The Stars Bear Witness [Illustrated Edition]

Bernard Goldstein, Leonard Shatzkin

• Publisher: Normanby Press
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781786254757
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Jewish History
• Index: History

Includes 204 photos, plans and maps illustrating The Holocaust"Born in a small town outside of Warsaw in 1889, Bernard Goldstein joined the Jewish labor organization, the Bund, at age 16 and dedicated his life to organizing workers and resisting tyranny. Goldstein spent time in prisons from Warsaw to Siberia, took part in the Russian Revolution and was a respected organizer within the vibrant labor movement in independent Poland."In 1939, with the Nazi invasion of Poland and establishment of the Jewish Ghetto, Goldstein and the Bund went underground—organizing housing, food and clothing within the ghetto; communicating with the West for support; and developing a secret armed force. Smuggled out of the ghetto just before the Jewish militia's heroic last stand, Goldstein assisted in procuring guns to aid those within the ghetto's walls and aided in the fight to free Warsaw. After the liberation of Poland, Goldstein emigrated to America, where he penned this account of his five-and-a-half years within the Warsaw ghetto and his brave comrades who resisted to the end. His surprisingly modest and frank depiction of a community under siege at a time when the world chose not to intervene is enlightening, devastating and ultimately inspiring."-Print ed."His active leadership before the war and his position in the Jewish underground during it qualify him as the chronicler of the last hours of Warsaw's Jews. Out of the tortured memories of those five-and-a-half years, he has brought forth the picture with all its shadings—the good with the bad, the cowardly with the heroic, the disgraceful with the glorious. This is his valedictory, his final service to the Jews of Warsaw."—Leonard Shatzkin

TEN

I HURRIED TO THE BUNKER on Shenna where almost four months before I had given up my place to Mrs. Papierna. With some difficulty, I finally recognized the place where the bunker should be. I pounded on the walls and shouted. There was no answer. I moved through the wreckage, hammering and calling into all the openings, but got no response. For three days I returned to repeat the pounding and shouting. I dared not dig into the bunker. If anyone were left alive he would certainly shoot first and investigate afterward.

On the fourth day I succeeded in bringing them out of the bunker. They were all practically naked, half dead, impossible to recognize. They had heard my clamor from the start, but were sure that Germans or Poles were coming after them. In their fright they had crawled deeper into the ground, reaching a sewer where they had stood for twenty-four hours up to their knees in cold scum, paralyzed with fear, while freedom awaited them above ground.

On the third night Little Jacob, Masha Claitman’s husband, had crawled out. Near the bunker he had met two Poles and covered them with his machine gun.

They had shouted to him, “What are you afraid of? Why are you still buried? You have been free for three days.”

He had refused to believe them, had opened fire, wounding one of them, and had “escaped.”

Each day I saw more civilians in the city, mostly Poles, with a scattering of Jews. Of the five hundred Jews who had crawled into bunkers after the uprising there were only two hundred left alive. Many bunkers had been uncovered by digging machines or detected by the specially trained bloodhounds and the listening devices of the Germans. Some Jews had been killed by fire and explosions; many had died of hunger and disease.

Of the few who now crawled out of the bunkers many were sick. We could not provide medical help or even a decent place to lay them down. The filthy human skeletons, miraculous testimony to the obstinacy of life, moved in the streets like shadows.

A few days later a transport of food and some medicine arrived from Lublin, and we were able to care for the most desperate cases. In Praga the Jewish Committee began to function, registering all arrivals and doling out to everyone a pound of bread a day.

Jews began to arrive from camps, still in their striped prison garb; from villages and forests; from partisan groups in Lithuania and around Bialystok; and some from Russia, with military travel permits. Poles began to stream back from Prushkov and from all around Warsaw. Everyone hunted for the valuables he had buried in the earth or hidden in his apartment. Most of them were gone — burned, destroyed, or stolen.

Sharp conflicts broke out between Poles and Jews over apartments and bunkers. The Poles found the few buildings that remained standing occupied by Jews, who, having been in the city, were first-comers and had taken possession of...

Table of contents

• Title page
• TABLE OF CONTENTS
• DEDICATION
• ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• ONE
• TWO
• THREE
• FOUR
• FIVE
• SIX
• SEVEN
• EIGHT
• NINE
• TEN