Isaac's Army (70 page)

2
“In Baghdad, my father had heard that if you had a transit visa”
Ibid.

3
“Phosphorescent like green gold fire and stars like we’d never seen them before”
Martha Osnos, unpublished journal, p. 32.

4
“didn’t even know what they were or how to eat them”
Ibid.

5
“Money was never a problem in India”
Robert Osnos, author interview, New York, April 2010.

6
“My parents were very active socially in Bombay”
Ibid.

7
“My parents were borderline negligent in leaving me to my own devices”
Ibid.

8
“He couldn’t go swimming with us”
Ibid.

9
“Of course you’re a Jew”
Ibid.

10
“What strikes me most in retrospect”
Ibid.

11
“700,000
Jews were reported slain in Poland”
New York Times
, June 27, 1942.

12
“I was afraid it would go off accidentally”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.

13
“It filled me with purpose and hope”
Ibid.

14
“As we walked, everything became increasingly unreal”
Karski,
Story of a Secret State
, pp. 330–33.

15
“They pretty much said you don’t represent the Jews”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 220.

16
“What do you need—money?”
Kurzman,
Bravest Battle
, p. 47.

17
“Enemy Number One of the Third Reich”
Andrzej Krzystof Kunert and Jozef Szyrmer,
Stefan Rowecki: Wspomnienia I Notatki
(Warsaw: Czyelnik, 1988), p. 7.

18
“First Ally”
Norman Davies,
Rising ’44: The Battle for Warsaw
(New York: Viking, 2003), p. 29.

19
“We must remember … that the position of the Anglo-Saxon world”
Mark,
Powstanie W Getcie Warszawskim
, p. 107.

20
“I therefore plead with you”
Ibid., p. 108.

21
“Since we are citizens of Poland … the decisions of the Polish government”
Kurzman,
Bravest Battle
, p. 53.

22
“Jews from all sorts of communist groups”
Gutman,
Resistance
, p. 174.

23
“Instead of saying ‘I hate you’ it was easier for them to say ‘I don’t believe in you’ ”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 219.

C
HAPTER
27: I
SAAC
’
S
N
OT-SO-MERRY
C
HRISTMAS

1
“Nothing but trouble ever comes from that forsaken city”
Dunin-Wasowicz,
Warszawa W Latach 1939–1945
, p. 169.

2
“We were traveling openly. I looked like a rural Polish nobleman”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 235.

3
“He could keep his cool in any situation”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 84.

4
“That night we got together to toast the success of the operation”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 236.

5
Thirteen Germans were dead and a dozen more were in the hospital
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 85.

6
“After five steps, I began to feel warmth and a sharp pain”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 237.

7
“I said they could take me to the Gestapo in a cab, but I wasn’t moving”
Ibid., p. 238

8
“Hard times! … We are turning into wolves”
Ibid., p. 239.

9
“The station was full of Germans”
Ibid.

10
“Until the moment I entered the building I held up”
Ibid., p. 240.

11
“They found us.… An SS man, he had a whip”
Chaika Belchatowska, transcript of taped interview with Sandra Fishlinsky, November 29, 1993, Montreal, as part of the Contributions of Holocaust Survivors to the Cultural and Social Institutions of Montreal, in the digital archives of Concordia University (
http://archives.concordia.ca/P007
).

12
“In his shoe, in the sole of his shoe, he had a little saw”
Ibid.

13
“We started marching”
Ibid.

14
“They recognized that we were Jews”
Ibid.

15
“She had been taken on her birthday”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.

16
“We felt certain the Germans were too busy with their roundups on the Aryan side”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 87.

17
twelve thousand Varsovian Gentiles were arrested
Bartoszewski,
Warszawski Pierscien Smierci 1939–1945
, p. 228.

18
erased virtually every German street name in Midtown … and papered walls with forty thousand
Bartoszewski,
1851 Dni Warszawy
, p. 424.

19
such as Helgoland, Mitropa, and the Apollo Theater
Luczak,
Dzieje Polski 1939–1945
, p. 290.

20
“Even some Poles from the underground sought refuge in the abandoned sections of the Ghetto”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 87.

21
minus twenty degrees Celsius
Bartoszewski,
1851 Dni Warszawy
, p. 425.

22
carrying two hundred SS troops and eight hundred Ukrainian and Latvian auxiliaries
Gutman,
Resistance
, p. 184.

23
“I don’t think Isaac, at this stage, even knew who I was”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

24
“We had three pistols and three grenades”
Tuvia Borzykowski,
Between Tumbling Walls
(Tel Aviv: Beit Lahomei Hagettoat, 1972), p. 23.

25
“My God, that’s Angel”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

26
“We’ve got to help him”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 89.

C
HAPTER
28: T
HE
O
RGANIZATION

1
“The doors suddenly burst open and in flew a band of Germans”
Ibid., p. 90.

2
after liquidating a mere five thousand Jews
Gutman,
Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943
, p. 311.

3
The Home Army counted 380,000
registered members across Poland
Lukas,
Forgotten Holocaust
, p. 62.

4
greater than the French Resistance or any other insurgent group in Europe
William Hitchcock,
Liberation: The Bitter Road to Freedom 1944–1945
(London: Faber and Faber, 2009), p. 155.

5
“The street was in the hands of Jewish fighters for fifteen to twenty minutes”
Biuletyn Informacjny
, no. 4, January 28, 1943.

6
“I doubt they will use them”
Gutman,
Resistance
, p. 174.

7
“It changed everything”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

8
“We are no longer in charge. A new authority now rules the Ghetto”
Engelking and Leociak,
Getto Warszawskie
, p. 724.

10
“My assignment was to distract the [Jewish Police] guards”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

11
“word spread like wildfire that the operation had been commanded by a fighter from the Polish Underground”
Ratheiser-Rotem,
Kazik
, p. 24.

12
“When others became nervous or agitated I got calmer”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

13
“Isaac [Zuckerman] would tell Hanoch who had been sentenced to death”
Ibid.

14
“I wanted to drink, and I drank too much”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 305.

15
“I’m sorry, I won’t talk about that”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

16
“A Jewish policeman, a real son of a bitch”
Assuntino and Goldkorn,
Straznik
, p. 77.

17
“We would kidnap their children and ransom them”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

18
the nickname by which his Israeli grandchildren would address him, the nom de guerre on his email address
Ibid.

19
“I put the barrel of my revolver near him”
Ratheiser-Rotem,
Kazik
, pp. 28–29.

20
“They drew their guns, we also brought guns”
Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.

21
“In a low dark room where large amounts of ammunition”
Arens,
The Jewish Military Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto
, pp. 15–16.

22
“It began in the cellar of number 7 Muranow and ended across the street in number 6”
Ibid.

23
“In the command room was a first class radio that received news”
Joseph Kermish, ed.,
To Live with Honor and Die with Honor: Selected Documents from the Warsaw Ghetto Underground Archives Oneg Shabbath
(Jerusalem: Yad Vashem, 1986), p. 596.

24
“Nine squadrons were concentrated in the center of the ghetto, eight in the area of the Tobbens and Schultz workshops”
Wladyslaw Bartoszewski,
The Warsaw Ghetto: A Christian’s Testimony
(Boston: Beacon Press, 1987), p. 71.

25
“We did not want to be taken by surprise again”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

26
“We would aim and shout Bang, Bang”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

27
“Allocating weapons without ammunition impresses us as being a bit of a mockery”
Gutman,
Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943
, p. 358.

28
“a machine gun, a tommy gun, twenty pistols with magazines and ammunition, 100
hand grenades”
Bartoszewski,
Warsaw Ghetto
, p. 71.

29
“the odor of the chemicals was overwhelming”
Vladka Meed,
On Both Sides of the Wall
(New York: Schocken, 1979), p. 173.

30
“We would remove the pipes with a larger than normal diameter”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, pp. 293–94.

31
“One morning the entire ghetto shook to a mighty explosion”
Borzykowski,
Between Tumbling Walls
, p. 39.

32
“this was a mistake”
Engelking and Leociak,
Getto Warszawskie
, p. 726.

33
“not all of us were in such a hurry to die”
Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.

34
“I had not gotten to know him well because I didn’t mix with Communists”
Beres and Burnetko,
Marek Edelman
, p. 141.

35
“very emotional and sometimes acted rashly”
Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.

36
“After this incident the Coordinating Committee of the ZOB wanted to remove him from his post”
Beres and Burnetko,
Marek Edelman
, p. 141.

37
“the Home Army had an iron-clad rule that if someone was burnt”
Ibid., p. 136.

38
“He talked and looked like a typical Warsaw Pole”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, pp. 342.