OUT in Warsaw Under >Nazis— a Flicker of Life in the Ghetto
(Editor's Note: Rachel Gourman.
author of this memoir, writes of her
personal experience in the Warsaw
ghetto. By a combination of accident
and luck, she survived the Nazi attack
of Passover, 1943. The people she writes
were her
here
909, ko Poignantly
teachers and friends, the students in
the ORT schools right in the Warsaw
ghetto in which she worked. She had
graduated Just the year before as a
certified teacher.
She
now lives
in
Israel
•
• •
By RACHEL GOUlIMANT
Two weeks after the fall of War-
saw, when the houses were des-
I
NE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
38 — Friday, Jame 9, 1972
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troyed and the ashes still smold- by ORT. Tailors received sewing
ering, when one had to walk to machines. To begin with, every-
the Wisla to fetch a bucket of one received one machine, then
water, when there was not one one machine was given to two,
whole window—all of a sudden, then one to three . . . But it was
life started again in the ORT work- not only the machines which had
shops. Like a cry from heaven, to be provided; there was also
the rumor spread among the need for a chair, a little table,
Jewish population that the ORT an iron, scissors and thread. In
workshops were to be reopened.
the same way, everything was
The excitement of the people at provided for carpenters, shoe-
this news was indescribable, let makers and other trades. And one
alone the happiness of those "for- should have seen the faces of these
tunate" enough to be admitted to "clients" after their visit to ORT.
the schools. This enabled them to
They told their families that they
earn at least a little something al- would no longer have to stand in
most immediately so that they the queue in front of the soup
could buy a loaf of bread or a kitchen, because they were going
head of Cabbage.
to earn their own livelihood, while
In September 1940, the occupy- their wives would cook their meals
ing forces permitted ORT to open at home.
courses—the only official school in
And then came the climax, the
the ghetto. With the outbreak of last act of the drama. On July,
war, ORT in Warsaw was cut off 22 . 1942 the Germans started sys-
from the World ORT Union and tematically to deport 6,000 to 10,-
was left without funds. However, 000 daily to Trehlinka. The ghetto
we collected the necessary monies. shrank daily, until only a few
From the first days, the stu-
streets remained. It was imposs-
dents were able to earn a few
ible to remove the machinery from
cents. Everything around us was I the vacated shops. ORT set up two
demolished and destroyed, ' new workshops, hoping thus to
people arrived literally naked • save as many people as possible.
and barefoot, but every student
because there was still some hone
attending the courses was able
to earn something. During these
Rehovot Graduates 83;
"happy" days, there were cases
of students and instructors faint-
Presents Three Awards
ing at their work from hunger.
RE110VOT—"The strength of the
This, however, nes er diminished
state of Israel depends at least as
their devotion to their task. It
'ruch
on the Weizmann Institute of
was a proud example of the
'cience as it does upon the Israel
creative spirit of an undernour-
Defense Force, - Israel's Defense
ished, humiliated and oppressed
Munster Moshe Dayan said at the
army of four and a half thousand
,iraduation ceremony of the Weiz-
ORT pupils. These people from
mann Institute's Feinberg Graduate
the ages of 16 to 60 were absorb.
School held recently on campus.
ed in these activities
and in
Eighty-three MSc and PhD de-
them they found their consola•
2rees were awarded.
lion and hope for the future. It
Giora Yashinsky Was awarded a
sounds like a fairy tale when we
posthumous MSc following his
think that in those dark days the
death
on reserve duty last July. In
distribution of ORT certificates
silence, Yashins'iy's father walked
was celebrated in the schools.
But how would these ptople be to the dais to receive his son's
able to work? Where would they diploma. Giora's thesis, almost com-
find the tools? This difficult pro- pleted when he fell, was finished
by three of his fellow students—
blem was solved to a large extent
Gerson liazan • Elisha Haas and
Amu- am Grunwald — under the
guidance of Institute Professors
Ephraim Natchalski and Yitzhak
Steinberg.
The following prizes were award-
- Mono., tvorytIwny
• PlOo•• ■ 1Torn S.t• •0
ed to three Weizmann Institute
f mt.. Long to 60 Ste,
scientists for outstanding work in
their respective hefts.
iter
Harry Lesine
fir
19:2
Science
spi, :31. is
that those would not be ' depopu-
lated." A total of 572 sewing
machines remained in the shops of
Leshno 13 and Nalevik 13. Again
some people were able to work,
once again some lives were, in a
way, protected and in a manner of
speaking "legalized," since the
workers of the ORT shops had
been registered at the German
labor office. Again a glimpse of
light entered the shops.', Naked
people received clothes and the
barefoot were given shoeS.
Whoever managed to escape
from the camps went ditectly to
ORT.
It was known in the ghetto that
at the ORT workshops people re-
ceived a plate of soup and 100
grams of bread each day People
came to get a bit of food and to
forget their sorrows for a moment.
In the ORT workshops people
still sang while they worked. They
read Sholom Aleichern.
It should be noted that on Sun-
day, April 18, 1942, the ORT work-
shops continued their work until
4 p.m. The people did not know
that this was the last of even the
limited "life" they had been per-
mitted to live. The Nazi attack on
the ghetto began that day.
The root of the Jewish tragedy
is not to he found in the unfavor-
able attitude of other p les to-
ward Its. nor is this the funda-
The
mental reason for Zicmis
e Jew-
real reason lies in what
ish people (consciously. subson-
sciously or unconsciously) always
lon g ed for- social indepe lence -
and ,t will not find rest until it re-
establishes its national sta ehood.
Z. Jabotinsky. A Hebrew State--
The Solution of the Jewiih Ques-
tion.
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