Isaac's Army
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4 The experience remained “engraved” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 14.
5 “What’s new, Dyedushka?” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 14.
6 “a rabbi who didn’t want to make a living at it” Ibid., p. 13.
7 “Are you insane, where are you going?” Ben-cion Pinchuk, Polish-Jewish Relations in Soviet-Occupied Eastern Poland, http://www.electronicmuseum.ca/Poland-WW2/ethnic_minorities_occupation/Jews_15.html, p. 7.
8 “He would have understood if I had gone closer to Eretz Israel” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 18.
9 “There were cases of members leaving the movement” Ibid., p. 19.
10 Of the 330,000 Galician Poles sent to Siberian camps in 1940, 21 percent were Jews Philipp Ther, “War Versus Peace,” Harvard Ukrainian Studies 24 (1/4), pp. 265–66.
11 “Some day they’ll probably lead me away like that too” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 20.
12 “I was such a great conspirer” Ibid., p. 22.
13 paraded in nightgowns up the marble steps of the Opera Eyewitness account, Andrzej Roman, author interview, Warsaw, September 2008.
14 from 110,000 to 160,000 by year’s end, so great was the flood of refugees Ther, War Versus Peace, p. 268.
15 The city itself was laid out like a landlocked San Francisco Author site visit, May 2009.
16 “They had more faith in the Soviet regime” Ibid., p. 26.
17 “like a captain who had been the first to leave his sinking ship” Arens, Jewish Military Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 7.
18 “Do you really believe that I did not have these thoughts?” Ibid., p. 8.
19 “We had a fight about it” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
20 “Warsaw under the Nazis scared me to death” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 29.
CHAPTER 10: ZIVIA
1 “unapproachable,” cold, hard, and “tough” Dina Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
2 “Introverted and modest” Abraham Raban, The Promise, the Revolt, the Vow, Histadrut/Lochamei Hagettaot Institute, Ghetto Fighter’s House Museum brochure, n.d., p. 6.
3 “unproductive”—the endless chattering of “do-nothings” and “squares” Ibid., p. 19.
4 “Zivia and Isaac only had two things in common” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
5 “like living on a small Jewish island” Raban, The Promise, the Revolt, the Vow, p. 6.
6 “In sociological terms, most of the Jews were middle class” Ibid., p. 4.
7 “where Gentiles did the manual labor while Jews worked in the white-collar professions” Ibid.
8 “Tell us, didn’t they do anything to you?” Ibid., p. 9.
9 “was terrified of what the Germans would do to me” Zivia Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie (Warsaw: Ksiaska I Wiedza / Zydowski Institut Historycny, 1999), p. 19.
10 “There were a few Jews cowering in one corner” Ibid.
11 “Do I have the strength,” she wondered, “to do this?” Ibid.
CHAPTER 11: WHY DOES HITLER LIKE MRS. ZEROMSKA?
1 “We worshiped him” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
2 Goldstein had grown a thick tangled beard Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 25.
3 “a nobody and they were great men” Marek Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie (Warsaw: Swiat Ksiazki, 2009), p. 37.
4 “lightning reflexes and good nature” Ibid., pp. 47–48.
5 one eyewitness put their numbers at around a thousand Yisrael Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 28.
6 “enraged by the pogrom in March” Ibid.
7 “the fringe elements of Polish society” Edelman, Ghetto Fights, p. 38.
8 “The guys in the Bund’s Self-Defense Force were not shrinking violets” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman: Zycie. Po Prostu, p. 47.
9 “We decided to fight back with ‘cold weapons’ ” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 44.
10 “When the pogromists appeared in these sections” Ibid., p. 45. contracting by an estimated 40 percent Szczypiorski, “Miezkania I ludnosc Warszawy w Czasie Wojny I Hitlerowshiej Okupacji,” p. 47.
11 Some 270,000 men and 63,470 women Ibid., p. 77.
12 “young men of land-owning families” Korbonski, Fighting Warsaw, p. 12.
13 “I think she made more money than Father” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
14 “We were not rich, but we were comfortable” Ibid.
15 the day a Volksdeutsche walked into the store Ibid.
16 seized 112,000 small businesses, 9,120 large enterprises, 76,000 small artisan shops Leni Yahl, Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry 1932–1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 158.
17 “The Volksdeutsche demanded the keys” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
18 57.5 percent of all medium-sized and small enterprises and 40 percent of large industrial concerns Fuks, Mowia Wieki, p. 12.
19 “I didn’t realize that Mrs. Zeromska was really saving our lives” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
20 “I didn’t understand why he left us behind” Robert Osnos, author interview, New York, September 2008.
21 “We are going to get out” Ibid.
CHAPTER 12: AM I WILLING TO DO THIS?
1 “to protect Jews against Polish excesses” Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak, Getto Warszawskie: Przewodnik po Niistniejacym Miescie (Warsaw: IFiS/PAN, 2001), p. 75.
2 “spreaders of diseases” Ibid.
3 88 among Jews and 5 among non-Jews Biuletyn ZIH, no. 74 (Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute, April 1970), p. 106.
4 a life expectancy that ranged between 7.5 years Ibid.
5 and a full decade less Johnson, History of the Jews, p. 356.
6 “I could not face Mama” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.
7 “We could now only afford to eat one decent meal a day” Ibid.
8 “We had to first and foremost provide the hungry with bread” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 24.
9 totaled 669 calories for “Poles,” 184 calories for Jews Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943, p. 66.
10 “I was amazed at Yehuda’s senses” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 38.
11 “Now the German danger began” Ibid., p. 39.
12 “Throw away your bundle” Ibid., p. 40.
13 After climbing to 150 zlotys … it plunged to 90 zlotys in late May Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 41.
14 A specially prepared chemical was added to the lubricating oil Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski, Secret Army (New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 40.
15 “The Führer has awakened in me the consciousness of the German community” Jan Karski, Story of a Secret State (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1944), p. 214.
16 “Their gait and their whole appearance seemed to proclaim” Korbonski, Fighting Warsaw, p. 12.
17 from six thousand weekly copies in December 1939 to forty thousand Ozimek, Media Walczacej Warszawy, p. 50.
18 “Horrifying night” Ringelblum, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 38.
19 “Some Poles are beginning to wear Jewish armbands” Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, p. 147.
20 sixty-five hundred were snatched from their Warsaw homes and places of work Wladyslaw Bartoszewski, Warszawski Pierscien Smierci 1939–1944 (Warsaw: Swiat Ksiazki, 2008), p. 60.
21 “Hundreds were lying in the sawdust” Korbonski, Fighting Warsaw, p. 50.
22 designed in 1835 by Henry Marconi Peacock Prison Museum exhibit, author site visit, August 2008.
23 “You could hear them calling” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.
24 the hundred thousand Poles imprisoned at Peacock (almost all of them Christians) Andrzej Stawarz, ed., Pawiak 1835–1944 (Warsaw: Muzeum N
iepodlegosci, 2002), p. 10.
25 thirty-seven thousand were shot on the spot or at Palmiry Ibid.
26 the first Jews to settle there in 1564 Joram Kagan, Polish-Jewish Landmarks (New York: Hippocrene Books, 2001), p. 89.
CHAPTER 13: MARTHA AND ROBERT RUN
1 “Another elegant secretary took Joseph to the right place” Martha Osnos, unpublished journal, p. 22.
2 “He looked like Mephisto himself” Ibid., p. 13.
3 “One kitchen, one bathroom, and all those people just waiting for me to leave” Ibid.
4 “By a miracle” Ibid.
5 “I prepared a lot of vodka Wyborowa” Ibid., p.14.
6 “Berlin was full of sunshine, flowers, decorated with flags” This and all other quotes from the Berlin to Bucharest trip are from Martha Osnos, unpublished journal, pp. 15–18.
7 “We can delay and effectively stop for a temporary period” Valery Bazarov, testimony before the U.S. House of Representatives Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law, March 19, 2009, http://judiciary.house.gov/hearings/pdf/bazarov090319.
8 “The Department received information from reliable confidential sources” Ibid.
9 fell from 43,450 in 1939, to 23,737 in 1941, to 10,608 the following year Ibid., appendix I.
CHAPTER 14: HANNA AND JOANNA HIDE
1 “Nowhere else but Valiant Street could we seat forty people for classes” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 61.
2 the lives of 274 teachers and faculty members Dunin-Wasowicz, Warszawa w Latach 1939–1945, pp. 157–61.
3 Enrollment quickly grew to 120 pupils Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, pp. 61–62.
4 “Holding a seminar next door to Peacock” Ibid., p. 56. 98 The Young Guard had five hundred members in Warsaw, while Isaac had eight hundred Ibid., p. 43.
5 “They intend to starve us” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 30.
6 113,000 Gentiles and 138,000 Jews Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943, p. 60.
7 a fifty-kilogram suitcase for each adult and a thirty-kilo bag Arad, Gutman, and Margaliot, Documents on the Holocaust, p. 146.
8 “a) Open fires are to be extinguished; b) Water and gas supply is to be turned off” Ibid.
9 “Reliable, discreet mediation in the exchange of all types” Nowy Kurjer Warszawski, October 11, 1940.
10 Jews owned 40 percent of what was described as “Category A” property Fuks, Mowia Wieki: Magazin Historyczni, April 2008, p. 10.
11 “It was terrible” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
12 fifty thousand inhabitants were spread out over an area more than twice that size “Moja Dzielnica” (magazine insert to Zycie Warszawy), April 2009, pp. 14, 18.
13 “If you are ever in trouble and need help” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
14 “I don’t think it ever crossed her mind to follow the [relocation] order” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
15 The Germans issued 11,130 arrest warrants for Jews Gunnar S. Paulsson, Secret City: The Hidden Jews of Warsaw 1940–1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2002), p. 58.
16 “I don’t know if there had been a family-wide discussion about it” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
17 “As she was entering Gestapo headquarters” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 273.
18 “As soon as the Poles were sent out we grabbed that job” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 132.
19 “We need to know what is happening to our brothers and sisters” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 32.
20 seizing the 2,300 mostly Jewish-owned textile mills Leszek Skrzydlo, Rody Fabrykanckie (Lodz: Oficyna Bibliofilow, 2001), p. 7.
21 “They had to have an Aryan appearance, speak Polish well” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 49.
22 only 5 percent … classified themselves as native Polish speakers 19,300 of 353,000, per Maly Roccznik Statystyczny (Warsaw: Glowny Urzad Statistycczny, 1939), pp. 22–24.
23 “most Polish Jews could not speak Polish well” Nechama Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness: Christian Rescue of Jews in Nazi-Occupied Poland (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 38.
24 “These differences permeated all aspects of life” Ibid.
25 “Your Aryan face is worth its weight in gold” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 121.
26 Isaac’s problem was his accent Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
27 “Her Polish wasn’t fluent” Ibid., p. 104.
CHAPTER 15: SIMHA AND BORUCH PAY THE BILLS
1 “There are long queues in front of every food store” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum, p. 86.
2 “On the first day after the Ghetto was closed” Ibid.
3 provided an estimated 80 to 90 percent of the food consumed in the Warsaw Ghetto Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943, p. 67. See also Paulsson, Secret City, p. 61.
4 “It was not at all uncommon for ten- or twelve-year-olds to support entire families” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
5 “Getting out of the Ghetto was not that difficult” Ibid.
6 “At Goat Street smuggling is through a door in a wall” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto: The Journal of Emmanuel Ringelblum, p. 127.
7 Seventy to 80 percent of the food sold in Warsaw outside the Ghetto was already smuggled Dunin-Wasowicz, Warszawa w Latach 1939–1945, p. 113.
8 Ghetto residents were allotted a daily high of 400 calories Barbara Kroll, Opieka I Samopomoc Spoleczna w Warszawie 1939–1945 (Warsaw: PAN, 1977), p. 89.
9 A kilogram of sugar, for instance, purchased with ration cards, retailed for 1.6 zlotys Wojciech Jastrzebowski, Gospodarka Niemecka w Polsce 1939–1944 (Warsaw: publisher unknown, 1946), p. 367.
10 “I’d jump on and off moving trains to get there” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
11 “The other Jews would think I was a Polish smuggler” Ibid.
12 798,000 Poles—all Christians—were already working as slave laborers in Germany Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 33.
13 109don’t come with us to Germany Korbonski, Fighting Warsaw, p. 226.
14 “I remember the smell of the huge round loaves, freshly baked” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
15 “Apparently I was rather successful” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 13.
16 Insurance companies offered policies on the safe delivery of goods Perec Opoczynski, Reportaze z Warszawskiego Getta (Warsaw: ZIH, 2009), p. 21.
17 “The Zionists had theirs. We had ours. All the groups looked after their own” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
18 actually consumed 1,125 daily calories in early 1941 Paulsson, Secret City, p. 68.
19 “The innumerable confectionery stores that have sprung up lately” Sloan, Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 106.
20 “It would take even a fluent Yiddish speaker coming from the more distant parts” Ewa Geller in Eleonora Bergman and Olga Zienkiewicz, eds., Zydzi Warszawy (Warsaw: Zydowski Instute Historyczny, 2000), p. 115.
21 “Things were better” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
22 “Dating in the Ghetto was different” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.
23 a musical comedy called The Rabbi’s Little Rebecca, starring Regina Sugar Ulrich Keller, ed., The Warsaw Ghetto in Photographs: 206 Views Made in 1941 (New York: Dover Publications, 1984), p. 47.
24 The twelve-hundred-seat Yiddish Artistic Theater, built in 1913 … a new play, Got Fun Nerume, directed by and starring Adam Samberg Anna Kuligowska-Korzeniewska, “Swiat Ktory Odszedl,” Stolica, no. 4 (2193), April 2008, pp. 16, 17.
25 More than eighty former members of the Warsaw Philharmonic … two winners of the Chopin prize … and solo violinists li
ke Ludwig Holtzman Fuks, Mowia Wieki, p. 30.
CHAPTER 16: JOANNA CAUSES TROUBLE
1 Every few weeks Monika brought money from the store, which was doing shockingly well Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
2 “I was mortally afraid of Mr. Glaser” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 277.
3 “Conspirators, underground agents, and saboteurs used it” Ibid., p. 279.
4 “Not bad for a hideout” Ibid.
5 “help from God himself” Martha Osnos, unpublished journal, p. 24.
6 an earthquake that measured 7.7 on the Richter scale F. Wenzel, D. Lungu, and O. Novak, eds., Vrancea Earthquakes, Natural Hazards, vol. 19, no. 1, January 1999, p. 80.
7 Carlton Hotel, collapsed, killing 267 guests Ibid.
8 “Two days later we had a transit visa” Martha Osnos, unpublished journal, p. 24.
9 “It seemed impossible to accomplish in a few hours” Ibid., p. 25.
10 “known for all kinds of guides and machers” Ibid., p. 26.
11 “ ‘Everyone is in mourning here’ ” Ibid., p. 27.
12 “the picture of bourgeois respectability” Hilberg, Staron, and Kermisz, Warsaw Diary of Adam Czerniakow, p. 26.
13 Most of the sixteen-hundred-strong force hailed from an upper-middle-class background Gutman, Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943, p. 87.
14 “Many used bribery and influential connections” Goldstein, Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto, p. 59.
15 “I heard cries and shouts” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 135.
16 a number that would peak at 1.6 million Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 33.
17 “These snatchings were done in streets and in houses” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 134.
18 “Before dawn, we were led through the streets of Warsaw” Ibid., p. 136.
CHAPTER 17: ISAAC AND BORUCH GLIMPSE HELL
1 Czerniakow was “weak” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.