This winter we have concentrated in getting key people into the Aryan side. David Zemba reluctantly left the ghetto with his family, but I hear he continues to live in Warsaw, refusing to leave the country. We have been able to place six of the children (who escaped the Niska orphanage and live in the cellar of Mila 19) in the Franciscan Sisters’ convent in Laski.
Joint Forces has about seven hundred fighters in training, learning street-fighting tactics, the handling of our various weapons, and the routes over the roofs. We have twenty so-called battle companies, about one third armed. There are seven Labor Zionist companies, two Bund, four Communist, two Bathyran, and religious and mixed groups. The Revisionists outside of Joint Forces have a well-armed group of fifty, or more at their bunker under Nalewki 37.
Arms, food, and medical stores are hidden in dozens of alternate store bunkers all over the ghetto. Our standard weapon is the Polish 35 rifle. We have about thirty of these with a thousand rounds of ammunition. Next in importance are the fifty-six various models of 9-mm. pistols (German Mausers, Parabellums and Swedish Lahtis). The odd weapons are a nuisance, but we take them despite the difficulty and cost in obtaining ammunition. We have a few Italian Berettis (cal. 32) and Glisentis 10.35. The two Hungarian Baby Frummer .380’s have only eight rounds between them. (A round of ammunition for the Baby Frummer costs two hundred zlotys apiece, whereas 9-mm. ammo runs from eighty to a hundred and twenty zlotys.)
We have several thousand fire bottles and nearly a thousand water-pipe grenades manufactured from a formula by our genius, Jules Schlosberg. We have also three dozen Polish grenades and assorted knives.
Schlosberg’s newest concoction is a tin can filled with nuts and bolts. The open end of the can is sealed with plastic percussion caps and covered with a light wax. The theory works. We tested four of them in empty houses. The impact was so great that some of the bolts shot clear through the plaster walls into the next rooms. We call this “weapon” the “matzo ball.”
Joint Forces operates out of four primary bunkers. Simon Eden’s headquarters (Leszno 92) under Bund House, Gensia 43, and our bunker at Mila 19 (which now holds almost a hundred people, including eighteen children) form the “Central Command.” Rodel has a series of small bunkers at the southern end around the uniform factory. His main bunker is under the Convert’s Church! Father Jakub hears nothing. A good friend. The other command in the Brushmaker’s district is held by Wolf Brandel, who is barely twenty years old. Wolf amazes us all with his imagination and complete calm. His main bunker is at Franciskanska Street, almost at the ghetto wall and under two parts of the factory complex. Rachael Bronski, now a soldier, has gone to live at the Franciskanska bunker. Stephan Bronski, incidentally, is considered the best runner in the ghetto.
The Brushmaker’s factory still turns out six thousand brushes a day for the Wehrmacht. This means, of course, a constant flow of raw supplies in from the outside. Wolf has capitalized on this by paying off a few key people in shipping and receiving. Food cans and supplies coming in can be easily marked and used for smuggling in pistols and ammunition.
Before David Zemba went over to the Aryan side we held a final meeting of the Good Fellowship Club (half our original number are left). It was decided that everything except the current volume in progress should be hidden immediately. Fifty completed volumes have been stuffed into fourteen milk cans and sealed and buried in fourteen different places. Ten more milk cans and iron boxes contain unclassified or unentered material, such as photographs, diaries, poetry, essays. Only six people know where the twenty-four cans and boxes are hidden: David Zemba, Andrei Androfski, Gabriela Rak, Alexander Brandel, Christopher de Monti, and myself. David, Andrei, Gabriela, and Alex each know where part of the cache is located, so if captured they cannot possibly reveal the entire archives.
Only Christopher de Monti and I know the location of all the cans and boxes. We have placed the most urgent priority in getting Chris out of Poland, for he alone is our greatest hope of bringing world attention to the holocaust which has befallen us. However, there is an unparalleled man hunt for him on the Aryan side, and getting him out of Poland will be nearly impossible.
One bit of good news. Although Finland is an ally of Germany, she has adamantly refused to turn over her Jewish community (of two thousand) to Eichmann. In fact, old Marshal Mannerheim has threatened to use the Finnish army to protect the Jews. We hear similar reports of defiance, particularly from Denmark. Also, we hear that Bulgaria and Rumania will not yield Jews to Eichmann’s fanatical pressure. Lord, Lord, what couldn’t we do with the protection of the Polish Home Army, which now has a quarter of a million men!
With the Good Fellowship Club archives hidden, I feel that my work has come to an end. I am so lonely without Susan and Momma. I am almost blind from the years of working in the cellar in bad light with these notes. My hands and shoulders are swollen with arthritis from the dampness. I am in pain all the time. How much longer can we go on? How many of us will escape? Two? Five? Fifty? How many? And what of Joint Forces? A fool’s army. No one in their wildest dreams believes we can hold out against assault for more than two or three days. So what is the use? When will we fight? Or will we fight? Who among us will dare to fire that first shot against them? Who?
Entered as the first entry of a new volume by Ervin Rosenblum on January 15, 1943.
Chapter Two
BLOND, BLUE-EYED, TRIM, intelligent, industrious SS Oberführer Alfred Funk stood, posture correct, at the head of a polished table. Listening in rapt attention on his left sat Rudolph Schreiker and Dr. Franz Koenig. Opposite them, Gestapo Chief Gunther Sauer and Sturmbannführer Sieghold Stutze, newly appointed as security police head for all of Warsaw. Not so rapt in his attention, Horst von Epp, bored, stared out of the window at the opposite end of the table.
Funk had carried verbal orders from Berlin to Poland on the “Jewish question” for so long that meanings were understood beyond their thin veils. He spoke in an uninspired monotone.
“Those who remain in the ghetto are Communists, criminals, perverts, and agitators.”
Four of them agreed. Von Epp played with a paper clip.
“Himmler has decided that for the sake of common justice we must erase this blot. We will proceed shortly with the final phase of the liquidation of the ghetto.”
Each of the men immediately translated the order into his own personal sphere of action.
For Rudolph Schreiker the removal of the Jewish problem in his area would be a relief. It was getting far too complicated for him to understand; besides, many of his business dealings could be buried in the ghetto.
Franz Koenig had been way ahead of it, anticipating the ghetto-liquidation order. He had already negotiated new war contracts, using labor at Trawniki and Poniatow.
Sauer took the order with unconcern. A policeman is always busy. Old problems are solved, new ones pop up. The Gestapo never rests, never will rest. Put out one fire, two more ignite. It did not matter.
Horst von Epp wanted the meetings to break up so he could get to a telephone and check to see if the new girls had come in from Prague.