Jews Who Rescued Jews in Poland
On September 1, 1939, Germany invaded Poland marking the outbreak of World War II.
Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe. There were 3.3 million Jews in Poland at the outbreak of the war, comprising ten percent of the Polish population.
By September 1939, Jewish communities were being forced to relocate, and the beginning of ghettoization was underway.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee (JDC) was active in supporting the Jews in Poland. Other Jewish organizations that contributed to the rescue and relief of Jews were ZETOS, CENTOS, TOZ, TOPOROL, Oneg Shabbat, Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe (JSS; the Jewish Self-Help Association) and the NRO (Naczelna Rada Opiekuncza). Small stipends came from the American Federation of Polish Jews and the Committee for Relief of the War Stricken Jewish Population (RELICO).
Bertrand S. Jacobson, in Romania, and Joseph Blum, in Hungary, representatives of the JDC, were successful in raising funds and getting supplies from the American Red Cross and CPR (Commission for Polish Relief) to support Jews in Poland.
Jewish Self-Help was said to represent 412 communities, 56 of which were located in East Galicia, Poland. Israel Falk, Mordechai Goldfarb, Jozef Szalman and Abe Zychlinski, among others, represented the JSS.
These Jewish organizations and others helped to relieve the terrible suffering of Jews. They helped where they could, despite overwhelming odds against them.
The JDC and other relief organizations were able to supply Poland through the middle of 1941. After December 1941, the United States entered the war, and the avenues of rescue were closed off. This coincided with the decision by the Nazi hierarchy to murder all the Jews in Poland.
All six of the major German killing centers were located in Eastern Poland.
More than 90% of the Polish Jews, more than three million, were murdered by German SS during the war.
Jewish rescue and relief organizations, including the Joint, HIAS, and others, operated until as late as 1942.
A Polish organization called Zegota was unique, in that it combined Jewish and non-Jewish leaders and rescuers.
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, Files 788-895.]
American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, Poland
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, Files 788-895.]
CENTOS – Central Agency for the Care of Orphans (Centrala Opieki nad Sierotani)
CENTOS, the Central Agency for the Care of Orphans, was active in helping take care of Jewish children after the Nazi invasion and occupation of Poland.
CENTOS was founded in 1924. In 1931, it was taking care of 10,000 orphans. In 1938, it took care of 15,000 orphans.
Between July and October 1941, CENTOS maintained 143 operations in the German general government. It operated 26 orphanages, taking care of 12,299 children. It operated 122 kitchens, which fed 47,167 children. It also maintained 15 summer “half-colonies” for 6,413 orphans. It is estimated that CENTOS reached between 15-20% of the orphans, or less than a third of those who needed help.
Adolf Abraham Berman was the director of CENTOS in the Warsaw ghetto.
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives, Files 788-895. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 79-83, 90, 102. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 202, 831, 1608ill.]
Committee for the Promotion of Jewish Pioneering and Colonization in Madagascar and Kenya (Komitet far di Promotsye oif Yidishe Halutsishe Kolonizastye in Madagaskar un Kenya), established in 1938
Future (Zkunft)
Polish youth movement. Operated underground during the war.
General Relief Committee for Jewish Refugees from Germany in Poland
Chief Rabbi Professor Schorr, chairman
[Tartakower & Grossman, 1944, pp. 488-489.]
General Jewish Workers’ Union in Lithuania, Pland and Russia (Algemeiner Yidisher Arbeitbund inLita, Poilen un Rusland)
Health Association of the Jewish People in Poland (TOZ; Towarzystwo Ochrony Zorowia)
TOZ was a Polish welfare association that was established in 1921 by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee.
After the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, TOZ continued its operation, sponsored by the JDC. Throughout the war, it fed tens of thousands of Jews. One of the prominent leaders was Dr. Israel Milejkowski.
HIAS-ICA-JEAS, Warsaw
Israel Bernstein, HIAS representative
Leon Alter, executive director, Warsaw
In 1939, Nazis forced JEAS to be renamed “Department of Help to Relatives,” part of Jewish Social Self-Help.
[Ginzberg, 1942, pp. 144, 145, 166.]
Jewish National Committee
The Jewish National Committee, located in Warsaw, Poland, sent numerous messages to the West regarding the persecution and murder of Jews in Poland.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 195.]
Jewish Self Help Association (Jüdische Soziale Selbsthilfe; JSS; Jüdische Unterstützungsstelle)
The Jewish Self Help Association (JSS) was set up in the General Gouvernment section of Poland, 1940. For a short time, it was allowed to operate as an independent Jewish organization. The JSS lost its independence and was taken over by the Nazis in January 1940.
The JSS distributed money to needy Jews, with funds provided by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. The JSS also helped provide food and supplies to Jews in the Nazi concentration camps. The JSS also tried to promote Jewish survival by having Jews contribute to the German war effort.
Emanuel Ringelblum was in charge of the public sector of the JSS. He set up a House Committee to distribute food and establish soup kitchens.
The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, under Yitzhak Gitterman, helped finance the work of the JSS. By early 1942, JSS had 412 local representatives, who provided aid to surviving Jews in ghettoes.
The JSS was dissolved by the Nazis in July 1942.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 85-90. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 585, 755, 764, 831, 873, 1283, 1285.]
Jewish Self-Help Society (Zydowska Samopomoc Spoleczna (ZSS)
The Jewish Self-Help Society was established in 1940. It was a major Jewish relief operation, supported by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee. Distributed food and other supplies to Jews in Poland and Eastern European ghettoes. Operated in conjunction with Zydowskie Towarzystwo Opieki Spolecznej and Central Council for Care (Naczelna Rada Opiekuncza).
Jewish Society for Social Help (Zydowskie Towarzystwo Opieki Spolecznej; ZETOS)
The Jewish Society for Social Help (ZETOS) was founded during the siege of Warsaw in the fall of 1939. ZETOS was an independent organization from the Jewish Council (Judenrat). ZETOS was directed by the Public Committee, which represented several of the underground political parties, including the Bund and Zionists. Emmanuel Ringelblum was head of the committee.
ZETOS organized the feeding and support of numerous children’s homes, including medical care and the maintenance of hospitals. ZETOS also provided schooling for Jewish children. It also provided cultural activities for the Jews in Warsaw.
ZETOS was largely funded by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee and served as its principal representative in Poland.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 80.]
Mossad Aliya Bet, Poland
The Mossad Aliya Bet was engaged in sending young Jewish pioneers to Palestine in 1934. It was sponsored by Polish Hehalutz. The organizers were young Palestinian Jews. Among them were Yosef Barpal (Kibbutz Ayanot), Yosef Baratz (Kibbutz Degana), Yehuda Braginsky (Kibbutz Givat Hashlosha), Ze’ev Shind (Kibbutz Ayelot Hashahar). They were helped by Victor Meyer and head of the Haganah in Palestine Eliyahu Golomb. They successfully chartered a Greek ship, which successfully landed in Palestine. A second attempt was intercepted by the British and was unable to land. It returned to Poland.
[Ofer, 1990, pp. 10-11.]
Naczelna Rada Opiekuncza (NRO; Main Welfare Council)
The Naczelna Rada Opiekuncza (NRO) was a relief agency in Poland that depended on funding from German relief organizations. It provided food, medicine and other vital supplies to Jews in Poland. It was dissolved by the Nazis in July 1942.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), p. 90.]
Organization for Rehabilitation and Training (ORT), Germany, France and Poland
Organization for Rehabilitation and Training was an international Jewish organization, established to facilitate Jewish immigration from German-occupied territories to Palestine. It was specifically intended to train young Jews for vocations including the trades and agriculture.
[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 105, 203, 379, 383, 1105, 1614.]
Towarzysto Popierania Rolnictwa (TOPOROL)
TOPOROL smuggled thousands of Jews out of various ghettoes in Poland.
[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990).]
Zegota (Council for Aid to Jews; Rada Pomocy Zydom)
Zegota was a clandestine rescue and relief organization in Nazi occupied Poland. It functioned from December 4, 1942 until Poland was liberated in January 1945. Zegota was one of the few organizations that had both Jews and non-Jews in its leadership. Zegota was comprised of leaders representing five Polish organizations and two Jewish organizations. The two Jewish organizations were the Jewish National Committee (Zydowski Komitet Narodowy), represented by Adolf Abraham Berman, and the Bund, represented by Leon Feiner. In late 1944, Leon Feiner was appointed president, and Adolf Berman secretary.
Zegota utilized secret organizations and their memberships for the relief and rescue of Jews. By January 1943, Zegota was helping 300 Jews.
One of the most difficult activities of Zegota was finding shelter and hiding places for Jews. This was particularly difficult as it was a capital offense to hide Jews in Poland. Children were found homes in foster families, or sympathetic orphanages and church convents. It is estimated that Zegota found homes for and looked after 2,500 Jewish children.
By December 1943, more than 2,000 Jews were being helped. By the summer of 1944, more than 4,000 Jews were saved. Zegota also provided tens of thousands of high quality, forged documents for Jews, including Aryan documents, baptismal certificates, marriage certificates, death certificates, identity cards and employment cards.
Zegota was awarded a Righteous among the Nations certificate by Yad Vashem in October 1963.
[Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, Vol. 4, pp. 1564-1571 (New York: Macmillan, 1990). Kermish, Joseph. "The Activities of the Council for Aid to Jews (“Zegota”) in Occupied Poland." In Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman & E. Zuroff, pp. 367-398. (Jerusalem, 1977). Tomaszewski, Irene and Tecia Werbowski. Zegota: The Rescue of Jews in Wartime Poland. (Montreal, Canada: Price-Patterson, 1994).]
ZETOS (Zydowskie Towarzystwo Opkieki Spolecznei; Jewish Society for Self-Help)
ZETOS, known as the Jewish Society for Self-Help, was a major umbrella organization sponsored by the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Poland.
ZETOS was responsible for organizing public kitchens and running and organizing children’s homes, hospitals, and various aid operations in Warsaw, Poland. Some of the key members of the organization were Emanuel Ringelblum (chair), Sachne Sagan (LPZ), Maurycy Orczech (Bund) and Abraham Gepner. ZETOS was very effective in feeding thousands of starving Poles. It was able to maintain its independence from the Judenrat throughout the war. ZETOS’ operations were a cover for various military and political operations during the war.
Emmanuel Ringelblum used ZETOS to create Oneg Shabbat, which was an institution for documenting life in the ghettoes.
ZETOS was closed by the Nazis in the end of 1943. All but one of the directors of ZETOS were murdered.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981).]
Rescue Attempts in Ghettos
Bendzin Ghetto
Joseph Kozuch*
Nathan Rosenzweig*
Jacob Zimmerman*
In a report to the World Jewish Congress (quoted in Apenszlak & Polakiewicz, 1944) a Jewish partisan who had fled to the mountains and later escaped:
“On the 1st of August, 1943, there were still 30,000 Jews in Bendzin and in Sosnowiec. But in the course of those months practically all of them were transported to the death-camp of Oswiecim. The halutz group which had been secretly formed in Bendzin resisted the deportation orders in every possible way and organized attacks upon the Nazi murderers, killing many of them. During this mass-deportation, the leaders of the halutz group, Joseph Kozuch and Nathan Rozenzweig, succeeded in entering the building of the Jewish Community Council which was under Nazi guard. It was their plan to remove as much money as possible from the treasury of the Jewish Community, in order to bribe some of the higher Nazi officials and thus affect the escape of as many Jews as possible. The two halutzim attached the Nazi guard and prepared the way for their comrades. During the ensuing fight both were shot by the Nazis. Jacob Zimmerman, a third halutz, undertook to conduct the rescue of the Jews from the ghetto and to hide them in safety. He succeeded in helping four girls to escape. When he returned to the ghetto for a second effort he was caught off guard but shot at his Nazi captors and escaped. It was during this third rescue-expedition that he was finally caught and shot.”
[Apenszlak & Polakiewicz, 1944, p. 66.]
Chmielnik Jewish Council
Second Chairman Shmuel Zalcman.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 466.]
Horodok Jewish Council (near Vilna, Lithuania)
Chairman, Efraim Retskin; Vice Chairman, Shmaryahu Zuckerman; Treasurer, Nachman Swirski; local partisan leader, Elijahu Lidski.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 465.]
Iwaniska Ghetto (Radom District) Council
Member, Rabbi Chaim Ikheskel Rabinowicz*.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 466.]
Jacob Lazebnik – Lenin Jewish Council (near Pinsk)
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), pp. 463-464.]
Marcinkance Ghetto (near Grodno) Jewish Council
Council Chairman, Aron Kobrowski*.
Josef Korn, Molczadz Jewish Council
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), pp. 464-465.]
Chairman Pilica Ghetto (Radom District)
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 465.]
Council Chairman Gutgesztalt in Radomsko
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 464.]
Piotrków Trybunalski (General Government)
The Piotrków Trybunalski ghetto council was supportive of underground actions of the Bund. Jacob Berliner, Member of Council. Sholem Weiss, Member of Council. Zalman Tenenbaum, Council Leader.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971).]
Council Members in the Pruzana Ghetto
Vice Chairman Velvel Shreibman.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), pp. 465-466.]
Oswald Rufeisen, He Halutz Member of the Mir Council
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 466.]
Sasów Jewish Council (Distrikt Galizien)
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 464.]
Tuczyn (Równe District) Ghetto Jewish Council
Vice Chairman Meir Himmelfarb.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 473.]
Abraham Gepner, Warsaw Ghetto Jewish Council Member
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 464.]
Zdzieciól (Nowogródek District) Ghetto Council
Chairman Alter Dworetsky*. Resistance members Moshe Pazulski* (Israel), Szolem Fialin*, Hirsz Kaplinski*.
[Trunk, Isaiah. Judenrat: The Jewish Councils in Eastern Europe Under Nazi Occupation. (New York, NY: MacMillan, 1971), p. 473.]
Leibi Felhendler*, Former Chairman of the Zolkiewka Ghetto (near Lublin)
Leibi Felhendler was one of the organizers of the Sobibor death camp uprising and escape of October 14, 1943. He successfully escaped along with 50 others. He was killed by Polish partisans of the Polish Secret Army in April 1945.
Jewish Individuals Involved in Rescue in Poland
Leon Alter, Executive Director, JEAS (Polish Office of HIAS-ICA)
Leon Alter was the executive director of JEAS in Warsaw.
[Ginzberg, 1942.]
Tossia Altman*, 1918-1943
Tossia Altman* was a leader of Hashomer Hatzair in Poland. She warned Jews in ghettoes. She was a partisan fighter who fought in the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt and was killed.
[Porat, 1990, p. 307.]
Yeheskel Atlas* (1910-1942), Partisan Commander
Yeheskel Atlas was a partisan commander who helped numerous Jews escape the Derechin ghetto, which was liquidated on July 24, 1942. Atlas assisted numerous Jews who escaped into the forest and formed family camps.
[Eckman, L. & C. Lazar, “Dr. Yahezkiel Atlas.” Jewish Combatant, 1/2 (Fall 1980), 8-13. Kahanovitch, M. “Organizers and Commanders.” In The Fighting Ghettos, M. Barkai (Ed.), (Philadelphia, 1962), pp. 134-147.]
Adolf Abraham Berman (1906-1978), Zegota, CENTOS, ZOB
Adolf Abraham Berman was one of the Jewish underground leaders of Zegota (the Polish Council for Aid to Jews). After the Germans occupied Poland, he was director of CENTOS (the Federation of Associations for the Care of Orphans in Poland) in the Warsaw Ghetto. He was also a founder of the Anti-Fascist Block, which eventually became the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) in the Warsaw Ghetto. After September 1942, Berman escaped to the Aryan side of Warsaw. He represented the Jewish community as secretary of Zegota.
[Kermish, Joseph. "The Activities of the Council for Aid to Jews (“Zegota”) in Occupied Poland." In Rescue Attempts During the Holocaust. Proceedings of the Second Yad Vashem International Historical Conference, edited by Y. Gutman & E. Zuroff, pp. 367-398. (Jerusalem, 1977).]
Tzippora Berman*, Courier
Tzippora Berman was an underground activist who was a member of the Dror Zionist Youth group and a member of Kibbutz Tel-Kai in the Bialystock Ghetto. She transmitted valuable information from ghettos in Poland and Lithania. Berman was arrested in Vilna and killed while fighting in the Bialystock Ghetto uprising.
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 86-88.]
Israel Bernstein, HIAS-JEAS Representative, Warsaw
[Ginzberg, 1942, pp. 145, 167.]
Isaac Borinstein*, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Isaac Borinstein was a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Warsaw, Poland. He worked with CENTOS, which was the JDC sponsored organization for orphans; TOZ, Society for the Protection of Health; and ORT, the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training. Borinstein also worked for ZETOS (Zydowskie Towarzystwo Opieki Spolecznej), the Jewish Society for Social Help, which was an umbrella group for the above, also sponsored by the JDC. ZETOS organized the feeding and housing of Jews, supplied medical relief, and other kinds of aid in Warsaw. It also supported children’s homes and hospitals. ZETOS operated separately from the Judenrat (Jewish Council). Borinstein managed the JDC office in Krakow.
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 79, 86-87, 318, 328-329.]
Bella Chazan
Bella Chazan was a courier between ghettos in Poland. She passed as a Christian, survived the war, and emigrated to Israel.
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 86-88.]
Lazar Epstein, JEAS, Warsaw
[Ginzberg, 1942, p. 165.]
Leon Feiner, Zegota, ZOB
Leon Feiner was Deputy Chairman of Zegota and helped found the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB) in Poland. He met with a Polish diplomat and courier to send help for Polish Jews.
Zalman (Zygmunt) Friedrych* (1920-1943)
Zalman Friedrych was a member of the Jewish underground in Warsaw, Poland. In July 1942, he escaped from the ghetto, where he followed the railroad tracks to verify the murder of Jews in the Treblinka death camp. He took this information to the Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO-ZOB). As a result, the JFO planned the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Friedrych fought bravely on both sides of the wall during the Uprising. While on a rescue mission, he was taken by the Germans and executed.
[Bartoszewski, W., and Z. Lewin. The Righteous Among the Nations. (London: Earls Court, 1969).]
Isaac Giterman* (1889-1943), American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Isaac Giterman was active in Jewish relief efforts during World War I. At the beginning of the World War II, he helped Polish refugees in Lithuania. Giterman was a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Warsaw, Poland. (See Isaac Borinstein.) He administered Jewish welfare organizations in Nazi-occupied Poland, including the General Government.
Giterman helped keep the JDC office open in Warsaw, Poland, despite Nazi pressures to close it. He also worked with the Jewish Self-Help Society (JSS) and the Jewish Mutual Aid Society.
Giterman was also an active member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), joining it in October 1942. He also worked with Emanuel Ringelblum and helped establish the Oneg Shabbat group and a Yiddish cultural organization.
Giterman was killed on January 18, 1943, during the second action in the Warsaw ghetto.
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 32, 34, 40, 68, 79, 86, 92, 106, 108, 112, 318, 322, 324-328. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 585-586.]
Mrs. Isaac Gitterman*
Mrs. Isaac Gitterman was the wife of JDC representative Isaac Gitterman. She was killed in January 1943.
[Apenszlak, 1944, p. 73.]
David Guzik, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
David Guzik was a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Warsaw, Poland. (See Isaac Borinstein.) Guzik survived the war, but died in a plane crash in March 1946.
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 32, 40, 79, 86, 94-96, 98, 318, 324-328.]
Chaim Hilfstein, Jewish Aid Center, Jüdische Unterstützungsstelle (JUS)
[Porat, 1990, p. 243.]
Bronia Klibanski, alias Jadwiga Szkibel
Bronia Klibanski was a Jewish courier for the underground. She went on numerous missions to support resistance and warning missions. She was active with the Zionist group He Halutz Hatza’ir-Dror (Young Pionerers-Freedom).
[Oral history, Yad Vashem Archives, cited in Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007.]
Chaika (Chaya) Klinger, 1917-1958
Chaika (Chaya) Klinger was a leader of Hashomer Hatzair in Poland. Klinger was an underground fighter/partisan. Klinger fought in the Bedzin Ghetto uprising and escaped. Went to Slovakia and reported on murder of Jews in Poland. Later went to Palestine to report to Yishuv leaders. Committed suicide in Israel in 1958.
[Porat, 1990, p. 313.]
Dr. Janusz Korczak* (Henryk Goldszmit), 1878(9)-1942
Dr. Janusz Korczak was a prominent pre-war Polish physician. He advocated innovative and progressive programs for childrearing. These programs emphasized respect for the child’s individual and unique personality.
Korczak ran an orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto. There, he and his assistants fed, clothed, and housed more than 200 Jewish children. It was a constant struggle to feed and provide medical care for them.
Korczak chose to be deported with his children to a Treblinka death camp in August 1942.
Lonka Koziebrodzka*
Lonka Koziebrodzka was a courier disguised as a Christian. Koziebrodzka was killed while fighting in the Bialystock Ghetto uprising.
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 86-88.]
Dr. Leib Landau*, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Dr. Leib Landau was the local representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Lwow. He was appointed in the summer of 1941. Landau became a member of the leadership of Jewish Self-Help (JSS) in 1942.
[Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 89, 312.]
Vladka Meed (Feigele Peltel; b. 1922)
Vladka Meed was a Polish Jewish activist and a courier for the Jewish Fighting Organization. She operated on the Aryan side of the wall, smuggling weapons into the ghetto and helping Jews escape. She survived the war and wrote about her wartime experiences in On Both Sides of the Wall.
Zvi Mersik, Underground Activist
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 86-88.]
Dr. Israel Milejkowski, LPZ (Left Poalei Zion), Oneg Shabbat
Dr. Israel Milejkowski was a member of LPZ (Left Poalei Zion) and Oneg Shabbat.
Czeslaw Mordowicz
Czeslaw Mordowicz, of Mlawa, Poland, escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau on April 27, 1944. Along with Arnost Rosin, of Snina, Slovakia, Mordowicz reported to members of the Jewish Council in Slovakia about the murder of Jews at the death camp. Thus, they were able to verify the Auschwitz Report by Vrba-Wetzler.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 710.]
Leib Neustadt*, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee
Leib Neustadt was a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Warsaw, Poland. Neustadt obtained loans from prominent Polish citizens to support the relief efforts.
Neustadt was killed by the Nazis in 1943.
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Bauer, Yehuda. American Jewry and the Holocaust. (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1981), pp. 32, 40, 68, 79, 83, 85, 94-95, 98, 222, 318, 328.]
Frumka Plotnicka*, 1914-1943
Frumka Plotnicka* was a leader of Hechalutz and an underground fighter. He brought news and warnings to major ghettoes in Nazi occupied areas. He helped organize the Bedzin Ghetto uprising in 1943. He was killed during the revolt there.
[Porat, 1990, p. 315.]
Leiser Rejzner*
Leiser Rejzner was a Zionist youth underground partisan rescue and relief activist. Killed while fighting in Bialystock Ghetto uprising, August 1943.
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 86-88.]
Emmanuel Ringelblum*, American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, CENTOS, Oneg Shabbat
Emmanuel Ringelblum was a representative of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee in Warsaw, Poland. He worked with CENTOS, which was the JDC sponsored organization for orphans; TOZ, Society for the Protection of Health; and ORT, the Organization for Rehabilitation and Training. Ringelblum also worked for ZETOS (Zydowskie Towarzystwo Opieki Spolecznej), the Jewish Society for Social Help, which was an umbrella group for the above, also sponsored by the JDC. ZETOS organized the feeding and housing of Jews, supplied medical relief, and other kinds of aid in Warsaw. It also supported children’s homes and hospitals.
ZETOS operated separately from the Judenrat (Jewish Council).
Ringelblum also founded the organization Oneg Shabat (pleasure of the Sabbath), which was a secret organization of historians, rabbis, leaders and artists, who documented daily life in the ghetto. Hundreds of documents, articles and reports on what was happening to Jews in Poland were collected. (It was hidden after 1943 and much of it recovered after the war.)
[American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Archives. Gutman, Yisrael (Ed.). Encyclopedia of the Holocaust, 4 vols. (New York: Macmillan, 1990), pp. 1283-1285.]
Reuven Rosenberg* (Rub’chak)
Reuven Rosenberg was an underground activist. He was killed while fighting in the Bialystock Ghetto uprising.
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 86-88.]
Arnost Rosin
Arnost Rosin, of Snina, Slovakia, escaped from Auschwitz-Birkenau on April 27, 1944. Along with Czezlaw Mordowicz of Mlawa, Poland, Rosin reported to members of the Jewish Council in Slovakia about the murder of Jews at the death camp. Thus, they were able to verify the Auschwitz Report by Vrba-Wetzler.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), p. 710.]
Shmuel “Oswald” Rufeisen
Shmuel Rufeisen was a Polish Jew from Mir, Poland, in Galicia. He became an interpreter for the German police occupying Mir. Rufeisen was appointed commander of the Mir ghetto police, and used his position to help organize the Jewish underground. He warned the Jewish resistance of impending actions. He escaped from the Mir Ghetto in 1942. He went into hiding in a monastery until the end of the war.
[Suhl, They Fought Back. Trunk, Jewish Responses.]
Joseph Salpeter
[Porat, 1990, p. 243.]
Tema Schneidman*, alias Wanda Schneidman
Tema Schneidman was a courier for Zionist Youth Movement Dror. Was Mordechai Tenenbaum’s girlfriend. She undertook 20 missions warning Jews of mass murders anddeportations. She went between Vilna, Bialystok, and Warsaw Gehttos with news and information. She was deported to Treblinka from the Warsaw Ghetto during the second major deporatiton. She was murdered in Treblinka.
[Yad Vashem Archives, cited in Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007.]
Ze’ev Shind, 1909-1953
Ze’ev Shind was the Jewish Agency Representative in Poland 1935-1939.
[Porat, 1990, p. 317.]
Mordechai Tenenbaum*, 1916-1943
Mordechai Tenenbaum was a major Zionist leader of the youth movement in Poland. He was a partisan leader, Jewish Anti-Fascist Fighting Group. Warned Jews of deportation and liquidation of the ghettos. Leader and organizer of Jewish Fighting Organization (JFO/ZOB). Trained ghetto fighters. JFO sent him to Bialystock, Poland, to lead the resistance movement there. Led uprising there.
[Museum of Jewish Heritage, 2007, pp. 80-85.]
Rudolph Vrba (Walter Rosenberg)
Rudolph Vrba, a Jew from Slovakia, escaped from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on April 7, 1944. It took Vrba ten days to reach Slovakia.
In Slovakia, along with Alfred Wetzler, Vrba reported the murder of the Jews in Auschwitz to the Working Group (Pracovná Skupina). Vrba worked in the administration office in Birkenau and memorized many of the documents he saw. He even was able to report on the number of Jews murdered in various transports. Their report became known as the Auschwitz Protocols, which were widely disseminated by the Working Group.
[Braham, Randolph L. The Politics of Genocide: The Holocaust in Hungary. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1981), pp. 708-710. Kranzler, David. The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland’s Finest Hour. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000). Vrba, Rudolph. I Escaped from Auschwitz. Vrba, Rudolph. I Cannot Forgive.]
Alfred Wetzler (Josef Lanik)
Alfred Wetzler, a Jew from Slovakia, escaped from the Auschwitz-Birkenau death camp on April 7, 1944. He escaped to Slovakia and, along with Rudolph Vrba, reported the murder of the Jews in Auschwitz to the Working Group (Pracovna Skupina). Their report became known as the Auschwitz Protocols, which were widely disseminated by the Working Group.
[Kranzler, David. The Man Who Stopped the Trains to Auschwitz George Mantello, El Salvador, and Switzerland’s Finest Hour. (Syracuse, NY: Syracuse University Press, 2000).]
Stefania Wilczynska
Stefania Wilczynska helped Dr. Korczak run the children’s orphanage in the Warsaw Ghetto.
Updated November 24, 2021