'Warsaw Aflame"--Polish Story of Nazi Persecution, Sufferings Among Jews
only to his death; there are Nazis in 1944, the famous ammunition strikes us as a 6,045 rifles with 749,000 Ghetto uprising. Our way to
honor the heroic ghetto fight-
other casual comments which ghetto historian Emanuel cynical mockery of our fate rounds; 1,070 pistols with ers is to keep the record
8,708
rounds;
7,561
grenades;
and
confirms
the
hypothesis
Ringelblum
wrote:
do not tell the whole tale.
"We state firmly that had that the poison of anti-Semit- seven small antitank guns straight. Yuri Suhl
Especially to be noted in
We welcome historical
the
responsible Polish author- ism continues to corrode Po- with 2,174 rounds. This does
this book is the quotation
land's ruling circles despite not include the arms the analyses: they must be fact-
ities
extended
moral
support
from Ringelblum, whose
Warsaw Home Army Com- ual and unbiased. The un-
chronicled reports, found in and helped us with arms the the horrible and tragic ex- mand received from airdrops biased Jewish story of the
of the past three
their hiding place after the Germans would have had to perience
and its own secret manufac- Holocaust in Poland has al-
end of Nazism, exposed the pay for the sea of Jewish years." And on the very eve ture.
ready been written. The im-
of the uprising Anielewicz
blood
shed
in
July,
August
terrors more fully than most
cried out: "If only we could
This year marks the 30th plementations must be
works. Ringelblum had writ- and September 1942."
The responsible Polish get the weapons and ammu- anniversary of the Warsaw equally factual.
ten in his notes that if London
authorities
on the scene at nition we need. . . ."
knew about the massacre of
As for Mr. Korbonski's cry-
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
100 Poles in the Pawiak that time were the various
30—Friday, Sept. 28, 1973
Prison, why wasn't there commands of the Home ing poor with regard to the
Home
Army's
meager
sup-
similar expose of the death Army, directed by the Lon-
the
of hundreds of thousands of don-based Polish Provisional plies, I refer him to
Home Army's own official
Government.
Jews?
On March 13, 1943, only history, published by the
-Nappy new Year
"Warsaw Aflame" exon- five weeks before the upris- General Sikorski Institute in
erates the British, claims that ing, Mordecai Anielewicz, London in 1950.
TO OUR MANY FRIENDS AND CUSTOMERS
the crimes were exposed, commander of the Jewish
Of the seven territorial
maintains that "Dr. Ringel- Fighters Organization, found commands into which the
blum, imprisoned in t h e it necessary to write to the Home Army was organized,
ghetto, did not know it." high command of the Home the Warsaw Home Army
Now conveniently located at
That's a whitewash not easy Army complaining that "of Command alone had the fol-
to condone—because the ter- the 49 weapons (pistols) you lowing supply of weapons
28950 Orchard Lake Roads,
rorized in the ghetto did gave us, only 36 are usable, hidden since September 1939;
Between 12 and 13 Mile Roads, Next to the Clock in Farmington
know what was happening, because of a lack of ammuni- 131 heavy machineguns with
626-7000
626-7007
and the world was silent. The tion . . . The fact that we 16,900 rounds; 190 light ma-
Polish losses in comparison were given weapons without chineguns with 54,000 rounds;
with the Jewish sufferings
were minimal, and the facts
must not be reduced to a
state of inequality. It has
been done by the Russians in
relation to the Babi-Yar hor-
ror in Kiev; it must not be
repeated in dealing with the
death of millions of Jews in
the extermination camps that
total Jewish record.
were set up by the Germans
There are inferences in the in Poland.
book that cause doubt. For
The reproduction in "War-
example, there is one point of saw Aflame" of the original
contrast between rich and of the Zygielbojm letter, be-
poor Jews, with the implica- fore his suicide in London
tion of special privileges for (where he escaped) on May
the former—as if the Nazis 11, 1943, is significant. Many
had permitted a rich Jewish of the photographs are valu-
element to carry on under able. A number of them were
extracurricular conditions.
secured from YIVO in New
A foreword to this volume York. The aid given the Jew-
makes the following asser- ish heroes in the Warsaw
tions regarding the Jewish Ghetto revolt by the Polish
role:
underground is greatly ex-
" 'Warsaw Aflame' details aggerated. The intentions of
the Nazi efforts to annihilate the authors are excellent, and
the national life, culture and they are to be commended
religion of the nation and of for attempting to link the
the actual process of geno- Jewish sufferings with the
cide against the Polish as general community, as part
well as the Jewish sections of of the Polish story. But the
the population. For the first Jewish story has already
time this book frankly dis- been told in much greater
cusses Polish-Jewish relations detail, so that "Warsaw
and examines the extermina- Aflame" must be judged
tion of the Jews against the critically.
• C C
background of the whole his-
tory of those times."
The claims that the Polish
A "first time" claim is a underground had assisted the
bit exaggerated, especially in Jewish fighters for freedom
view of the quotations in this have been exaggerated to
volume from the writings and such a degree that the record
anguished outcries of Dr. must be set straight.
Emanuel Ringelblum, Szmul
On May 25, the New York
Zygielbojm, the agonized Times published a letter by
chairman of the Judenrat, Yuri Suhl, author of "They
Adam Czerniakow, and Fought Back: The Story of
We in Tel Aviv have special services for non-residents, foreign investors and new immigrants, such as :
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Zygielbojm stories have Europe," who corrected the
already been recorded much the record with regard to the
-Personal Trust & Property Management
more completely than the one Warsaw Ghetto Uprising as
Look to Bank Leumi. Wherever you are. We'll be happy to send you any information you'd like.
by the three Poles; they have it was presented in an article
failed to give a proper ac- in the NY Times. Suhl's let-
Ask our New York Subsidiary, Bank Leumi Trust Company of New York,
count of Czerniakow and his ter reads:
579
Fifth
Avenue, N.Y. 10017, or, complete the coupon and send it to Israel today:
suicide — there is reference Record of the Warsaw
Czeslaw Z. Banasiewicz, a
native of Warsaw, who had
suffered under the Nazis as a
youth, has compiled an inter-
esting work: "W a r saw
Aflame: the 1 9 3 9 - 1945
Years," a large pictorial
work with an accompanying
record of the years of terror.
It was published by Polamer-
ica Press in Los Angeles.
Banasiewicz previously
published "The Warsaw
Ghetto."
Co-authors of his newest
work are Tadeusz Bielecki
and Lezek Szymanski.
"Warsaw Aflame" is a ser-
ious effort to present the
complete story of the Polish
capital under the Nazi terror.
Actually, it is a chronologi-
cal work, with emphasis on
the Polish army, the men who
were engaged in the under-
ground, the Nazi leaders who
brutalized the Poles.
The Jewish sufferings are
part of the story. Often the
reader feels that the Jewish
sufferings were described
incidentally, although they
are part of the larger picture.
But in view of the great
losses sustained by the Jews,
in view of the extremes to
which the Hitler hordes had
gone in dealing with Jews as
Jews, it is impossible to ac-
cept the present work as a
So says the VA •••
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232X. 810 Vermont Ave.. NW. Washington. D.C.20420
Hank's Clothes
Ghetto Uprising
To the Editor:
In his addendum to The
Times report "Warsaw, April
19, 1943: The Ghetto Battle Is
On," Stefan Korbonski, last
head of the Polish wartime
underground, seeks to convey
the impression that the Polish
Underground Home Army
gave generous support to the
embattled Warsaw Ghetto
fighters "from our own very
meager supplies . ." (letter
May 7).
The facts tell a different
story. In his book, "Polish-
Jewish Relationships During
World War H," written in a
bunker shortly before his cap-
ture and execution by the
LE-ISRAEL B.M.
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