
Heler, Szymon, 155
Heniek (unidentied), 124, 133
Hercberg, Dora (Dorka), 38, 44, 45,
143
Heydrich, Reinhard, 95n40, 119n118
Hungary, 10, 127, 162, 190
Israel, 8, 35n8, 185n1
Istanbul, 10, 25n1, 33n2, 55n43,
99n52, 101n58, 113n105, 127n139,
162n7, 185n1, 192n4
Jakubowicz, Pnina, 182
Jaroszyński, Tadeusz, 167n15
Kacengold, Hela, 125, 136n16, 142, 143
Kalisz, 8, 27n7, 166n12
Kaplan, Josef, 81, 100n57, 103, 104,
105n72, 107n80, 113, 147, 149–150
Kartin, Pinkus (Schmidt, Andrzey),
96n41
Khryshchev, Nikita, 90n27
Kishi nev, 30
Klinger, Chajka, 7–11, 12, 14, 16,
17–18, 19–20, 22
Klinger, Icek-Leibus (Leibel), 8, 28n8
Klinger, Malka-Chana (Mania), 28n8
Klinger, Sara-Mindela, 28n8, 47n30
Klinger-Schwinkelstein, Ryvka-Perla,
8, 28n8
Klugman, Nacha (Nacia), 93, 117, 122,
136n16 , 143
Kobylec, Karolina, 25n4
Kobylec, Mieczysław, 25n4
Kobylec, Piotr, 25n4
Kobylec, Wiktor, 25–26n4
Kobylec family, 9
Kobylec-Banasik, Klara, 25n4
Koniecpol, 124
Kovner, Abba, 81n6
Kozłowski, Dawid (Didia), 8–9, 12,
Index • 205
28n9, 39, 43, 44, 47, 72, 93, 118,
125, 126, 153n30, 159n1, 160,
166 –176, 180
Kozruch, Azriel, 162n7
Krzesiwo, Motek, 116, 117n112
Kukeilka, Renia, 144n2
Kukeilka, Sara, 68, 122, 144n2
Landau, Alexander, 149n13
Landau, Margalit, 150n18, 150n21
Landou, Jakow (Yankele/Jankele), 43,
44, 117, 122, 173
Laskier, Michael, 146
Lebanon, 10, 192n4
Lejkin, Jacob, 150, 151
Lenczner (Rubinowicz), Chawka, 25,
41, 42, 51–52, 67–68
Lenin, Vladimir, 85n11
Lerner, Shlomo, 162n7
Lewartowski, Josef, 96n41
Lewin, Zoa, 26n4
Linder, Menachem, 101n60
Lithuania, 81n4
Liwer, Arie, 35n10, 116, 117n112
Liwer, David, 35n10, 116
Lubetkin, Cywia (Zivia), 120, 145n2,
153, 155
Luxemburg, Rosa, 85n11, 132n12
Mahler, R., 101n60
Malraux, André, 19, 134n14, 151n24,
157, 170
Meir (boy), 43
Merin, Moshe, 14, 19, 21, 100n56,
108n84, 109–110, 111, 117n115,
121n123, 179
Merin, Sawek, 92, 111n92
Mgla, Jacub, 28n8, 47n30
Mgla, Malka-Chana, 28n8
Mgla, Tauba (“Tamusia”, Tamar),
28n8, 47
Mgla-Klinger, Sara-Mindela, 28n8,
47n30
Międzyrzecze, 148
Miller, Zosia (Astrid/Astrit), 112, 113,
136n16 , 140, 141, 144n 2
Minc, Lipek, 16, 108n84, 109–111
Mirka (unidentied), 122
Molczadski, Chaim, 99
Najman, Ajzyk, 50, 126
Navahrudak (Nowogródek), 97
Ness Tziona, 192
Nowogródek (Navahrudak), 97
Palestine (Mandatory), 10, 12, 13,
16, 17, 18, 21–22, 27, 27n6, 35n8,
45n27, 46, 47n31, 48n32–34, 80,
84, 85n11, 86n15, 87n18, 90n27,
92, 104n68, 105n74–75, 107n81,
114n103, 114n105, 122n124,
127n139, 128n3, 136n16, 144n2,
153, 162n7, 169, 171, 180, 182,
185–189, 191–192
Pandre, Noah, 72n61
Paraguay, 115n107
Pawiak, 103, 156
Pejsachson, Icek-Mordke, 30n15,
43n24, 43n25, 122n130
Pejsachson, Idzia, 8, 21, 43, 92, 93, 94,
112, 132, 136n16, 140–141
Pejsachson, Irena (Irka), 30, 43, 44,
83, 92, 93, 94, 96n44, 122, 123,
136n16, 139–140, 173
Pejsachson, Lea, 8, 21, 43, 44, 96n44,
122, 123, 136–138, 173
Perec, Icchok Lejbusz, 56–57n47
Płotnicka, Frumka, 12, 40, 122, 129,
132, 144–145n2, 153n28, 161, 162,
164, 182, 183
Poland, 7, 10, 18, 22, 27n6, 27n7,
35n8, 81, 85n11, 89n22, 93, 95,
97, 100n56, 104, 105n74, 106n77,
107n81, 113, 132n12, 163, 185, 190
Polna Róża, Frumka, 162, 182
Potasz, Abraham, 12, 164n8, 181–184
Procel (Jewish militiaman), 107n81
Rachel (unidentied), 104
Ringelblum, E., 101n60
Rolland, Romain, 167n13–14
Ron, Shmuel, 90n27
Ronen, Arnon, 11
Ronen, Avihu, 11, 23
206 • I Am Writing These Words To You
Ronen, Zvi, 11
Rosenberg, Yaakov (later Ronen), 9,
11
Rosenkier, Rachel, 138
Rosner, Alfred, 33, 34, 55n44
Rovno, 81n4
Równe, 81
Rozman, Mordechai, 81n6
Russia/USSR, 31n16, 84, 90, 91–92,
95, 96, 132, 172, 177, 178, 180, 189
Rywka Glanc, 124
Sagan, Szachna Efrayim, 101n60
Salek (unidentied), 92, 133
Schmidt, Andrzey (Kartin, Pinkus),
96n41
Schröter (Gestapo ocer), 74
Schulman, Meir, 51, 53
Schulman, Nechama (Necha), 51,
52–53
Schwalb, Nathan, 113, 115n107, 117,
145n2
Schwartz-Rosenkier, Rachel, 138
Schweig, Boncie, 56–57n47
Schwinkelstein, Ryvka-Perla, 8, 28n8
Serbia, 95
Shneur, Zalman, 72n61
Siberia, 31n16
Slovakia, 10, 190
Socha (PPR representative), 124, 126
Sokółka, Szyfra, 155
Sosnowiec, 14, 16, 21, 100n56, 110n89,
121, 129n7, 130, 131
Soviet Union. see Russia/USSR
Springer, Herszel, 35, 41n23, 42,
50, 51–52, 53, 66, 67–68, 69, 122,
162n7
Springer, Joel, 122
Środula, 131
Stalin, Joseph, 90n27
Strug, Andrzej, 106n78
Switzerland, 17, 104n68, 114n101,
115n107–108, 121n123, 144n2,
145n2
Syria, 10, 192n4
Szamir, Josef, 105
Szancer, Miriam (Kasia), 36
Szrebniakow (unidentied), 150
Szwartzbaum, Alfred, 121n123
Szymcha (unidentied), 160
Tabenkin, Yitzhak, 35n8, 48, 117, 121,
158
Tencer/Tenzer, Kalman, 100n56,
129–131
Transylvania, 190
Trawniki, 98
Treblinka, 63, 98, 101n60, 147
Vilna, 8, 81, 97, 98, 105n74, 145, 146
Warsaw, 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14–16, 17, 19,
35n11, 40, 63n54, 72, 85–86n14,
85n11, 87, 88, 89n23, 91, 93n37,
96, 97n49–50, 97n50, 101, 102,
103, 104, 105, 106, 111, 112, 113,
113n104, 115, 118, 119, 120, 121,
127, 128n2, 144–158
Warszewski, Israel (Srulek), 38
Warthegau, 97, 146
Werfel, Franz, 19, 30n11, 157
Wilner, Arie, 97, 113, 146, 155
Winer, Szlama Ber (Grojanowski,
Yanov), 146n8
Yaari, Meir, 10, 48
Zagłębie Dąbrowskie, 8, 12, 14–16,
34, 76n63, 81, 85n14, 87, 94, 96,
100n56, 100n57, 106n79, 107, 111,
115n107, 129–130, 131–132, 145n2,
156, 177, 179
Zagórze, 131
Zawiercie, 71, 132
Zborowska (Shushan), Ester
(Esterka), 166
Zelcer, Israel, 104, 148–149
Zeytenfeld, Aliza, 41, 50, 52, 53, 54,
58, 59, 68
Zuckerman, Yitzhak (Antek), 120,
149n14, 155
Zylberberg, Mordechai (Mojotek),
124
Zylbersztejn, Avraham (Abram),
35–36, 43–44, 49, 52–53, 65, 69,
144 n2