Isaac's Army (65 page)

16
ten people sentenced to death for tearing down a German flag
Luczak,
Dzieje Polski, 1939–1945
, p. 42.

17
“All Jews and Jewesses within the General Government”
Nowy Kurjer Warszawski
, November 30, 1939, p. 1.

C
HAPTER
8: J
OANNA
’
S
R
HYME

1
“forbidden and invalid”
Yitzhak Arad, Yisrael Gutman, and Abraham Margaliot, eds.,
Documents on the Holocaust
(Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1999), p. 78.

2
“A Jew is a person descended from at least three grandparents”
Ibid., p. 80.

3
“In a corner of the great Warsaw there still stands a remnant of the medieval city”
Ellen D. Kellman,
Zydzi Warszawy
(Warsaw: Zydowski Instytut Historyczny, 2000), p. 105.

4
“Jew, Jew, crawl under your shack”
Olczak-Ronikier,
W Ogrodze Pamieci
, p. 270.

5
“It was then that I found out what was the real and macabre meaning of the rhyme”
Ibid.

6
“My grandfather wanted to be more Polish than the Poles”
Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.

7
“He practiced pronunciation”
Ibid.

8
“the Hebraic-German garble”
Marci Shore,
Caviar and Ashes: A Warsaw Generation’s Life and Death in Marxism, 1918–1968
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), p. 2.

9
“It’s not true!”
Olczak-Ronikier,
W Ogrodze Pamieci
, p. 270.

10
“She was a very proud and strong-willed woman”
Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, December 2008.

11
“I was so upset at being Jewish”
Ibid.

12
56
TUWIM AND SLONIMSKI ARE ONE HUNDRED PERCENT JEWS
Anthony Polonsky in Robert Blobaum, ed.,
Antisemitism and Its Opponents in Modern Poland
(Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005), p. 198.

13
“I will never permit my Ladies”
Olczakl-Ronikier,
W Ogrodze Pamieci
, p. 270.

C
HAPTER
9: I
SAAC ON
M
EMORY
L
ANE

1
“321,700
Poles, 107,600
Jews, 75,200
Belarussians”
Luczak,
Dzieje Polski, 1939–1945
, p. 41.

2
fifteen thousand Jewish refugees flooded into Vilna
http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/media_cm.php?lang=en&ModuleId=10005173&MediaId=2580
.

3
“Jews constituted at least 80
%
of every Bolshevik organization”
Joseph W. Bendersky,
The “Jewish Threat”: Anti-Semitic Politics of the American Army
(New York: Basic Books, 2000), pp. 84–85.

4
The experience remained “engraved”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 14.

5
“What’s new
,
Dyedushka
?”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 14.

6
“a rabbi who didn’t want to make a living at it”
Ibid., p. 13.

7
“Are you insane, where are you going?”
Ben-cion Pinchuk,
Polish-Jewish Relations in Soviet-Occupied Eastern Poland
,
http://www.electronicmuseum.ca/Poland-WW2/ethnic_minorities_occupation/Jews_15.html
, p. 7.

8
“He would have understood if I had gone closer to Eretz Israel”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 18.

9
“There were cases of members leaving the movement”
Ibid., p. 19.

10
Of the 330,000
Galician Poles sent to Siberian camps in 1940
,
21 percent were Jews
Philipp Ther, “War Versus Peace,”
Harvard Ukrainian Studies
24 (1/4), pp. 265–66.

11
“Some day they’ll probably lead me away like that too”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 20.

12
“I was such a great conspirer”
Ibid., p. 22.

13
paraded in nightgowns up the marble steps of the Opera
Eyewitness account, Andrzej Roman, author interview, Warsaw, September 2008.

14
from 110,000
to 160,000
by year’s end, so great was the flood of refugees
Ther,
War Versus Peace
, p. 268.

15
The city itself was laid out like a landlocked San Francisco
Author site visit, May 2009.

16
“They had more faith in the Soviet regime”
Ibid., p. 26.

17
“like a captain who had been the first to leave his sinking ship”
Arens,
Jewish Military Organization in the Warsaw Ghetto
, p. 7.

18
“Do you really believe that I did not have these thoughts?”
Ibid., p. 8.

19
“We had a fight about it”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

20
“Warsaw under the Nazis scared me to death”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 29.

C
HAPTER
10: Z
IVIA

1
“unapproachable,” cold, hard, and “tough”
Dina Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

2
“Introverted and modest”
Abraham Raban,
The Promise, the Revolt, the Vow
, Histadrut/Lochamei Hagettaot Institute, Ghetto Fighter’s House Museum brochure, n.d., p. 6.

3
“unproductive”—the endless chattering of “do-nothings” and “squares”
Ibid., p. 19.

4
“Zivia and Isaac only had two things in common”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

5
“like living on a small Jewish island”
Raban,
The Promise, the Revolt, the Vow
, p. 6.

6
“In sociological terms, most of the Jews were middle class”
Ibid., p. 4.

7
“where Gentiles did the manual labor while Jews worked in the white-collar professions”
Ibid.

8
“Tell us, didn’t they do anything to you?”
Ibid., p. 9.

9
“was terrified of what the Germans would do to me”
Zivia Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
(Warsaw: Ksiaska I Wiedza / Zydowski Institut Historycny, 1999), p. 19.

10
“There were a few Jews cowering in one corner”
Ibid.

11
“Do I have the strength,” she wondered, “to do this?”
Ibid.

C
HAPTER
11: W
HY
D
OES
H
ITLER
L
IKE
M
RS
. Z
EROMSKA?

1
“We worshiped him”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, November 2007.

2
Goldstein had grown a thick tangled beard
Goldstein,
Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto
, p. 25.

3
“a nobody and they were great men”
Marek Edelman,
I Byla Milosc w Getcie
(Warsaw: Swiat Ksiazki, 2009), p. 37.

4
“lightning reflexes and good nature”
Ibid., pp. 47–48.

5
one eyewitness put their numbers at around a thousand
Yisrael Gutman,
Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1982), p. 28.

6
“enraged by the pogrom in March”
Ibid.

7
“the fringe elements of Polish society”
Edelman,
Ghetto Fights
, p. 38.

8
“The guys in the Bund’s Self-Defense Force were not shrinking violets”
Beres and Burnetko,
Marek Edelman: Zycie. Po Prostu
, p. 47.

9
“We decided to fight back with ‘cold weapons’ ”
Goldstein,
Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto
, p. 44.

10
“When the pogromists appeared in these sections”
Ibid., p. 45.
contracting by an estimated 40 percent
Szczypiorski, “Miezkania I ludnosc Warszawy w Czasie Wojny I Hitlerowshiej Okupacji,” p. 47.

11
Some 270,000
men and 63,470 women
Ibid., p. 77.

12
“young men of land-owning families”
Korbonski,
Fighting Warsaw
, p. 12.

13
“I think she made more money than Father”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

14
“We were not rich, but we were comfortable”
Ibid.

15
the day a Volksdeutsche walked into the store
Ibid.

16
seized 112,000
small businesses, 9,120 large enterprises, 76,000
small artisan shops
Leni Yahl,
Holocaust: The Fate of European Jewry 1932–1945
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), p. 158.

17
“The Volksdeutsche demanded the keys”
Simha Ratheiser-Rotem, author interview, Jerusalem, March 2009.

18
57.5 percent of all medium-sized and small enterprises and 40 percent of large industrial concerns
Fuks,
Mowia Wieki
, p. 12.

19
“I didn’t realize that Mrs. Zeromska was really saving our lives”
Joanna Olczak-Ronikier, author interview, Warsaw, December 2008.

20
“I didn’t understand why he left us behind”
Robert Osnos, author interview, New York, September 2008.

21
“We are going to get out”
Ibid.

C
HAPTER
12: A
M
I W
ILLING TO
D
O
T
HIS?

1
“to protect Jews against Polish excesses”
Barbara Engelking and Jacek Leociak,
Getto Warszawskie: Przewodnik po Niistniejacym Miescie
(Warsaw: IFiS/PAN, 2001), p. 75.

2
“spreaders of diseases”
Ibid.

3
88 among Jews and 5 among non-Jews
Biuletyn ZIH
, no. 74 (Warsaw: Jewish Historical Institute, April 1970), p. 106.

4
a life expectancy that ranged between 7.5 years
Ibid.

5
and a full decade less
Johnson,
History of the Jews
, p. 356.

6
“I could not face Mama”
Boruch Spiegel, author interview, Montreal, October 2007.

7
“We could now only afford to eat one decent meal a day”
Ibid.

8
“We had to first and foremost provide the hungry with bread”
Lubetkin,
Zaglada I Powstanie
, p. 24.

9
totaled 669 calories for “Poles,” 184 calories for Jews
Gutman,
Jews of Warsaw 1939–1943
, p. 66.

10
“I was amazed at Yehuda’s senses”
Zuckerman,
Surplus of Memory
, p. 38.

11
“Now the German danger began”
Ibid., p. 39.

12
“Throw away your bundle”
Ibid., p. 40.

13
After climbing to 150 zlotys … it plunged to 90 zlotys in late May
Ringelblum,
Notes from the Warsaw Ghetto
, p. 41.

14
A specially prepared chemical was added to the lubricating oil
Tadeusz Bor-Komorowski,
Secret Army
(New York: Macmillan, 1951), p. 40.