The Spiritual Triumph of Wladyslaw Szpilman: Resistance in the Face of Tragedy
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UPRISINGS
"Warsaw, Poland, Smoke rising from the ghetto, Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" May 1943 -Yad Vashem Photo Archives
"“Through if be to die, we will fight...We will fight not for ourselves but for future generations...Although we will not survive to see it, our murderers will pay for their crimes after we are gone. And our deeds will live forever.”
-Itzhak Katznelson, Poet, 1943
FINAL SOLUTION
Beginning in July 1942, the German authorities deported and murdered 300,000 Jews in the Warsaw ghetto following Hitler's Final Solution.
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"9 October 1942
In the desolate ghetto one hears each night the howling of the last dog – a hoarse, choked bark. This orphaned cry of the last dog sends shivers down one's spine. While, at night, a man tosses in his sleep, the dog's cry echoes like the howl of a thousand desolations. The cry of an orphaned dog against the backdrop of an abandoned city. And what is even more terrifying? When the dog stops wailing for a moment, the ceaseless train whistles can be heard and they are no less intimidating. These are not trains bearing greetings from faraway, from the freedom of the open fields; they come, rather, from the fields of murder, from the slaughterhouse. The trains seem to howl their loneliness, even as the last dog in the ghetto is howling his."
-Peretz Opoczynski, Journalist and writer during the Holocaust
Germans granted 35,000 Jews permission to stay in the ghetto for work, while over 20,000 remained hidden in fear of deportation. |
“Street traders were doing good business selling a paper toy which represented a pig, but if you put the paper together and unfolded it in a certain way it turned into Hitler’s face.” |
In response to the mass deportations, several Jewish underground organizations created the Jewish Combat Organization, an armed self-defense unit.
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"Now, when only a small handful remained, once again we didn't have enough fighting power. With the systematic destruction of the remaining buildings our possibilities of hiding drastically shrank. Those who were in bunkers might one day wake to find themselves buried under the rubble of collapsed houses… Our provisions were almost gone, as was our ammunition… From September we were cut of we became ghosts, nothing less, nothing more. Entirely from the Aryan zone, hunted day and night by the Germans and cast out, as it were, by our Jewish brethren. "
-Arieh (Leon) Neiberg, The Last Ones, p. 183-184
WARSAW GHETTO UPRISING
The following renewal of deportations was the signal for an armed uprising within the ghetto. |
"It is impossible to describe to the conditions under which the Jews of the ghetto are now living. Only a few will be able to hold out. The remainder will die sooner or later. Their fate is decided. In almost at all the hiding places in which thousands are concealing themselves it is not possible to light a candle for lack of air."
-Mordechai Anielewicz, Commander of Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, April 23, 1943
On Day 3, police forces razed the ghetto to expose remaining Jews. German forces killed Anielewicz and his comrades on May 8. |
"The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self-defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish men in battle." |
“180 Jews, bandits and sub-humans, were destroyed. The former Jewish quarter of Warsaw is no longer in existence. 7,000 remaining Jews in the ghetto were rounded up and deported immediately to Treblinka where their death in the gas chambers was carried out swiftly.” |
Though German forces broke the organized military resistance within days, others hid or fought for nearly a month.
"6 June 1943
We would spend the entire day lying on our cots. Only the scouts who had ventured far afield remained outside, thoroughly checking the terrain. Across from us stood the ruins of the Jewish hospital, charred bed frames hanging from its soot blackened rooms. The Jewish part of Gęsia Street was covered with mounds of debris from the building which had been blown up. Everything was as still as a cemetery, a silence which was only broken in the mornings, when the German sappers paraded through the street… In an attic we come across dead bodies, flies swarming all over them… Nearby we find bags of rusks and flasks of water. We had no way to try to ascertain who these people had been."
-Arieh (Leon) Neiberg, The Last Ones, p. 130-131, Yad Vashem
The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was the largest, most significant Jewish uprising, and the first urban uprising in German-occupied Europe; it inspired others to join in resistance.
"Jews usually left their hideouts, but frequently remained in the burning buildings and jumped out of the windows only when the heat became unbearable. They then tried to crawl with broken bones across the street into buildings which were not afire. Sometimes they changed their hideouts during the night into the ruins of burned buildings."
-Stroop Report, 1943
POLISH WARSAW UPRISING
"We wanted to be free and owe this freedom to nobody."
-From the address of the Delegate of the Government of the Republic of Poland at Home and Deputy Prime Minister Jan Stanisław Jankowski, 1 September 1944, Warsaw.
The Germans eventually crushed the revolt, forcing the Home Army to surrender on October 2, 1944.
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Over 166,000 people perished in this uprising, including approximately 17,000 Jews. During this time, Szpilman’s building was bombarded with artillery forcing him into the ruins of Warsaw.
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"I did not make up my mind to venture out on the landing again until dusk. My room was filling up with fumes and smoke now, and the red glow of firelight came in through the window from outside. The smoke on the stairway was so thick that you couldn't see the banisters. The loud, explosive crackle of the fire as it burnt more fiercely rose from the floors below, together with the crack of splitting wood and the crash of household items falling over. It would be impossible to use the stairs now."
-Wladyslaw Szpilman, The Pianist: The Extraordinary True Story of One Man's Survival in Warsaw, 1939-1945