Isaac's Army (72 page)

19
“John.” … “Warsaw”
Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.

20
Eighty ZOB members were dead
Beres and Burnetko,
Marek Edelman
, p. 173.

21
“First Anielewicz shot Mira … then himself”
Ibid.

22
Historians would cite five
Mark,
Powstanie W Getcie Warszawskim
, p. 72.
284 “A leader has no right to commit suicide”
Beres and Burnetko,
Marek Edelman
, p. 174.

23
“He took the easy way out”
Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.

24
Prostitutes had shared bagels and other food with him in the past
Krall,
Shielding the Flame
, p. 40.

C
HAPTER
33: S
IMHA THE
S
AVIOR

1
“The welcome of the two women whom I’d just met dazzled me”
Ratheiser-Rotem,
Kazik
, p. 46.

2
“I initially thought my job was to tell Isaac that the others were ready”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

3
Every day, 180 trains loaded with soldiers
Piotr Rozwadowski and Aneta Ignatowicz,
Boje o Warszawe
(Warsaw: Fundacja Warszawa Walczy, 2007), p. 124.

4
“If you don’t go, I’m going to go back in myself!”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

5
“Fine!”
Ibid.

6
“You can keep leading us, or you can die right here”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

7
“It took a few tries but we managed to get out of the Ghetto”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

8
“I spent three hours looking for my friends”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

9
“I will never forget what I saw when I first descended into the sewer”
Borzykowski,
Between Tumbling Walls
, p. 68.

10
“It was midnight”
Ibid., p. 101.

11
“We had been walking for several hours when we received a jolt”
Ibid.

12
“We were not accustomed to good news”
Borzykowski,
Between Tumbling Walls
, p. 103.

13
“We drag[ged] them over the putrid water”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 138.

14
“We lay in the sewage, body pressed to body, and counted the passing minutes”
Borzykowski,
Between Tumbling Walls
, p. 104.

15
“Our despair grew from moment to moment”
Ibid., p.105.

16
Their paid-off gangster host, who called himself the King
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

17
“Drink this”
Kurzman,
Bravest Battle
, p. 322.

18
“Move, move” … “Hurry, hurry”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 141.

19
“I told him this was a Home Army mission”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

20
“We have to go”
Ibid.

21
“There are a lot of people down there”
Ibid.

22
“Stop! Stop!”
Kurzman,
Bravest Battle
, p. 325.

23
For Boruch, the virgin forest … had come as a shock
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

24
“I could not believe that only a few hundred yards from the Ghetto ordinary life went on”
Mark Edelman, author interview, Lodz, May 2007.

25
“Mark has had a breakdown”
Edelman,
I Byla Milosc w Getcie
, p. 123.

26
“Go ahead … pull the trigger and we both die”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

27
“Those people died because of me”
Ibid.

28
But for the eighty survivors of the Jewish Fighting Organization’s original five hundred members
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 143.

C
HAPTER
34: H
OTEL
P
OLAND

1
the Jews, as urbanites, had no idea how to live off the land
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

2
“Life in the world of partisans in eastern Poland was extremely cruel”
Lukas,
Forgotten Holocaust, p
. 81.

3
“it was dark and damp, like lying in a grave”
Werner,
Fighting Back
, p. 80.

4
Twenty-eight of the Soviet-made rifles had been distributed to the Jewish partisans
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 398.

5
“From fifty people in our original group … we were down to around fifteen”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

6
arranging for a doctor to perform an abortion by candlelight
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

7
“the problem is too great for solution by the two governments here represented”
Kurzman,
Bravest Battle
, p. 132.

8
“Stop it, they’re our people”
Ratheiser-Rotem,
Kazik
, p. 92.

9
“I pretended I was a big shot in the Underground”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

10
“Miraculously, one of them had even gotten hold of a starched collar, cuffs, and tie”
Ratheiser-Rotem,
Kazik
, p. 92.

11
“I told him that the ZOB had to be left alone”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

12
there were still an estimated twenty-eight thousand Jews hiding in and around the city
Paulsson,
Secret City
, p. 103.

13
the Gestapo had snared thirty-five hundred Jews with a single fiendishly clever trap
Ibid., p. 139.

14
“It was hard to rationalize that while some Jews were getting caught in the street, others were sitting comfortably in the Hotel Polski”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 441.

15
“I rode inside the tram and they stood on the platform constantly chanting ‘Jew, Jew, Jew!’ ”
Ibid., p. 126.

16
Grabowski later estimated the total number of greasers in wartime Warsaw to be between five and ten thousand
Jan Grabowski, “Zrada, Agresja I Obojetny Tlum,”
Newsweek Polska
, May 18, 2008, p. 94.

17
“The extent of their criminal behavior is difficult to measure”
Ibid.

18
“disapproving indifference rather than widespread condemnation”
Ibid.

19
“The problem was that the authors of the document had defined nationality on the basis of ethnicity”
Ibid.

20
“Polish is your mother tongue”
Ozimek,
Media Walczacej Warszawy
, p. 51.

21
His name was Jan Pilnik, and he appeared eighth on a list of ten individuals
Andrzej Krzysztof Kunert, ed.,
Zegoda: Rada Pomocy Zydom 1942–1945
(Warsaw: Rada Ochrony Pamienci Walk I Meczenstwa, 2002), p. 114.

22
a dozen of the two hundred executions carried out by the Resistance in Warsaw
Korbonski,
Fighting Warsaw
, p. 126.

23
“When I got off the tram, they surrounded me”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 441.

24
1,400
men and 487 women, all Gentiles, were sent to Auschwitz on the first day alone
Bartoszewski,
Warszawski Perscien Smierci
, p. 284.

25
On October 16, for instance, twenty people were shot on Independence Street
Ibid., p. 288.

26
“You’ve brought this on yourselves. Why do you provoke us?”
Ibid., p. 292.

27
as Isaac’s “right-hand man”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

28
“Tuvia’s Polish wasn’t Polish”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 435.

29
a trusted Gentile by the name of Stephen Pokropek
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

30
“I told [Sheingut] there was no point in both of us hanging around”
Ibid.

31
“Bullets whizzed by my ear”
Ratheiser-Rotem,
Kazik
, p. 81.

32
“We were tormented by suspicion, and, naturally, it fell on Black”
Ibid., p. 82.

33
“I’m walking down the street and I see this big convertible”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

C
HAPTER
35: R
OBERT
’
S
A
MERICAN
P
LEDGE

1
“Out of the blue my dad got a call that our papers were ready”
Robert Osnos, author interview, New York, April 2010.

2
“I don’t know how, but my father guessed that there would be a backlash against colonialism after the war”
Ibid.

3
“He was accused of being a Peeping Tom”
Ibid.

4
“They thought it was some sort of codes”
Ibid.

5
“Hey buddy, you lose your pants or something”
Ibid.

6
“We were petrified that the Host would stick in throats”
Olczak-Ronikier,
W Ogrodzie Pamieci
, p. 290.

7
“On the commuter train a guy latched on to us, trying to make jokes”
Ibid., p. 291.

8
“Then I went back to the convent like a good girl”
Ibid., p. 292.

9
“You needed official permission to go out from your
melina
”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

10
“Even my eyes were Yiddish”
Ibid.

11
“He did everything to boost our morale”
Ibid.

12
Her grandmother translated
Dr. Dolittle’s Return
into Polish
Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.

13
“One day they would speak only in French”
Ibid.

14
“We had the feeling of being prisoners sentenced to an indefinite term”
Borzykowski,
Between Tumbling Walls
, p. 133.

15
“You Poles are strange people”
Tec,
When Light Pierced the Darkness
, p. 51.

16
“it only takes one Pole to betray a hundred Jews, but it takes ten Poles to save one Jew”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

17
Between forty thousand and sixty thousand Varsovians were actively involved in sheltering Jews
Emmanuel Ringelblum,
Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War
(Evanston, Illinois: Northwestern University Press, 1992), p. 247.

18
Some Western historians put the number as high as ninety thousand
Paulsson,
Secret City
, p. 129.

19
“These noble individuals face not only German terror but also the hostility of Polish fascists”
Ringelblum,
Polish-Jewish Relations During the Second World War
, p. 247.