Mordechai Anielewicz

 Mordechai Anielewicz

Mordechai Anielewicz was born in 1919 in Wyszków, Poland.

His Parents were Abraham (Avraham) and Cyryl (Cirel) née Zaltman.

Shortly after his birth his Family moved to Warsaw.

Mordechai had a Brother (Pinchas) and two Sisters (Hava and Frida.)

He studied at the private Hebrew Junior High School of the "Laor" ("Towards the Light") Society at 2a Nalewki Street.

Thanks to his very good Academic results, he was exempt from Tuition Fees.

From 1934 he belonged to the Zionist Scout Organization Hashomer Hatzair.

In 1937, at the age of 18 he went to a Pre-Military Polish Training Camp.

He passed his Matriculation Exam in 1938.

When the Germans invaded western Poland on September 1, 1939 Mordechai and other Members of the Hashomer Hatzair fled Warsaw for eastern Poland only to learn that the Soviet Union had invaded eastern Poland a few days after the Germans.

He then tried to cross into Romania, but was arrested by the Soviets and kept in prison for a short time.

He returned to German-Occupied Warsaw in January 1940.

After returning to Warsaw, Mordechai organized Groups, Meetings, Seminars, secretly attended Resistance Groups in other cities, and founded the Underground Newspaper “Neged ha-zerem” (literally "Counter-Current").

In October 1940 the Germans forced all 460,000 Jewish Men, Women and Children in Warsaw into the closed Warsaw Ghetto.

Mordechai was forced into the Ghetto like all the other Jews.

The Germans controlled the amount of food that was brought into the Ghetto, and disease and starvation killed thousands each month.

Mordechai was also friends with Emanuel Ringelblum (a Polish-Jewish Historian who collected aspects of everyday life under the German Occupation in the Secret Ringelblum Archive of 35,000 pages that survived the War.)

In March 1942, he began to Co-Organize the Jewish Anti-Fascist Bloc (Polish: Blok Antyfaszystowski) in the Ghetto.

In the Summer of 1942 Mordechai illegally left the Warsaw Ghetto and travelled to different German-Run Jewish Ghettos across Occupied Poland to try and create Self-Defense Groups in them.

While he was out of Warsaw the Germans launched a Mass Deportation of Men, Women and Children from the Warsaw Ghetto.

(SS men on Nowolipie Street in the Warsaw Ghetto during the Uprising.)

From July-September 1942 the Germans carried out Grossaktion Warsaw (Great Action Warsaw) where they deported 265,000 Jewish Men, Women and Children from the Warsaw Ghetto to the Treblinka Death Camp where they were gassed and murdered within hours of arriving.

Mordechai returned to the Warsaw Ghetto in October 1942 and became the Commander of the Jewish Combat Organization (Polish: Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa, ŻOB; Yiddish: ייִדישע קאַמף אָרגאַניזאַציע‎ Yidishe Kamf Organizatsie.)

After the Great Action there were 60,000 Jews left in the Warsaw Ghetto.

From January 18-21, 1943, he led the first armed Self-Defense in the Warsaw Ghetto, which led to the interruption of the second German Deportation Action to Treblinka (the January Action.)

Mordechai and other Members of the ZOB  mixed-in with regular Jews being led by the Germans from Warsaw to the Cattle Trains at the Umschlagplatz before opening firing and killing the German Soldiers  - allowing People to escape being deported.

His actions also forced the Germans to stop their planned January Deportations to the Death Camps.

The ZOB and other Groups then started preparing Underground Passageways between the Ghetto Buildings, building Bunkers and stockpiling whatever weapons they could.

By 1943 there were 600 Hidden Bunkers throughout the Warsaw Ghetto.

On the eve of Passover (April 19, 1943) the Germans tried to enter the Warsaw Ghetto with 850 Men to send the rest of the Jews to the Death Camps and to Liquate the Warsaw Ghetto.

Mordechai and the ZOB  (around 1,000 Fighters) attacked groups of German Soldiers with pistols, grenades, and Molotov Cocktails from roofs, balconies, windows, doors and adjoining courtyards.

The Jews fought and died knowing they wouldn’t leave the Warsaw Ghetto alive, but they fought to die with dignity.

(Post-War reconstruction of the ŻOB bunker at 18 Miła Street.)

On May 8, 1943 the Germans discovered the Bunker Headquarters of Mordechai at 18 Milla Street.

There were 300 Men, Women and Children in the Bunker and the Germans had all 6 Exits blocked.

When the Germans started pumping gas into the Bunker Mordecai, his Girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer, and 270 other People committed Mass Suicide rather than be taken alive by the Germans only to be killed in the Death Camps.

Mordechai Anielewicz was 23 or 24 years old when he died.

30 People from the 18 Milla Street Bunker were able to escape through the sewer to the part of Warsaw outside the Ghetto.

The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising ended on May 16, 1943 (29 days after it started.)

13,000 Jewish Men, Women and Children were killed inside the Ghetto during the Uprising (6,000 of them were burned alive by German flamethrowers.)

36,000 Jewish Men, Women and Children were deported from the Ghetto during the Uprising and murdered at the German Death Camps.

The Germans then burned all of the Warsaw Ghetto to the ground (block-by-block.)

(General view of 18 Miła  Memorial, place of death of Mordechai Anielewicz.)

In 1946, the Anielewicz Mound Monument was created over the ruins of the 18 Milla Street Bunker as it was a Mass Grave.

Jürgen Stroop, the German SS Commander in charge of the Liquation of the Ghetto was  arrested by the Americans in May 1945 and was handed over to the Poles where he was tried for his Crimes and hanged on March 6. 1952 in Warsaw, Poland.

(The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes in Warsaw.)

The Monument to the Ghetto Heroes (Polish: Pomnik Bohaterów Getta) was created in 1948 in Warsaw, Poland.

In July 1944, Mordechai Anielewicz was Posthumously awarded the Cross of Valor by the Polish Government in Exile in London.

In 1945 he was also awarded the Cross of Grunwald, 3rd Class by the Polish People's Army.

In December 1943, Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel was renamed after him and had a Monument erected in his memory.

Many cities in Israel have streets named after him, including Beersheba, Tel Aviv, Petah Tikva, Safed, Lod, Ashdod, Haifa, Holon and Yehud.

In 1983, the Israeli Government issued a two-stamp set honoring Mordechai Anielewicz as heroes of the Ghettos.

In 2001, an American Film called “Uprising” was made about the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.  Hank Azaria played Mordechai Anielewicz.

In 2023 he was Posthumously awarded the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta by the President of Poland Andrzej Duda