A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto UprisingIn 1943, against utterly hopeless odds, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up to defy the Nazi horror machine that had set out to exterminate them. One of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization, which led the uprisings, was Yitzhak Zuckerman, known by his underground pseudonym, Antek. Decades later, living in Israel, Antek dictated his memoirs. The Hebrew publication of Those Seven Years: 1939-1946 was a major event in the historiography of the Holocaust, and now Antek's memoirs are available in English. Unlike Holocaust books that focus on the annihilation of European Jews, Antek's account is of the daily struggle to maintain human dignity under the most dreadful conditions. His passionate, involved testimony, which combines detail, authenticity, and gripping immediacy, has unique historical importance. The memoirs situate the ghetto and the resistance in the social and political context that preceded them, when prewar Zionist and Socialist youth movements were gradually forged into what became the first significant armed resistance against the Nazis in all of occupied Europe. Antek also describes the activities of the resistance after the destruction of the ghetto, when 20,000 Jews hid in "Aryan" Warsaw and then participated in illegal immigration to Palestine after the war. The only extensive document by any Jewish resistance leader in Europe, Antek's book is central to understanding ghetto life and underground activities, Jewish resistance under the Nazis, and Polish-Jewish relations during and after the war. This extraordinary work is a fitting monument to the heroism of a people. This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1993. In 1943, against utterly hopeless odds, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up to defy the Nazi horror machine that had set out to exterminate them. One of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization, which led the uprisings, was Yitzhak Zuckerman, kno |
Contents
| xvii | |
| 17 | |
To the German Hell | 35 |
A Week in a Labor Camp | 133 |
The Tidings of Job | 144 |
The Struggle for the Jewish Fighting Organization | 168 |
The January Uprising and Its Lesson | 261 |
The Ghetto Uprising | 346 |
On the Edge of the Abyss | 422 |
The Polish Uprising | 518 |
The LongedFor Liberation The Central Committee of the Jews in Poland and the Beginning of Brikha | 562 |
London Conference Split in the Movement and Its Restoration | 594 |
Argument about Our Image | 626 |
The Pogroms in Kielce and the Great Brikha Departure from Poland | 652 |
BIBLIOGRAPHY | 677 |
INDEX | 681 |
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Common terms and phrases
active Aktsia Antek apartment April Uprising army Aryan side Arye asked began Białystok border Brikha Bund Bundist bunker camp Central Committee Central Ghetto command staff Communists comrades courier Czerniaków Częstochowa death decided documents Dror Dzielna Eretz Israel everything fighters Folman force Frumka gentile Germans Gestapo Gordonia Grochów Ha-Shomer Ha-Tza'ir Halutz happened He-Halutz Hebrew hiding January January Uprising Jewish Fighting Organization Jewish National Committee Jewish police Jews Judenrat Kazik kibbutz Kielce killed knew Kraków labor later Leszno lived Łódz Lonka Lublin Marek Marek Edelman meeting members of Ha-Shomer Mordechai Anielewicz Mordechai Tennenbaum movement murdered night party person Po'alei Zion Left Poland Poles Polish Uprising Revisionists Ringelblum sent sewers side of Warsaw Soviet Union Street talk tell things Többens-Schultz told took Treblinka Tuvia Vilna wanted Warsaw Ghetto weapons Yiddish Yitzhak Katznelson Yosef Yosef Kaplan Zionist Zivia Zuckerman