Warsaw Ghetto survivor took part in heroic 33-day uprising
After escaping through sewer, he returned to city to fight Nazis
MONTREAL — The world lost one of the last living links to the heroic Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of the Second World War when Boruch Spiegel died this month.
Spiegel, 93, was one of the last survivors among the several hundred Polish Jews who on April 19, 1943, staged the first urban revolt against German occupation in Europe.
It lasted 33 days, but shocked the Germans, who had been accustomed to a lack of resistance, especially from civilians as its armies crushed all opposition and enemies with overwhelming force and brutality.
Interviewed in April 2003 at his modest Cote St. Luc duplex, Spiegel was preparing to return to Poland to commemorate the event.
Spiegel said that at the time he, a member of the Jewish Labour Bund, and most of the about 600 fighters from various Zionist and political groups knew the uprising was an act of desperation, but felt compelled to resist.
“We didn’t have enough weapons; we didn’t have enough bullets. It was like fighting a well-equipped army with firecrackers. And none of us had military training.”
But sensing the end was near for the 50,000 to 60,000 Jews left in the ghetto, the fighters unleashed their fire on the eve of Passover, as the enemy was about to stage another roundup. Resistance was unexpected and the German commander reported 12 killed or wounded.
“Dignity, dignity” — Spiegel’s words still echo. He and about 60 others, including his late wife, Chaika Belchatowska, survived by leaving the burning ghetto with a first group of fighters through the sewers.
Eugene Orenstein, retired professor of Yiddish and Modern Jewish History and Spiegel’s son-in-law, noted Spiegel never condemned those who did not resist.
“What choice did they have? They were starved, they lived in a hostile environment where they couldn’t depend on much help from the outside, they had no weapons, and they were devoted to their families.
“Chaika used to tell a story where she saw a mother being hauled off with their child, and the child’s shoe became untied, and the woman bent down to tie her child’s shoe. She could have been shot for it — they were on their way to death anyway — but Chaika said that was the greatest heroism, to be a human being.”
What persuaded those such as Boruch Spiegel — who worked with his father making leather spats and knew nothing about fighting — to take up arms?
Orenstein attributed his heroism to the ideals of social justice and human dignity ingrained as part of the secular socialist Bund, which believed improved conditions at home would liberate Jews from oppression.
“He grew up in a revolutionary socialist organization and took those ideas very seriously. He was a very strong, ethical human being. He just couldn’t allow the Germans to get away with this without paying the price.”
The Spiegels joined partisans in the forest near Vischov, then returned to live in hiding with a Polish family in the so-called Aryan side of Warsaw.
When the Polish Uprising of August 1944 erupted, they joined the fight.
The fact Boruch and Chaika returned to the flames of Warsaw to fight again after being so close to death speaks for itself, Orenstein observed.
In reprisal, the Germans destroyed 90 per cent of the city, shot many and selected others for slave labour in Germany. Boruch and Chaika and other Jews chose to hide out in a bunker in the ghetto ruins, Orenstein noted, recalling one of their favourite anecdotes.
“There was a woman with a young boy, 12 or 13, and no one wanted to help them because they were afraid of the burden.
“Boruch insisted, saying: ‘I’m not going to allow another Jewish boy to die. This boy stays with us.’ ”
The group remained buried in the bunker, unaware the city had been liberated on Jan. 17, 1945. When a Bundist comrade and friends who knew about the hideout began digging, those underground feared the worst.
“They thought it was the Gestapo and started digging deeper. … Finally, the woman they had sheltered ventured out one night and saw people singing in the streets and dancing. She verified the fact the Germans had gone and they all came out after being buried underground for a week.”
Boruch Spiegel died May 9. He is survived by his daughter Mindy (Eugene Orenstein), son Julius (Suzanne) of Brookline, Mass., grandchildren Amaryah and Yoninah, and Max Beryl and Sam Henry.