DIE LETZTEN TAGE DES WARSCHAUER GETTOS – The Last Days of the Warsaw Ghetto, by Zivia Lubetkin, Berlin – Potsdam 1949 – First Edition – The only documentation from a firsthand source on the events and outcomes of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. German.
The diary of Warsaw Ghetto fighter Zivia Lubetkin as translated into German – the only firsthand account of the events and results of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in April 1943. Lubetkin, in her twenties at the time, stood at the forefront of the battle against the Germans in the ghetto as one of the leaders of the “HaHalutz” movement. Before us is the first German edition of Zivia Lubetkin’s diary detailing the events of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in detail, and in particular the most difficult days when the Nazis set fire to the ghetto on its inhabitants – In those days Lubetkin was still in the ghetto, she documents the heroic way in which she and her friends found their way to escape as the flames drew closer to them, and as rumors of the death of many of her friends did not cease. Among other things, Lubetkin documented in her diary the cooperation of the Polish police and the Polish population with the Germans in persecuting the Jews, plundering their property, and handing them over to the German enemy – deeds for which she did not forgive them even after the war. She also reveals an unknown chapter about the battles waged by Jews in Vilna in the underground tunnels of the ghetto, as she heard from the Jewish partisan fighter Sutzkever in August 1944.
Zivia Lubetkin [1914 – 1978], a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising and one of the most prominent women in the resistance. She served as a guide and leader in the youth movements “Dror” and “HaHalutz, ” and after the war, she founded the Lohamei HaGeta’ot Kibbutz and the Ghetto Fighters’ House Museum. She was active in the “Ahdut HaAvoda ” party and the United Kibbutz Movement. As news of the Nazi massacres of Jews spread within the ghetto (by various survivors, and rumors that reached the ghetto), youth movements organized to form a partisan fighting force. Lubetkin and Yitzhak Zuckerman led a front that sought to fight within the ghetto, not in the city streets outside. Lubetkin was one of the women actively involved in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, engaging in face-to-face battles against the Germans. She barricaded herself in a building, shot at the Germans, threw grenades and bottles filled with sulfuric acid at them, successfully causing casualties among the Germans who fled due to the surprise. She recruited new members for the partisan group, led its finance committee, and was involved in smuggling members to Eretz Israel to report on the situation of Jews in the ghettos and the activities of the partisan group. While the movement throughout the ghetto was extremely dangerous, Lubetkin conducted tours among the various posts. Her role was mainly educational and moral, being a prominent figure in the movement and the partisan group, and she was also the personal adviser to the ghetto commander, Mordechai Anielewicz. Throughout the months of the uprising, Lubetkin fought almost until the end, documenting the fighting in detail until the last days. She managed to escape from the ghetto through tunnels and hid in a secret apartment until the end of the war. In May 1946, Zivia Lubetkin immigrated to Eretz Israel, continuing her Zionist activity as one of the pioneers who established the Lohamei HaGeta’ot Kibbutz, and even fought for the welfare of Holocaust survivors in the country.
47 p. Very good condition. The book is accompanied by illustrations depicting scenes from the last days of the uprising.
