MORDECHAI ANIELEWICZ

Nowadays one of the most important streets of Muranow is bearing the name of Mordechai Anielewicz . It expands from the crossroad with Andersa Street to the Jewish Cemetery at Okopowa Street. It coincides vastly with the pre-war Gęsia Street. But the place where Anielewicz died blowing up himself in the beset bunker of the Jewish Fighting Organization headquarter is elsewhere – at 18 Mila Street, where now a memorial mound stands (today's Miła 2 Street).


 Access to the Anielewicz’s.moud,  fot. B. Chomątowska

Mordechai Anielewicz was born in 1919 in Wyszkow (where used to be his house, next to the bridge on the Bug river, now there is a commemonating unveiled on May 8th,  2003). His father´s (Abraham´s) family had been resettled to Wyszków from Galicia, where he met his future wife. Mordechai was a young boy when his parents along with his grandparents moved to Warsaw, where they opened a shop at the Tamka street in Powiśle district. There he grew up among children of  Polish people living in poverty. In 1933, he completed seven-classes Tarbut public school, with Hebrew as the official teaching language, after which he enrolled in Laor high school in Nalewki. Then for a short time he sympathized with the revisionist Bejtar, (he was its member from 1933 to 1935), but later joined the left-wing Zionist organization Hashomer Hatzair scouts. This was the only officially operating scout organization in Poland and was founded in 1913 in Galicia. Its headquarters was located at 12 Rymarska street (a street that used to be next to Bankowy Square) in the Polish district of the city. In 1937 he was appointed commander of the Warsaw branch of Hashomer Hatzair and in 1939 became a member of senior management - the Supreme Headquarters. He also participated in organizing groups of self-defense militias, that withstood ONR militias. Former colleagues recalled how bravely Anielewicz led them in combats fought with sticks against Polish militiants.

 

Mordechai Anielewicz. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

As Hanna Krall writes in her book "Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem", in which one of the main characters is Anielewicz himself,  Mordechai before the war  lived with his mother in Solec. His mother was selling fish, and he - as Marek Edelman said - painted their gills with red paint so that they looked fresh and customers preferred to buy them. He also carried fresh bread from house to house . Another character that appears in the book is Henryk Grabowski, who grew up in the same neighborhood as Anielewicz. He mentioned that his friend already in his youth was able to fight and that they participated together in fights with guys from other parts of the city.
In the first weeks of war Anielewicz went to the border town of Kuta, to see the possibility of transferring the Zionist activists to Romania. He returned to Warsaw after the capitulation. At the end of 1939, Anielewicz went for a few weeks to Vilnius with his girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer (Fuchter), trying to rebuild the structures of the Hashomer Hatzair there. He tried to escape to Romania, but the Soviet authorities prevented it. They returned in 1940. What did Mira Fuchrer look like? "She was bright, pretty and warm - recalled Marek Edelman. She was born in 1920 in Warsaw. In the ghetto she worked in the sewing cooperative with Tova Frenkel and Rachel Zylberberg called Sarenka. Mira would wear high boots , a huge sheepskin coat and a blue beret to the szomrów meetings (Jewish Scouts). She had slanted eyes and she was powerful and mysterious. Colleagues from the organization knew that she was Mordechai Anielewicz’ s girlfriend, and looked at her as a revolutionist from the  Narodna Wola. (Anka Grupińska, " Listy odczytane. Opowieści o powstańcach żydowskich," Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2003)
In January 1940, he started to be active in the Warsaw Ghetto, the first meeting took place at 5 Prosta  Street. Together with Josef Kaplan Anielewicz he edited the newspaper of Warsaw command "Neged Hazera” (Pod prąd ???). He signed his articles with the nickname "M -i "- Malachi (in Polish Angel).
During the great ghetto liquidation he was outside Warsaw, in the Zagłębie region at the border with Silesia, where he tried to co-organize the Jewish Anti-Fascist Bloc - an organization working in ghettos of the General Government and Silesia. He returned again to the ghetto after the September 1942. In January, the Nazis surrounded the house on the Miła Street, in which Anielewicz’s group slept (apart from himself there were: Elek Rozanski, Emily Landau, Merdeka Growas and others). Szromowcy had only a few minutes to hide guns under their clothes and escape into the street. They got caught, just like many others, and in large group were led  to Umschlagplatz to be deported  to extermination camps.Despite the fact that ŻOB members had no weapons, close to Umschlagplatz, on the corner of Zamenhofa and Miła Street they attacked the Germans, throwing grenades. Several people, including Anielewicz, survived. On December 2nd, 1942, Mordechai was appointed commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization.
As Marek Edelman recalls, Anielewicz cared a great deal about ZOB leadership. "He was ambitious, dynamic, young, courageous. Maybe he did not always have accurate judgments but  was a great leader and put dynamism to all activities. " ("Guardian. Marek Edelman says," Rudi Assuntino, Wlodek Goldkorn, Znak, Kraków 2006)
In 1942 Anielewicz’ s girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer, went to other ghettos as a courier. "She came back in a blue hat with a veil, which covered half of her face, her hair was fashionably waved, eyebrows and lashes tinted, and her dress was in bright colors – she looked like a young Polish lady." (Anka Grupińska, "Listy odczytane. Opowieści o powstańcach żydowskich," Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków, 2003)
As reported by other participants of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, Anielewicz had to be convinced that anything is possible, and that one month more or less in life does not really matter. In March 1943, together with one of his men,  he killed a German guard on the Miła street in order to take his gun. In revenge, the Germans massacred two hundred people living on this street. Then other leaders, as well as the Coordinating Committee (a body of all Jewish parties, also controlling the ZOB) wanted to take the leadership from Anielewicz.
On May 7th,  1943, Anielewicz  got into a bunker 18 Mila Street.  As a result of betrayal, a day later this hideout  was surrounded by German troops. After having been asked to surrender, civilians (inside there were a total of approximately 300 people) left the bunker. The other soldiers of the Jewish Fighting Organization that stayed in the bunker faced an unequal battle. Germans threw grenades inside, and let in gas.

 

Mordechai Anielewicz, and Mira Fuchrer in the ruins of the ghetto - a commemorative stamp. Picture painted by Shimon Garmize. Fot. . Arie Melamed-Katz. Source: Wikipedia Commons
Lets once more give the floor to Edelman: "The last time I saw Mordechai Anielewicz alias “Marian" was on May 7th, when he, his girlfriend, Mira (Fuchrer), and "Celina" Zivia Lubetkin, stayed for the night in our bunker at 30 Franciszkańska Street. The next day in the evening, together with Janek Bilak and Jurek Błones, I escorted them to the bunker at 18 Mila Street.  It was huge and very crowded, but organized perfectly. I asked them to come back to us. I do not remember how it happened that "Celina" went back with us and "Marian" together with Mira stayed. I regret that I did not insist harder. They really could have spend that night with me. Next day in the evening we went to see them with "Celina" and other friends (..) In the bunker at 18 Mila we found about fifteen people that survived. Masza Puttermilch, one of ours, told me that “Jurek” Wilner recommended everyone to commit suicide, because bunker, surrounded by Germans, was  turning into a gas chamber. But she did not let herself panic, looked for the back emergency exit and found it. This moment of level-headed thinking was enough, because all the bunkers were built to have a few entrances and exits. Germans had not blocked all the exits. ("Strażnik. Marek Edelman opowiada“, Rudi Assuntino, Wlodek Goldkorn, Wydawnictwo Znak, Kraków 2006)

* Israel Chaim Wilner, nicknam "Jurek", "Arie", Hashomer Hatzair activist. He organized self-defense groups is Silesian ghettos. He was a representative of the ghetto underground organizations to contact with the Armia Krajowa. Arrested and tortured by the Germans did not admit to conspiratorial activity. Physically destroyed, escaped from a labor camp in Kawęczyn and returned to the ghetto, where he committed suicide in a bunker at Miła Street