79: Vladka Meed

 Vladka Meed (born Feigele Peltel, December 29, 1921 – November 21, 2012):

“At that time we … decided that if they will come to take us, we will stand up,” remembered Vladka Meed. “We will not be taken away.”

By the late summer of 1942, many Jewish residents confined within the Warsaw ghetto knew that deportation meant almost-certain death. “More and more rumors started about Treblinka—about the death camp and gas chambers,” explained Vladka. “It was desperation in the ghetto.”

After her whole family was deported, Vladka decided to devote herself entirely to resistance work. She was selected as a courier because she could pass as a non-Jewish Pole. Through this work, she met her future husband, Benjamin Meed, who helped smuggle her in and out of the ghetto.

Vladka helped find hiding spots for Jewish children and passed information across the ghetto walls. But as time passed, her work became increasingly focused on armed resistance. She secured weapons for the Jewish Combat Organization (Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa; ŻOB).

“It was not easy—especially for people like me. I didn’t have any idea how a revolver looked or how dynamite looked.”

When the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising began #OnThisDay in 1943, Vladka and Benjamin were outside of the ghetto walls. “We saw that the wall around the ghetto is being surrounded by Germans, and in the morning we heard … shooting. And we knew the uprising started.”

Ill-equipped Jewish fighters managed to hold off the Germans, forcing them to destroy the ghetto block by block. By mid-May, the uprising had been defeated and thousands of Jews killed. Most surviving ghetto residents were deported to concentration camps or killing centers.

Vladka and Benjamin managed to survive the rest of the war working for the Jewish underground. They were married shortly after liberation and immigrated to the United States.