Remembering Ghetto Uprising
Polish, German, Israeli heads gather on its 80th anniversary
WARSAW, Poland — Sirens wailed and church bells rang as the presidents of Germany, Israel and Poland bowed their heads Wednesday before a memorial to Jewish insurgents who fought a mismatched, desperate battle against Nazi German forces in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.
Celebrations of the uprising’s 80th anniversary honored the hundreds of young Jews who took up arms in the Polish capital in 1943, choosing to fight and die at a time and place not dictated by the Nazis. Most were killed, and none of those who survived the fighting are still alive.
“I stand before you today and ask for forgiveness,” German President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said at the site of the former ghetto.
“The appalling crimes that Germans committed here fill me with deep shame. But at the same time it fills me with gratitude and humility that I can take part in this commemoration as the first German head of state ever.”
The leaders were joined by Holocaust survivors and their descendants, amid a poignant sense that the responsibility for carrying on the memory of the Holocaust is passing from the witnesses to younger generations.
A 96-year-old Polish Holocaust survivor, Marian Turski, told those gathered that German forces did the unimaginable in annihilating Jews, but that the “subsoil” of anti-Semitism existing for centuries made it possible for the Germans to kill so many. He warned against indifference in the face of rising hatred and violence in today’s world.
“Can I be indifferent, can I remain silent, when today the Russian army is attacking our neighbor and seizing its land?” he said.
Steinmeier said the lessons of his country’s aggression offer a message amid the war.
“You in Poland, you in Israel, you know from your history that freedom and independence must be fought for and defended,” Steinmeier said. “But we Germans have also learned the lessons of our history. ‘Never again’ means that there must be no criminal war of aggression like Russia’s against Ukraine in Europe.”
Jewish and Christian clerics recited prayers, and a torch burned from a part of the memorial resembling a Jewish menorah.
A large group held private unofficial observances at other sites across the former ghetto. For some it was a boycott of the right-wing government for its policy of portraying the predominant response to the Holocaust as one in which Poles saved Jews. That approach has been a source of tensions with Israel, where many accuse the Polish government of ignoring modern scholarship, which paints a complex picture that also includes many cases of Polish betrayal of Jews.
Veronique Felenbok, the daughter of Paul Felenbok, a child survivor of the Warsaw ghetto who died two years ago, objected to the religious aspect of the official observances. She said she found the prayers disrespectful given that many of the fighters belonged to socialist and communist movements and were not religious.
The Germans invaded Poland in 1939 and the next year set up the ghetto, the largest of many in occupied Poland.
Poland was home to Europe’s largest prewar Jewish population on the eve of the Holocaust, some 3.5 million Jews, most of whom were murdered. The Polish state preserves sites like the ghetto and the Auschwitz death camp, while also honoring the massive losses inflicted on the entire nation. Some 6 million Polish citizens were killed during the war, about 3 million of them Jews and the others mostly Christian Poles.
Israel’s President Isaac Herzog mentioned in his remarks the “disagreements and pain” that still exist between the Jewish and Polish people over their clashing historical narratives, and voiced hope their friendship would advance.
“The heroism of the resistance and the rebels and the imperative to remember that terrible chapter of history, when the Jewish people faced complete annihilation, and destruction rained down upon Poland and many other countries, offer a platform for important dialogue between Poland and Israel,” Herzog said.