Resister

__Mordechai Anielwicz__ Dani Pasquarelli and Lauren Russo Mordechai Anielwicz (1919–1943) was a Jewish victim and resistor of the Holocaust. Anielwicz was forced into the Warsaw Ghetto along with other Jews by the Nazis. He became the commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Mordechai fled the Ghetto at the beginning of war to Vilna in the Soviet Union as an attempt to create an escape route for the Jews to Palestine but got caught by the Soviet officials. After being released he sent a group to German- occupied Poland to secretly continue his movement. He was a resister by helping his fellow Jews smuggle weapons into the ghetto in an effort to rebel against the Nazis. In 1941 he set up a self defense organization in the Warsaw Ghetto called the Jewish Fighting Organization, also known as the Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa or The Z.O.B. April 19, 1943 was the final deportation of Warsaw Jew’s. It was a cue for the resistance to launch the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. After the battle Mordechai and his soldiers retreated to the bunker at 18 Nila Street. After the uprising Anielwicz understood that the end was near and wrote: “My life’s dream has come true; I have lived to see Jewish Resistance in the Ghetto in all its greatness and glory!” On May 8, 1943 his bunker was invaded and fell. Mordechai was killed along with most of the ZOB members.

__Yitzhak Zuckerman__ Tim Moran, Tyler Huntsman, and Giovanni Valentine (Resister 1915-1981) Yitzhak joined the Zionist youth movement which was a movement towards the creation of Israel or a Jewish state after leaving his Hebrew High School, and by 1936 was working at head office in Warsaw. He was elected secretary general in 1938 and then moved to Warsaw to work for the Dror-He-Halultz Zionist Youth Movement. He then organized Zionist groups in Soviet occupied eastern Poland, and by 1940 was encouraging underground activities in German-occupied Poland in 1940. In the summer of 1942, Yitzhak called for armed resistance against Germans, and on July 28 he and other youth movement leaders established the ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa), an underground resistance organization. On January 1943, Yitzhak led a group of fighters in armed battle with the Germans. He then became commander of a one of the three main areas of the ghetto, and during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising Yitzhak and his others set up a rescue team that saved 75 fighters by leading them through the sewer system. He also used his contacts outside the Warsaw Ghetto to smuggle in a few arms. After the uprising, he joined the Jewish National Committee (Zydowski Komilet Narodowy) which was an organization that provided aid for Jews. Yitzhak then commanded a group of Jewish fighters in the Warsaw Polish Uprising, and on December 22nd 1942 took part in an attack on a café in Cracow that used by the SS and Gestapo. Yitzhak is a resister because of all the many attacks against the Germans he had both fought in and led, all of the many movements he had started, led, or took part in, and because he had stuck his own neck out to save many people in very harsh conditions and was aware of the horrible consequences if captured. By saving 75 soldiers Yitzhak was able to rebuild at least 75 lives and give those soldiers the opportunity to fight among each other again, and who even knows what some of their children have grown up to become.

Kyle Broderick Derek Chu Arvind Kalra Period 3 5/19/08    Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski Mordechai Chaim Rumkowski was a Polish Jew born in 1877. He was the person who was chosen to be the leader of the Lodz ghetto by the Nazis. He was responsible for choosing who got sent to the concentration camps, who got food, and who had to work. He is very controversial because he believed that if he listened to the Nazis and made the Lodz ghetto useful, then the ghetto would not be destroyed, and not as many people would be killed. He had the people in his ghetto work in factories, making things for the Germans. He also allowed the Nazis to continue deporting Jews to the concentration camps. One of the most controversial things he did was giving all the children and old people to the Nazis. His “give me your children” speech was one of the worst things he did. He asked parents to give them their children, and then once they did Rumkowski would send them to the concentration camp. For a while cooperating with the Nazis did work. While all the other ghettos in Poland were destroyed the Lodz ghetto was left. However, in 1944 the Lodz ghetto was liquidated because the Soviet Army was advancing. When the Jews of the ghetto resisted the deportations the Nazis decided to liquidate the ghetto immediately. Nearly all of the Jews were killed, including Rumkowski and his family. Rumkowski is one person that has to be looked at either one way or another. Some people believe he was a collaborator because he did do what the Nazis wanted him to do, and he followed their orders. He can also be viewed as a victim because he was forced to live in a ghetto, and he was killed in a concentration camp. I think that he was a resister because his decisions were made to try to save the majority of the people in his ghetto. He believed that if they cooperated with the Nazis that there would be less deaths overall. He had good intentions, and he was in a way resisting the Nazis by trying to keep the population of the ghetto alive. Rumkowski had a large impact on the war because he controlled the fate of an entire city of Jews.

Jan Karski (1914-2000) Jamie Power Jan Karski was originally born as Jan Kozielewski but later changed his name as if to forget his past life. After a short time of scholarship, Jan began work in the Polish ministry of foreign affairs. After the outbreak of World War 2, Karski served in a small artillery detachment in eastern Poland. Later, he was taken prisoner by the Red Army. He successfully convince the Red Army that he was a regular solider, and was handed over to the Germans during an exchange of Polish prisoners of war. In November of 1939 Jan managed to escape a train to a POW camp and found his way to Warsaw, Poland. There he joined the ZWZ, the first resistance movement in occupied Europe. He organized courier missions with information from the Polish Underground to the Polish government in exile in Paris. Karski was twice smuggled by Jewish underground leaders into the Warsaw ghetto. They wanted to show Jan firsthand what was happening to the Jews there. In 1942 Karski reported to the Polish, British, and U.S. governments on what was going on in Poland especially the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto and the Holocaust of the Jews. Later, in 1943, Jan Karski traveled to the United States and reported directly to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on what he had seen of what was happening to the Jews. His report was a major factor in informing the West. Jan spoke to many people about what was happening to Jews, even to Hollywood filmmakers, but still without success. Karski later wrote a book called “Story of a Secret State,” in his book, he told the readers what was happening in Poland. His book sold over 400,000 copies before the end of World War 2. Jan Karski is a resister because he worked with many underground resistance movements, and he also got the word out about what was happening to the Jews in Europe. Jan is sometimes given the title, “the one man who tried to stop the Holocaust,” because that is what he did. He knew that he could not shut down the concentration camps and ghettos by himself, instead he tried to tell the people in power about the situation, but to no avail.

If Jan Karski had not informed the Polish, British, and U.S. governments about the horrors of the Jewish ghettos and concentration camps, the allied forces would not have known about the Holocaust until it was too late. Thousands more Jews would have parished. Jan Karski's daring acts of resistance is one of the reasons why the Jewish people survived the Holocasut.

YITZCHAK KATZNELSON Yuka Lou, Marisa Klein, Camila Senna Yitzchak Katznelson (1886-1944) was born in the Minsk district of Russia. He lived to be a poet, a playwright, and an educator. He was a victim because he was deported to Auschwitz, where he was executed. In 1939, the first year and a half of the Nazi occupation, Yitzchak Katznelson encouraged the Jews. But when he knew that the Nazi’s would destroy every Jew in Europe, he lost his hope. During 1943, he hid for weeks on the Polish side of the Warsaw. Later, he was discovered by the Germans. He was sent to Vittel camp in France because he possessed a Honduran passport. While he was there he wrote an important diary about the Holocaust. When they found it, in 1964, it became an important document. A year later, he and his surviving son were deported to Auschwitz. Impact Statement: Yitzchak Katznelson contributed to the Jews. He encouraged the Jews as much as he could. It helped many Jews to know that someone still had hope. Although he was a victim he was a resister cultural.