Isaac's Army
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14 “We couldn’t help ourselves” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 106.
15 Anielewicz’s groups had knocked out a tank on Zamenhof Street Engelking and Leociak, Getto Warszawskie, p.734.
16 “We can’t get into the Ghetto” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 105.
17 Twelve men were dead or wounded, a tank was wrecked, and two armored personnel carriers were burned beyond recognition Stroop, Stroop Report, April 19, 1943.
18 “That idiot, Von Sammern-Frankenegg, drove a tank into those narrow streets” Moczarski, Rozmowy z Katem, pp. 179–80.
19 picked out a four-hundred-acre parcel near Lvov Ibid., p. 157.
20 “alcohol, parties, and loose women” Ibid., p. 172.
21 “finest Egyptian tobacco in the world” Ibid.
22 “I’m assuming command” Ibid., p. 181.
CHAPTER 30: JOANNA PRAYS
1 “I don’t really remember much beyond the fact” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2009.
2 “They demanded an inspection of all the children” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 286.
3 “I don’t remember being especially frightened” Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2009.
4 “smell of ersatz coffee and slightly burned porridge” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 285.
5 “Was it through mutual friends?” Ibid., p. 284.
6 “Don’t provoke the Poles” Moczarski, Rozmowy z Katem, p. 181.
7 “Poland has to wait and gather its strength” Gutman, Resistance, pp. 212–13.
8 “a wide assortment of Hebrew dictionaries, textbooks, and self-teaching guides” Jewish Historical Institute, Warsaw, archival map exhibit, November 2009.
9 The famous Moskowicz Cheese Shop had been next door, along with Goldstein’s Laundry Ibid.
10 “No sooner had he finished speaking than the house shook” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 52.
11 “Afraid to stick their heads out, they fired blind” Ibid.
12 “We were beginning to feel the fire” Ibid., p. 53.
13 “It was a way so difficult” Ibid.
CHAPTER 31: GHETTOGRAD
1 “Damn you” Moczarski, Rozmowy z Katem, p. 186.
2 “Continue to play thus, Maestro” Ibid., p. 187.
3 thanks to the four submachine guns delivered by Security Corps Apfelbaum, Two Flags, p. 204.
4 “Get those flags down, Stroop” Ibid.
5 his finger on the trigger of an IED Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
6 Many of the hundred German and Ukrainian soldiers in the assault party Edelman, I Bila Milosc w Getcie, p. 115.
7 a geyser of water shot straight upward Ibid.
8 most of the four thousand slave laborers hiding in cellars in the Brushmakers District Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
9 “Shoot them” Ibid.
10 “Hans, look, a woman!” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 34.
11 Four of the ten fighters in Simha’s group were women Ibid., p. 33.
12 “These females fired pistols from both hands” Stroop, Stroop Report, p. 8.
13 “During the night the fires we had started earlier forced the Jews to appear” Ibid., p. 27.
14 “embark on the total destruction of the Jewish quarter” Ibid, p. 9.
15 “I’m not going down there” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
16 As many as eighty ZOB members had participated in the opening battle Ibid.
17 “We are going to die” Krall, Shielding the Flame, p. 5.
18 “The sea of flames flooded houses and courtyards” Edelman, Ghetto Fights, p. 80.
19 “We didn’t think of committing suicide” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
20 the old Municipal Courts building with its soaring six-story columns Kasprzycki, Korzenie Miasta, vol. 2, p. 148.
21 But David Apfelbaum and Paul Frenkel … were reportedly refusing to use it Lazar, Muranowska 7, p. 281.
22 bringing their children to watch his artillerymen level the Ghetto Balicka-Koslowska, Mur Mial Dwie Strony, p. 26.
23 “It is impossible not to sympathize with and admire the Jewish population” Dzien Warszawy, April 20, 1943.
24 “The smoke clouds over Warsaw cannot disappear without a trace” Polska, Zwyciezy, April 30, 1943.
25 275HORRIBLE CRIME COMMITTED BY JEWS FROM THE NKVD Nowy Kurjer Warszawski, April 18, 1943, p. 1.
26 “The Jews’ struggle has nothing to do with Poland” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 286.
27 Eighteen members of a Security Corps extraction squad were mobilized Lazar, Muranowska 7, p. 279.
28 “With Iwanski leading the way, the men plodded along in single file” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 239.
29 The street had been one of the wealthiest in the poorer northern part of the Jewish district Opoczynski, Reportaze z Warszawskiego Getta, p. 20.
30 But there was nothing left of the Gdansk Café, Nathan Gershwin Pharmaceuticals, the Style hairdressing salon Kasprzycki, Korzenie Miasta, vol. II, p. 159.
31 “Thank God you’ve come” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 240.
32 Three hundred and twenty German and Latvian SS troops Stroop, Stroop Report, p. 39.
33 Skeptical Polish and Israeli historians, however, would later cast doubt on many of the claims Libionka and Weinbaum, “Deconstructing Memory and History,” Jewish Political Studies Review 18:1–2 (Spring 2006).
34 “Iron Cross 1st Class” Wdowinski, And We Are Not Saved, p. 203.
35 “The assault party discovered a gang of 120 men, heavily armed with pistols” Stroop, Stroop Report, p. 39.
36 “Polish terrorists were identified with certainty among the bandits” Ibid., p. 40.
37 Iwanski posthumously promoted him to major Apfelbaum, Two Flags, p. 227.
CHAPTER 32: FALLEN ANGEL
1 “The total number of Jews apprehended has risen to 40,237” Ibid., p. 49.
2 “You couldn’t blame them” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
3 “Anyone walking on top of the rubble would never have believed that only a few meters” Zivia Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 118.
4 “Everyone out” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
5 “Mark was very cold, but he was also very brave” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 177.
6 “He was ruthless, but you felt safe around him” Ibid., p. 178.
7 Mark’s plan was to send them a distraction, a pretty young ZOB member Kurzman, Bravest Battle, pp. 274–75.
8 Stroop’s daily casualty rate had spiked to seven Stroop, Stroop Report, p. 49.
9 a cramped and foul-smelling dugout that had been excavated by Ghetto garbage collectors Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
10 By May 7, with the influx of Edelman’s team, it was over three hundred Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 111.
11 “He behaves here in the bowels of the earth like king of the roost” Ibid.
12 “He and his pals treated the Fighting Organization with great respect” Ibid.
13 “We feared meeting the dead more than living Germans” Ibid., p. 121.
14 “His face sagged with worry” Ibid., p. 111.
15 By nine o’clock there was still no word and Edelman’s patience had worn thin Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
16 “Mark was always full of bravado, flouting safety regulations” Zivia Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 130.
17 She had fallen through a crevice Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
18 “We started thinking about what practical jokes we could pull” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 130.
19 “John.” … “Warsaw” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
20 Eighty ZOB members were dead Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 173.
21 “First Anielewicz shot Mira …
then himself” Ibid.
22 Historians would cite five Mark, Powstanie W Getcie Warszawskim, p. 72. 284 “A leader has no right to commit suicide” Beres and Burnetko, Marek Edelman, p. 174.
23 “He took the easy way out” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
24 Prostitutes had shared bagels and other food with him in the past Krall, Shielding the Flame, p. 40.
CHAPTER 33: SIMHA THE SAVIOR
1 “The welcome of the two women whom I’d just met dazzled me” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 46.
2 “I initially thought my job was to tell Isaac that the others were ready” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
3 Every day, 180 trains loaded with soldiers Piotr Rozwadowski and Aneta Ignatowicz, Boje o Warszawe (Warsaw: Fundacja Warszawa Walczy, 2007), p. 124.
4 “If you don’t go, I’m going to go back in myself!” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
5 “Fine!” Ibid.
6 “You can keep leading us, or you can die right here” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
7 “It took a few tries but we managed to get out of the Ghetto” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
8 “I spent three hours looking for my friends” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
9 “I will never forget what I saw when I first descended into the sewer” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 68.
10 “It was midnight” Ibid., p. 101.
11 “We had been walking for several hours when we received a jolt” Ibid.
12 “We were not accustomed to good news” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 103.
13 “We drag[ged] them over the putrid water” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 138.
14 “We lay in the sewage, body pressed to body, and counted the passing minutes” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 104.
15 “Our despair grew from moment to moment” Ibid., p.105.
16 Their paid-off gangster host, who called himself the King Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
17 “Drink this” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 322.
18 “Move, move” … “Hurry, hurry” Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 141.
19 “I told him this was a Home Army mission” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
20 “We have to go” Ibid.
21 “There are a lot of people down there” Ibid.
22 “Stop! Stop!” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 325.
23 For Boruch, the virgin forest … had come as a shock Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
24 “I could not believe that only a few hundred yards from the Ghetto ordinary life went on” Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.
25 “Mark has had a breakdown” Edelman, I Byla Milosc w Getcie, p. 123.
26 “Go ahead … pull the trigger and we both die” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
27 “Those people died because of me” Ibid.
28 But for the eighty survivors of the Jewish Fighting Organization’s original five hundred members Lubetkin, Zaglada I Powstanie, p. 143.
CHAPTER 34: HOTEL POLAND
1 the Jews, as urbanites, had no idea how to live off the land Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
2 “Life in the world of partisans in eastern Poland was extremely cruel” Lukas, Forgotten Holocaust, p. 81.
3 “it was dark and damp, like lying in a grave” Werner, Fighting Back, p. 80.
4 Twenty-eight of the Soviet-made rifles had been distributed to the Jewish partisans Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 398.
5 “From fifty people in our original group … we were down to around fifteen” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
6 arranging for a doctor to perform an abortion by candlelight Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
7 “the problem is too great for solution by the two governments here represented” Kurzman, Bravest Battle, p. 132.
8 “Stop it, they’re our people” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 92.
9 “I pretended I was a big shot in the Underground” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
10 “Miraculously, one of them had even gotten hold of a starched collar, cuffs, and tie” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 92.
11 “I told him that the ZOB had to be left alone” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
12 there were still an estimated twenty-eight thousand Jews hiding in and around the city Paulsson, Secret City, p. 103.
13 the Gestapo had snared thirty-five hundred Jews with a single fiendishly clever trap Ibid., p. 139.
14 “It was hard to rationalize that while some Jews were getting caught in the street, others were sitting comfortably in the Hotel Polski” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 441.
15 “I rode inside the tram and they stood on the platform constantly chanting ‘Jew, Jew, Jew!’ ” Ibid., p. 126.
16 Grabowski later estimated the total number of greasers in wartime Warsaw to be between five and ten thousand Jan Grabowski, “Zrada, Agresja I Obojetny Tlum,” Newsweek Polska, May 18, 2008, p. 94.
17 “The extent of their criminal behavior is difficult to measure” Ibid.
18 “disapproving indifference rather than widespread condemnation” Ibid.
19 “The problem was that the authors of the document had defined nationality on the basis of ethnicity” Ibid.
20 “Polish is your mother tongue” Ozimek, Media Walczacej Warszawy, p. 51.
21 His name was Jan Pilnik, and he appeared eighth on a list of ten individuals Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, ed., Zegoda: Rada Pomocy Zydom 1942–1945 (Warsaw: Rada Ochrony Pamienci Walk I Meczenstwa, 2002), p. 114.
22 a dozen of the two hundred executions carried out by the Resistance in Warsaw Korbonski, Fighting Warsaw, p. 126.
23 “When I got off the tram, they surrounded me” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 441.
24 1,400 men and 487 women, all Gentiles, were sent to Auschwitz on the first day alone Bartoszewski, Warszawski Perscien Smierci, p. 284.
25 On October 16, for instance, twenty people were shot on Independence Street Ibid., p. 288.
26 “You’ve brought this on yourselves. Why do you provoke us?” Ibid., p. 292.
27 as Isaac’s “right-hand man” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
28 “Tuvia’s Polish wasn’t Polish” Zuckerman, Surplus of Memory, p. 435.
29 a trusted Gentile by the name of Stephen Pokropek Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
30 “I told [Sheingut] there was no point in both of us hanging around” Ibid.
31 “Bullets whizzed by my ear” Ratheiser-Rotem, Kazik, p. 81.
32 “We were tormented by suspicion, and, naturally, it fell on Black” Ibid., p. 82.
33 “I’m walking down the street and I see this big convertible” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
CHAPTER 35: ROBERT’S AMERICAN PLEDGE
1 “Out of the blue my dad got a call that our papers were ready” Robert Osnos, author interview, New York, April 2010.
2 “I don’t know how, but my father guessed that there would be a backlash against colonialism after the war” Ibid.
3 “He was accused of being a Peeping Tom” Ibid.
4 “They thought it was some sort of codes” Ibid.
5 “Hey buddy, you lose your pants or something” Ibid.
6 “We were petrified that the Host would stick in throats” Olczak-Ronikier, W Ogrodzie Pamieci, p. 290.
7 “On the commuter train a guy latched on to us, trying to make jokes” Ibid., p. 291.
8 “Then I went back to the convent like a good girl” Ibid., p. 292.
9 “
You needed official permission to go out from your melina” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
10 “Even my eyes were Yiddish” Ibid.
11 “He did everything to boost our morale” Ibid.
12 Her grandmother translated Dr. Dolittle’s Return into Polish Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.
13 “One day they would speak only in French” Ibid.
14 “We had the feeling of being prisoners sentenced to an indefinite term” Borzykowski, Between Tumbling Walls, p. 133.
15 “You Poles are strange people” Tec, When Light Pierced the Darkness, p. 51.
16 “it only takes one Pole to betray a hundred Jews, but it takes ten Poles to save one Jew” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
17 Between forty thousand and sixty thousand Varsovians were actively involved in sheltering Jews Emmanuel Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War (Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1992), p. 247.
18 Some Western historians put the number as high as ninety thousand Paulsson, Secret City, p. 129.
19 “These noble individuals face not only German terror but also the hostility of Polish fascists” Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, p. 247.
20 “What a lot of people don’t realize is that the Poles had it pretty bad too” Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.
21 “Once I was on the run and went to Marisa [Sawicka’s] apartment” Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.
22 The capital’s non-Jewish population had shrunk by more than a fifth since 1939 Szarota, Okupowanej Warszawy Dzien Powszedni, p. 78.
23 The daily rate for boarding a Jewish child, for instance, was 100 zlotys Ringelblum, Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War, p. 140.
24 “Death threatened for bacon and gold, for weapons and false papers” Paulsson, Secret City, p. 129.
25 Wolski’s ex-girlfriend tipped off the authorities Kassow, Who Will Write Our History? p. 383.
26 a translation of her book about Saint Francis of Assisi, Blessed Are the Meek, was a bestseller in the United States in 1944 Martin Gilbert, The Righteous: The Unsung Heroes of the Holocaust (New York: Henry Holt, 2003), p. 139.