The Great Deportation in the Warsaw Ghetto - Abraham Lewin’s Diary

The deportation marks a new period in the history of Warsaw Jewry, affecting also the nature of the Oyneg Shabbes work. At a time when every second threatened capture and transport to Treblinka, only a handful of people continued to keep diaries and to record their daily experiences even during the deportations. A valuable document is the diary of Abraham Lewin, every sentence is measured. The news about the expulsion of Jews is spreading like lightning through the town, Jews run by, in confusion, terrified. The Jewish streets are an appalling sight - the gloom is indescribable. On Zamenhof Street the Germans pulled people out of a tram, and killed them on the spot. The round-up was halted at three o'clock. The savagery of the police during the round-up, the murderous brutality. They drag girls from the rickshaws, empty out flats, and leave the property strewn everywhere... How do Jews hide? In couches, in beds, cellars, attics. 6 Solna Street; 99 victims. Today 12,000 martyrs.... The violence of the police... The breakup of families. Mendrowski Pola. It hurts so much... Only the workers in the workshops seem to still be safe. A meeting of Oyneg Shabbes. Its tragic character. They discuss the question of ownership and the transfer of the archive to America to the YIVO [Yiddish Scientific Institute] if we all die. It is a wonder that people can endure so much suffering, living the whole day on a knife-edge between life and death and clinging with all their might to life in the hope that they may be among the ten survivors. Early this morning the Germans and the rioters spread through the ghetto... In the course of five minutes they drove out all the occupants on Gesia Street between Zamenhof and Lubiecka Streets. They pay no attention to papers. Eclipse of the sun, universal blackness. My Luba was taken away... I have no words to describe my desolation. I ought to go after her, to die. But I have no strength to take such a step. I will never be consoled as long as I live... To fall into the hands of such butchers!... How tragic it is! A life together of over 21 years... has met such a tragic end. The sight of the streets: the pavements are fenced off, you walk in the middle of the road. Certain streets are completely closed off with fences and gates and you can't get in there. The impression is of cages. The whole of Jewish Warsaw has been thrown out of the buildings. There is a full-scale relocation of all Jews who have not yet been rounded up and are still in the town. The pain because of the loss of Luba is becoming more intense. My soul can find no peace, for not having gone after her when she was in danger, even though I could have also disappeared and Ora would have been left an orphan. There is talk of a second front in France and Holland. If these things had happened four or five weeks ago, perhaps we would have been saved from the catastrophe. Six in the evening. Jewish policemen have returned from the town and said that the action is continuing. So, all our hopes that the bloody action had ceased now have been swept away. How will we survive? How will we be able to bear it? People talk of the special danger that now threatens children. A terrible dread seizes me, when I think of the fate of Ora. She has no documents and is in danger. Since Friday no news reaches us from the other side of the wall. The terrible appearance of the streets transformed into an Umschlagplatz [concentration point]. The crowds of Jews with packs on their backs, streaming through the streets of the ghetto. Everyone is camped out on the street. The Swieca family has perished. He gave himself up after seeing how his wife and two children were taken. Initially he went with us to Gesia Street, later he went back, gave himself up and was sent away. I feel a great compassion and admiration for this straightforward person. We tremble at every noise and shot that comes from the street. Today is the 52nd day in the greatest and most terrible slaughter in history. We are the tiny remnants of the greatest Jewish community in the world. A Jew has returned to our workshop who worked as a gravedigger in Treblinka. According to what he said, not only Jews from Warsaw and of the gubernia [area] are being exterminated in Treblinka, but Jews from all over Europe from France, Belgium, Holland, among others. Those who are faraway cannot imagine our bitter situation, they will not understand and will not believe that day after day thousands of men, women and children, innocent of any crime, were taken to their death. Almighty god! Why did this happen and why is the whole world deaf to our screams. How terrible it is that a whole generation - millions of Jews - has suddenly become a community of 'martyrs', who have had to die in such a cruel, degrading and painful manner and go through the torments of hell before going to the gallows. Earth, earth do not cover our blood and do not keep silent, so that our blood will cry out until the ends of time and demand revenge for this crime that has no parallel in our history and in the whole of human history.

Channel: Yad Vashem

Views: 362,787

Keywords: Yad Vashem, Holocaust, Shoah, Jewish life, ISHS, Holocaust Education, applied Holocaust education, teaching the Holocaust, Holocaust pedagogy, Jewish tradition, Films, archive, diary, Testimonies, Oyneg Shabbes Archive, Oneg Sabbath Archive, Warsaw Ghetto, hunger, Great Deportation, Emanuel Ringelblum, YIVO, Abraham Lewin, Avraham Levin, WWII, World War Two, Second World War, Death Camps, Deportations, Umschlagplatz, extermination camp, Oyneg Shabes, concentration camp

Id: HyZPDvgXXP4

Length: 8min 23sec (503 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 28 2016