THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS 10 Friday, April 2, 1982 Nazi Trap in Post-Ghetto Warsaw Revealed in Shulman Volume By ALLEN WARSEN "These were the two rea- sons which caused so many Jews hiding on the Aryan side to voluntarily enter what they themselves called the Hotel Polski trap. The first was the nightmare of their daily existence, and the other was a belief that the exchange plan con- tained a grain of probabil- ity." The above passage is from the "introduction" to "The Case of Hotel Polski," authored by Abraham Shulman and published by the Holocaust Library (Schocken Books). The book, a detailed ac- count of the tragic Hotel Polski affair, consists of ex- cerpts from published books, diaries, testimonies, interviews and documents. In the "introduction," INSTANT COLOR PASSPORTS ID. & VISA PHOTOS PROFESSIONAL PORTRAIT LIGHTING 1352-70301 LEO KNIGHT PHOTOGRAPHY 26511 W. 12 Mile Rd. Corner Northwestern Hwy. the author chronologi- cally recounts the events that led to the death camps, the Pawiak Prison, Bergen-Belsen and Vittel. Thus, on Sept. 1, 1939, the Germans invaded Poland and 26 days later Warsaw surrendered. On Oct. 4, Adam Czerniakow, the chairman of the Warsaw Jewish Community Coun- cil, was ordered by the Ges- tapo to form a Judenrat and in November, the Judenrat was asked to take a census of the Warsaw Jewish popu- lation. On Jan. 26, 1940, congre- gational worship was for- bidden and kosher slaughtering of animals banned. In September, the ghetto was established and the Warsaw Jews were forced to move into it and the Poles living there to leave. In September, 1941, Governor Frank (executed after the war) reduced the ghetto's meager food rations and in July 1942, the mass deportations of thousands of Jews to the death camps be- came daily happenings. "In April, 1943, following a heroic, desperate and hopeless resistance, the Germans liquidated the ghetto." Nevertheless, thou- sands of Jews were still living in hiding on the Aryan side. The Hotel Polski affair was an im- portant event in the tragic history of those Marrano Jews. Their tragedy was re- ISRAEL HOLY LANDS SUPER - SAVER 9 days FROM 27 (PLUS AIRFARE) • HIGHLIGHTS OF THE HOLYLANDS FROM JERUSALEM TO TEL AVIV. VISITING BETHLEHEM, NAZARETH, THE SEA OF GALILEE AND MEDITERRANEAN COST. • FIRST CLASS HOTELS IN JERUSALEM, KIBBUTZ AND TEL AVIV. • YOU CAN'T AFFORD NOT TO GO THIS YEAR. PRICES ARE REDUCED LOWER THAN LAST YEAR. Greatways Travel Corporation 26711 Northwestern Hwy., Southfield, Michigan 48034 (313) 352-4873 Mon. -Thurs. 9:00-5:30 p.m., Fri. 9:00-5:00 flected in their unfortunate attempt to become free again and is vividly and painstakingly described in the Holocaust memoirs of Bernard Goldstein, Tuvia Borzykowski, Jacob Celemenski, David Klin, Vladka Meed and others. Bernard Goldstein, a leader of the Bund under- ground, relates in his memoir that a rumor sud- denly began circulating in Warsaw that the Gestapo had obtained foreign passports which could be ob- tained for a price. In order to facilitate their purchase, the Gestapo es- tablished an office at the Hotel Polski that ad- ministered by its Jewish agents. Goldstein, however stresses in his memoir that the Bund under- ground "had serious doubts about this scheme from the very start." These doubts, he writes, were strengthened by the statement issued by the Polish underground that "the entire affair was a trap planned by the. Ges- tapo to get their hands on the remaining Jews of Warsaw in order to kill them." Yet, despite the warn- ings, the rush to the hotel continued. Goldstein re- marks that he knew a fam- ily that paid 750,000 -zlotys ($11,000) for a passport. Tuvia Borzykowski, a participant in the Warsaw Uprising and a leader of the "Hahalutz," in his book "Be- tween Tumbling Walls" states that the Jews be- lieved the enterprise was genuine because they trusted, among others, David Guzik, the chief of the Warsaw Office of the Joint Distribution Committee, who "threw the full weight of his prestige behind the project." Celeminski, Jacob "thanks to his good looks," lived on the Aryan side throughout the war and served as a courier, "bring- ing financial aid and report- ing news to Jews who were living in hiding." In his book, "With My Slain People," he relates that on his secret visits to the Hotel Polski, he learned that the Gernians kept in the Pawiak Prison those Jews in pos- session of foreign passports whom they in- tended to exchange for German internees in America. He also was in- formed that a number of these people, including the journalist Hillel Seidman and poet Yit- zhak Katzenelson and his son Zvi, already were transferred to the Inter- national Camp Vittel in France. - He was told that those passports the Orthodox "Va'ad Hatzala" (Commit- tee for Rescuing Jew) was sending from Switzerland, which arrived for Jews no longer alive, the Gestapo was selling at exorbitant prices. Vladka Meed, who also was an underground courier, in her memoir, "On Both Sides of the Wall," writes that the last group of Jews (except a few who managed to hide, including her future husband), the Gestapo transported to the Pawiak. Of this group, according to historian Leon Wanat, 262 were immediately shot and the remaining group of 162 were sent to Bergen- Belsen. Constructed in 1943, Bergen-Belsen originally was planned for Jews in possession of citizenship papers of Central and South American coun- tries. But shortly after its establishment it became a concentration camp for thousands of people, most of whom were de- ported to Auschwitz where they, were mur- dered. Many of the people who were brought there from the Pawiak Prison, including Yiddish writer Joshua Perle and Galka Leszczynska, the daughter of a well-known labor leader, were deported to Auschwitz where they perished. After the war it was learned that these people soon after their arrival in Auschwitz "threw them- selves at the SS men, tore their weapons out of their hands and tore down the fences." The remaining internees at Bergen-Belsen organized School Sponsors Summer Dig at Israel Site NEW YORK — Those in- terested in the field of archeology can participate as a volunteer in the sum- mer excavation at Tel Dan being sponsored by the He- brew Union College - Jewish Institute of Religion Nelson Glueck School of Bi- blical Archeology. The dig at Dan, one of the two cities where Jeroboam set up the worship of the Golden Calf after the death of King Solomon, is set for June 12-July 23. Information on the dig may be obtained by writing Dr. Paul M. Steinberg, He- brew Union College-Jewish Institute of Religion, One W. 4th St., New York, N.Y. 10012. Brooklyn Hotel a NY Alternative BROOKLYN — The Park House Hotel in The Boro Park section of Brooklyn is- offering itself as an alterna- tive to costly Manhattan hotels. The 114-room facility of- fers kitchen facilities in most of its suites and studios and daily rates sub- stantially below Manhattan hotels. The Park House Hotel is 30 minutes by subway from Manhattan, in an area with a . large Orthodox Jewish population. There are many fine international restau- rants near the hotel. cial and religious activities. Cultural activities were also carried on at Vittel. Like Bergen-Belsen, it too was originally planned as a temporary camp for Jews in possession of foreign passports. On April 29, 1944, Kat- zenelson, his son Zvi, and a group of 171 Jews were sent to Auschwtiz where they were killed. Prior to his deportation, Katzenelson kept a Het diary and composed Holocaust jeremiad, "The Song of the Murdered Jewish People." The first and last stanzas read: a clandestine committee consisting of former mem- bers of the command of ZOB (Zydowska Organizacja Bojowa-Jewish Fighting Organization) and repre- sentatives of political par- ties. The committee's major task was the formation of "militant groups of fives" for the purpose of dis- arming "the Germans, in case they would in the last moments before capitulation, try to mur- der the Jewish pris- oners." In addition, the commit- tee promoted cultural, so- Sing! Take your light, hollow harp in hand, Strike hard with your fingers, like pain filled hearts On its thin chords. Sing the last song, Sing of the last Jews on Europe's soil. ** Woe is unto me, nobody is left . . . there was a people and it is no more. There was a people and it is gone . . . What a tale. It began in the Bible and lasted till now . . . A very sad tale. A tale that began with Amalek and concluded with the far-crueller Germans . . . 0 distant Sky, wide earth, vast seas: Do not crush and don't destroy the wicked. Let them destroy themselves! In 1980, the Katzenelson Kibutz of the Ghetto Fight- ers published Katzenelson's epic poem. The edition in- eluded photos of the original manuscript with an Engligh translation and annotations by Noah H. Rosenbloom. There is nothing that God has judged good for us that he has not given us the means to accomplish, both in the natural and the moral world. 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