Media Essay
The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising - ID Card/Oral History
Abraham Lewent
Abraham was born to a Jewish family in the Polish capital of Warsaw. His grandfather owned a clothing factory and retail store, which his father managed. Abraham's family lived in a Jewish section of Warsaw and he attended a Jewish school. Warsaw's Jewish community was the largest in Europe, and made up nearly one-third of the population of the city.
1933-39: After the bombardment of Warsaw began on September 8, 1939, Abraham's family had little to eat. The stores had been reduced to rubble; they had no water or heat. Hunting for food, Abraham dodged German bombs and stole seven jars of pickles from a nearby pickle factory. For several weeks his family lived on pickles and rice. Because of a lack of water, fires from the bombing raids burned out of control. Relief came when the capital surrendered.
1940-44: By April 1943 Abraham was in the Warsaw ghetto in a walled-off forced-labor area. During the ghetto uprising he could see the flames. He couldn't believe it. To one side Abraham saw whole streets on fire. To the other he saw Poles in Warsaw's non-Jewish section preparing for Easter. When the Nazis liquidated the ghetto after the uprising, Abraham and his father were among those marched out for deportation. Poles stood on the sidewalk, eyeing the suitcases they carried, saying: "You're going to your death, after all. Leave it for us."
Abraham was deported to Majdanek and then to seven other Nazi camps, including Buchenwald. He was liberated in transit to the Dachau camp on April 30, 1945.
Item ViewMendel Rozenblit
Mendel was one of six children born to a religious Jewish family. When Mendel was in his early 20s, he married and moved with his wife to her hometown of Wolomin, near Warsaw. One week after the Rozenblits' son, Avraham, was born, Mendel's wife died. Distraught after the death of his young wife and left to care for a baby, Mendel married his sister-in-law Perele.
1933-39: In Wolomin Mendel ran a lumber yard. In 1935 the Rozenblits had a daughter, Tovah. When Avraham and Tovah were school age, they began attending a Jewish day school, where they studied general subjects in Polish and Jewish subjects in Hebrew. Avraham was 8 and Tovah was 4 when the Germans invaded Poland on September 1, 1939.
1940-44: By the fall of 1940 the Rozenblit family had been sent to the Warsaw ghetto. During the ghetto uprising in April 1943, Mendel and his family managed to escape to the outskirts of Warsaw. They decided that if anyone should get lost in the chaos, they would all meet at a designated farmhouse. Suddenly, Avraham disappeared. Perele set out to find him, and was never seen again. Mendel eventually found Avraham, shoeless, at the farmhouse. Not long after, Mendel, Avraham and Tovah were arrested and deported to Auschwitz.
At Auschwitz Mendel was selected for hard labor. His children were gassed. In 1947 Mendel immigrated to the United States, where he began a new family.
Item ViewVladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes watching the burning of the Warsaw ghetto from a building outside the ghetto
Vladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.
Item ViewBenjamin (Ben) Meed describes the burning of the Warsaw ghetto during the 1943 ghetto uprising
Ben was one of four children born to a religious Jewish family. Germany invaded Poland on September 1, 1939. After the Germans occupied Warsaw, Ben decided to escape to Soviet-occupied eastern Poland. However, he soon decided to return to his family, then in the Warsaw ghetto. Ben was assigned to a work detail outside the ghetto, and helped smuggle people out of the ghetto—including Vladka (Fagele) Peltel, a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB), who later became his wife. Later, he went into hiding outside the ghetto and posed as a non-Jewish Pole. During the Warsaw ghetto uprising in 1943, Ben worked with other members of the underground to rescue ghetto fighters, bringing them out through the sewers and hiding them on the "Aryan" side of Warsaw. From the "Aryan" side of Warsaw, Ben witnessed the burning of the Warsaw ghetto during the uprising. After the uprising, Ben escaped from Warsaw by posing as a non-Jew. Following liberation, he was reunited with his father, mother, and younger sister.
Item ViewVladka (Fagele) Peltel Meed describes reactions after the Warsaw ghetto uprising
Vladka belonged to the Zukunft youth movement of the Bund (the Jewish Socialist party). She was active in the Warsaw ghetto underground as a member of the Jewish Fighting Organization (ZOB). In December 1942, she was smuggled out to the Aryan, Polish side of Warsaw to try to obtain arms and to find hiding places for children and adults. She became an active courier for the Jewish underground and for Jews in camps, forests, and other ghettos.
Item View![German soldiers direct artillery against a pocket of resistance during the Warsaw ghetto uprising. [LCID: 34083b]](https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/thumb/8ffe37b4-0b4f-4966-9e03-838766fb9e89.jpg.pagespeed.ce.TpufPoulGs.jpg)