The ghetto did not believe.
We, however, did our utmost to obtain arms from the "Aryan side". We enlarged our battle organization, whose members were mostly Bund youth cadres (Szmul Kostrynski, Jurek Blones, Janek Bilak, Lejb Rozensztajn, Icl Szpilberg, Kuba Zylberberg, Mania Elenbogen, and many others). It is difficult to describe here the manner and the handicaps of our work. It was an unbroken chain of disappointments and failures. Repeatedly disappointing difficulties in securing weapons, lack of understanding for our efforts on the part of our Polish comrades--these were the conditions in which our group worked and grew.
At one point it looked as if we were about to attain our aim, and that transports of arms would soon start arriving in the ghetto. Instead, news came about the liquidation of the Lublin ghetto. Since a few months before, when the serious "slip-up" of Celek and many others in Piotrkow and Lublin took place, communications with the groups outside the ghetto were almost non-existent. The Warsaw ghetto, lacking direct contacts with the outside, received these latest reports with skepticism too. People gave many reasons to refute the remotest possibility of similar acts of violence, refused to accept the thought that a similar murder could possibly be committed in Poland's capital where 300,000 Jews dwelled. People argued with one another and tried to convince others and themselves that "even the Germans would not murder hundreds of thousands of people without any reason whatever, particularly in times when they were in such need of productive power..." A normal human being with normal mental processes was simply unable to conceive that a difference in the colour of eyes or hair or different racial origin might be sufficient causes for murder.
However, immediately after the arrival of these reports came the tragic and bloody events of the night of April 17th, 1942, like an omen of things to come. Over fifty social workers were dragged from their homes that night by German officers and shot in the ghetto streets. Of our comrades we then lost Goldberg (the barber) and his wife, Naftali Leruch and his father, Sklar, etc. Sonia Nowogrodzka, Luzer Klog, and Berenbaum were also hunted by the Germans. The following morning the entire ghetto, stunned, terrified, hysterical, tried to find the reasons behind these executions. The majority came to the conclusion that the action was aimed at political leaders, and that all illegal activities should have been stopped so as not to needlessly increase the tremendous number of victims.
On April 19th, a special edition of Der Weker was published, in which we tried to explain that the latest executions were but another link in the systematic policy of extermination practiced against the Jews as a whole, and that the Germans wanted to get the Jewish population's more active elements out of the way. Once this was accomplished, the paper argued, the Germans hoped that the remaining masses would meekly accept their lot as they did in Wilno, Bialystok, Lublin and other cities. Our view, however, remained as isolated as it had been before. Only some youth groups, such as Hashomer and Hechalutz, shared our convictions.
At this time a complete reorganization of our work took place. All our clandestine activities, we decided, would now be carried out with a single view in mind: to prepare our resistance. To expedite matters the Party Executive Committee was re-established (Abrasha Blum, Berek Sznajdmil, Marek Orzech). All youth "fives" received basic military training. Special orders were issued. A detailed plan of action was worked out in the event of a German attempt to overrun the ghetto. A transport of weapons promised by the PS (Polish Socialists) was to arrive shortly and was to comprise 100 pistols and a few dozen rifles and grenades.
In the meantime our number decreased as a result of continuous executions. From April 18th to July 22nd, 1942, the Germans killed 10-15 ghetto inhabitants per night. None of our comrades slept at home during that period. It was, however, very difficult to predict the Germans' intentions at any given time since they employed an involved pattern in choosing their victims. These stemmed from all social groups--smugglers, merchants, workers, professionals, etc. The purpose behind it was to implant fear among the population to such a degree as to render it incapable of any instinctive or organized actions, to cause the fear of death from the Germans to paralyze even the smallest acts of the people's resistance and to force them onto the path of blind, passive subordination. This, however, was clear to a small handful only. The ghetto as a whole was unable to grasp the true reasons behind the German acts of terror.
It is difficult to relate today life in the ghetto during those days preceding the "official" exterminating procedure applied to its inhabitants. Now the sadistic and beastly methods of the Germans are well known to the world. A few examples of everyday happenings will suffice.
Three children sit, one behind the other, in front of the Bersons and Baumans Hospital. Agendarme, passing by, shoots all three with a single round.
A pregnant woman trips and falls while crossing the street. A German, present during the accident, does not allow her to rise and shoots her right there and then.
Dozens of those smuggling across the ghetto wall are killed by a new German technique: Germans clad in civilian clothes, with Jewish arm-bands and weapons hidden in burlap bags, wait for the instant when the smugglers scale the wall. At that very moment machine-guns appear from the bags and the fate of the group is settled.
Every morning a small Opel stops at Orla Street. Every morning a shackled man is thrown out of the car and shot in the first house entrance. It is a Jew who had been caught on the "Aryan side" without identification papers.
In mid-May 1942, 110 prisoners of the so-called Central Jail ("Gesiowka"), arrested for illegal crossing to the "Aryan side", were executed. One of our comrades (Grylak) saw the prisoners being led out of the jail and into special trucks. Almost all of them walked meekly into the cars, when suddenly one woman found courage to show her protest. From the steps of the truck she shouted: "I shall die, but your death will be much worse!" Special proclamations signed by Dr. Auerswald informed the ghetto of the "just" punishment received by the 110 "criminals".
At about this time another of our major "slip-ups" occurred. The Germans discovered the apartment where our printing shop was installed. They did not find anybody there, however, because our intelligence service had known about the German order to search the house 24 hours beforehand and as a result we had had ample time to move our paper supply, the mimeograph machine, and the typewriters to another safe place.
The mood of the ghetto was now changing daily. The turning point in the ghetto, however, was April 18th. Until that day, no matter how difficult life had been, the ghetto inhabitants felt that their everyday life, the very foundations of their existence, were based on something stabilized and durable; that one could try to balance one's budget or make preparations for the winter. On April 18th the very basis of ghetto life started to move from under people's feet. Every night filled with the shrill, crisp sound of shots was an illustration that the ghetto had no foundations whatever, that it lived at the will of the Germans, that it was brittle and weak like a house built of playing cards. By now everybody understood that the ghetto was to be liquidated, but nobody yet realized that its entire population was destined to die.
By mid-July the black clouds became thicker. Appearances were normal enough. Only "unikely" rumours began to circulate--about the arrival of the UmsiedIungskommando (Deportation Board), about the proposed deportation of 20,000, 40,000, 60,000 ghetto inhabitants, about taking all the jobless for fortification works, about leaving in Warsaw only those who were actually employed. These rumours, although still considered implausible, caused uneasiness, then panic. Great numbers of people started looking for work, tried to obtain employment in factories and public offices. Ladies who, until then, had been spending their days in cafes, overnight became hard-working seamstresses, menders, clerks. Some shops gave preference to those in possession of sewing machines. The price of sewing machines immediately rose. Although no definite information was forthcoming, people became more and more panicky and willingly started paying larger sums for a chance to work. "To obtain work" was, at that time, the only topic of conversation, the only thought. Everybody had to work. Those "established" were happy--a load was off their minds. The "unestablished"--uneasy, irritated--followed every lead which might bring them employment.