The Warsaw Ghetto

Warsaw Ghetto wall

With our guide, Pawel, Kirsten and I toured several sites within the former Warsaw Ghetto in the old Jewish quarter of the city. The Warsaw Ghetto is an iconic place for me. I find it both fascinating and profoundly sad. It represents the worst of human nature as shown by those who created and carried out the war and the best of humanity by those with the courage, resilience, and dignity of the people who endured unimaginable suffering there.

The ghetto, decreed by the Nazis in 1940, forced 380,000 Jewish residents of Warsaw and nearby towns into a 1.3 square mile area in central Warsaw. Starting in 1941, smaller numbers of Jews from Germany and other German-occupied western Polish territories were transported to Warsaw increasing the ghetto population up to 450,000 before being murdered or deported to Treblinka and other death camps.

The Warsaw Ghetto is renowned as the largest ghetto in Europe during WW2. Enclosed by a wall that was over 10 feet high and topped with barbed wire, it was closely guarded by the Nazis to prevent people from going between the ghetto and the rest of Warsaw. After the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943, the ghetto was destroyed by the Nazis as a deliberate act of extermination and punishment. Only a few remnants of the wall remain today.

A Tour of the Ghetto

Umschlagplatz memorial

On our tour of the Warsaw Ghetto, we traced the Memorial Route of Jewish Martyrdom and Struggle, a symbolic path that begins at the Ghetto Heroes Monument on the grounds of the Polin Museum and leads to the Umschlagplatz, the tragic rail stop where more than 300,000 Jews were sent to the Treblinka death camp. The white marble memorial there lists names and gives the impression of an open railroad-car loading area.

Historic street signs of Prozna Street

Grzybowski Square anchors the historic Jewish quarter and once formed part of the Warsaw Ghetto. At the time, small shops surrounded an open air market. Bordering Grzybowski is Prozna Street, the only street from the ghetto where a few prewar buildings have survived and some have been renovated.

Chlodna Street bridge photo (lower left)

A little more than a kilometer away from Prozna Street is Chlodna Street. In early 1940, the ghetto was divided along Chlodna Street, which is one of the city’s major thoroughfares.  The area southeast of Chlodna was known as the "Small Ghetto," while the area north of it became known as the "Large Ghetto." The street itself was excluded from the ghetto. The two parts of the ghetto were connected at an intersection of Chlodna and Zelazna Street, where a special gate was built. 

In January 1942, the gate was removed and a wooden footbridge was built over the street. The bridge was also known as the “"Bridge of Sighs" by the ghetto inhabitants since people on it could look over into the "Aryan" side of Warsaw that was closed off to them. An art installation was completed in 2011 forming an outline the footbridge and is lit up at night.

Muranow, another neighborhood in Warsaw, was mostly inhabited by Jewish people until 1940 when it was enclosed as part of the ghetto. It was destroyed after the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising in 1943. Soon after the war, the Muranow housing project, known as the “modern garden city,” was built on top of the ruins, using crushed rubble from the destroyed buildings to create new bricks. That has not erased the memory of its bloody past, however.

A short walk away from Muranow is Mila 18, the site of the headquarters and hidden shelter of the Jewish Combat Organization (ZOB), a resistance organization that led the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. A memorial of the bunker has been built on the rubble of the building commemorating the commander, Mordechai Anielowicz, and the ghetto fighters entombed in the bunker. The names of 51 Jewish fighters are inscribed on it.

The Ringelblum Archive

Ringelbum Archive Memorial
on the site where it was found

I was looking forward to visiting the Ringelblum Archives at the Jewish Historical Institute. I’ve read about Ringelblum and watched the documentary, Who Will Write Our History. Emanuel Ringelblum was a Polish-Jewish historian, politician and social worker, who began documenting what life was like under Nazi occupation in October 1939. Once confined to the Warsaw Ghetto in 1940, he organized a secret group to document day-to-day life in the ghetto. 

For roughly three and a half years, the group comprised of 50-60 Jewish scholars, educators, journalists, religious leaders, artists, and youth activists secretly met each Saturday in the ghetto using the code name Oyneg Shabes, meaning “the joy of the Sabbath.” While living in the ghetto, members of Oyneg Shabes buried more than 35,000 items in large metal milk cans and metal boxes, including diaries, testimonies, underground newspapers, artwork, ration cards, letters, children’s writings, photographs, and documents describing the destruction of ghettos in other parts of occupied Poland.

Milk cans and tin boxes of the Ringelblum Archive after excavation.
Photo by Unknown Author (1960)
via Wikimedia Commons, Public Domain.

Also included are copies of several underground newspapers, a description of deportations from the Warsaw Ghetto, and public notices by the Judenrat (the council of Jewish leaders), and documents of ordinary life, concert invitations, milk coupons, and chocolate wrappers. 

The group used the Jewish Social Self-Help (ZSS) organization that was tolerated by the Nazis as a cover for its activities. The office of this social service organization is now the Jewish Historical Institute, the permanent home of the Ringelblum Archives. Only three members of Oyneg Shabes survived the war and led to the recovery of the buried archives after the war. Two of the three caches were found buried underneath a public school building. The third cache has never been found.

I was intrigued by the order and organization of Oyneg Shabes by the way each member took responsibility for documenting a particular part of life in the ghetto. For example, Rachel Auerbach, a journalist, wrote about the experience of Jewish women and Rabbi Shimon Huberband wrote about religious life and traditional communities. They were dedicated to record for history, not only the terrible events, but also the everyday lives of the people who lived there. 

Although I haven’t seen documentation of my family members being sent to the Warsaw Ghetto from Lublin, as a Jewish woman, being there felt especially personal. I wasn't simply visiting another historical site. I was walking through a place that is part of the history where families lived, struggled, resisted and tried to maintain some sense of normal life in the face of unbearable circumstances.

I knew I would be moved by visiting the Warsaw Ghetto. Some places you visit and remember because of what you saw. Others stay with you because of what you felt. For me, the Warsaw Ghetto is one of those places.

 

Warsaw

 

Before the war, Warsaw was the vibrant, diverse capital of Poland, with its 1.3 million people featuring Europe’s largest Jewish community of over 350,000 residents (about 30 percent of the city's total population). My maternal grandparents were from Lublin, Poland about 173 km from Warsaw, and I was fortunate to visit there in 2017 and again in 2019. Ever since I first visited Lublin, I wanted to visit Warsaw to take a closer look at Jewish life both before and after the war.  Last July, on my way to the 2026 Lubliners Reunion, I spent four days exploring the city.

Warsaw was nearly destroyed during World War II. Heavy bombing devastated much of the city during the German invasion in September 1939. What remained was demolished after the Warsaw Uprising, the 1944 the military revolt by the Polish Home Army to free Warsaw from German occupation, leaving nearly 85 percent of the city in ruins.

Reconstructed Old Town in Warsaw

Accompanied by my dear friend Kirsten, who flew to Warsaw from Denmark to meet me, immediately upon arrival we began our exploration of the city with a walk to Old Town. Rebuilt after near-total ruin to resemble the original colorful buildings going back to the 13th century, today, Old Town is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In addition to the Royal Castle and the historic Market Square, Old Town boasts lots of shops and restaurants offering my favorite traditional Polish cuisine, including dumplings, potato pancakes and stuffed cabbage rolls.

 

Museums and a Concert

Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Our first morning began with a visit to the POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews located in the former Warsaw Ghetto area. The museum is set in a park with monuments of wartime heroes, including the large Monument to the Warsaw Ghetto Heroes commemorating ghetto partisans, a bronze bench commemorating Jan Karski, a Polish diplomat who informed Allied leaders about the extermination of Jews during the Holocaust, and a black granite monument honoring ghetto underground archivist Emanuel Ringelblum.

Opened in 2014, the Polin (Hebrew and Yiddish for “Poland”) Museum chronicles more than 1,000 years of Jewish life in Poland. Each of eight galleries represents a different period from medieval settlers through the golden age of the Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth to the destruction and rebirth of the community after the war. Among other things, I learned that Ashkenazi Jews who make up the majority of Jews in the United States and a large portion of the worldwide Jewish population, migrated eastward from Western Europe beginning in the 11th and 12th centuries to escape persecution. They were offered protection and were welcomed by rulers who needed their economic, commercial, and literacy skills. The Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth of 1569-1648 became home to the largest Jewish community in the world.  

Monument to Ghetto Heroes

An interesting exhibit at the Museum recreates a street scene with shops and a cinema from the years
between the two world wars, where we learned about contemporary Jewish culture, political movements and Yiddish literature. The largest exhibition in the museum covers the Second World War and the Holocaust. The Holocaust (1939–1945) gallery focuses on separation, life in the shadow of death, and the destruction of 90% of Poland's Jewish population.

Later that day we visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum dedicated to the Warsaw Uprising in August to October 1944. Not to be confused with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943, the Warsaw Uprising by the Polish underground resistance intended to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. Polish casualties were catastrophic, 200,000 Polish civilians were killed, mostly from mass executions. After fighting for 63 days with little outside support, the Polish Home Army surrendered to the Germans in October1944. Through multimedia exhibitions, we learned about the 63 days of fighting, the lives of soldiers and civilians, and the destruction of Warsaw. Most chilling were photos of demolished Warsaw in spring 1945.

After the surrender, the Germans deported the remaining civilians from the city to transit camps outside of Warsaw and later relocated them for forced labor or to concentration camps. Fewer than 1,000 residents remained in the city, and very few structures were left standing. The Russian Army took over the city in January 1945 and began the Communist occupation of Poland for the next 40 years.

That evening both Kirsten and I were ready to lighten the mood and enjoyed attending a piano concert featuring the music of Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. Held at the Fryderyk Concert Hall in Old Town, its nineteenth century-inspired interior contributed to the Chopin experience. Even the pianist, a diminutive older gentleman, looked straight out of central casting with his pristine tuxedo and wild gray hair. He played gracefully and brilliantly through a ballade, scherzo and waltz. We thoroughly enjoyed the hour-long concert with sparkling wine served at intermission.

 

Warsaw Today

University of Warsaw

The reconstructed Warsaw is now a bustling, modern city with wide boulevards lined with upscale shops and restaurants and lots of green spaces for gathering along the Vistula River, which intersects the city. There is a youthful spirit with chic cafes and cutting-edge music and art venues along with 15 public higher education institutions and more than 60 private universities. Native-born Jewish architect Daniel Libeskind, architect of the World Trade Center master plan in New York City, designed Warsaw’s iconic residential skyscraper, nicknamed Żagiel (the Sail) in 2007, with its sweeping, curved glass walls inspired by an eagle’s wing to symbolize freedom and Warsaw's dynamic post-war rebirth.

Today, the Jewish population in Warsaw is a tiny fraction of its population before the war. Warsaw’s active Jewish Community is estimated to be between 3,000 and 5,000 members, with about 10,000 people identifying with Jewish heritage or culture. The only remaining synagogue is the Nożyk Synagogue. Under the Russian occupation, the synagogue was closed in 1968 by the Communist authorities as a part of a wave of anti-Semitism. Jews were removed from their workplaces, and many were even stripped of their citizenship and told to exit the country for good. Although damaged during the war, the synagogue was repaired and reopened after the war as a place of worship and a gathering space.

It felt surreal walking the streets of central Warsaw when a mere 80 years ago the city was in ruins and hundreds of thousands of its residents had perished. Yet, one can only wonder, “what if …”

 

Sculpture commemorating Poland's Solidarity Labor Movement in the 1980s

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Remembering Tadeusz

 

My good friend Tadeusz Przystojecki from Grodzka Gate Theater NN in Lublin, Poland passed away in February. Tadeusz was a historian, archivist, genealogist and I will remember him as a kind and generous soul who was passionate about piecing together the stories of our murdered families. In 2017, he introduced me to my ancestral home, Lublin, and to my family's history. Tadeusz was 40 years old and died of pancreatic cancer.

I am grateful we met in person. The first time, in 2017, when I traveled to the Lubliner Reunion - a gathering of 200+ descendants from Lublin's former Jewish community hosted by Grodzka Gate Theater. And the second time, in 2019, when I met his colleague and friend Jackie Schwarz in Antwerp, Belgium and then together, visited Lublin once again. 

Tadeusz taught me much about Lublin's history. A few years ago, I asked him to recommend books about the interwar years (between WW1 and WW2) and the Holocaust. He suggested Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder and East West Street: On the Origins of Genocide and Crimes Against Humanity by Philippe Sands. Tadeusz also recommended Neighbors, by Jan Gross a book about the murder of Jews by their neighbors in Jedwabne, Poland. Tadeusz died on the day Ukraine was invaded by its neighbor, Russia, on February 24.

Tadeusz not only taught me about Lublin's history, but also about the city today and introduced me to his colleagues and friends who also dedicate their lives to helping others. I hear from them that they are working very hard to support the refugees from Ukraine. I can't imagine what it's like there now. I recall traveling with Tadeusz and a group of friends and researchers in 2019 to the city of Przemysl and the village of Rybotycze in Southeast Poland very near the Ukraine border. The beautifully restored train station in Przemsyl is now one of the major depots where thousands of Ukrainian refugees arrive daily. I am not surprised that this talented and extraordinary group has welcomed refugees to Poland, just as they welcomed so many of us, descendants of Jewish Lubliners. 

When remembering Tadeusz, someone described him as a “mench,” the Yiddish word for “a good person, a person with the qualities one would hope for in a friend or trusted colleague.” He was the best of us. May his memory be a blessing.

 

Tadeusz presented my family's history at the Lubliner Reunion

Our mini-reunion in 2019, Tadeusz helped me coordinate a 'thank you' dinner

In the village of Rybotycze, meeting Henik, who renovated the Jewish cemetery, with his wife Hanna and friend Margaret

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Touring Grodzka Gate Theater NN in Lublin

At the train station in Przemysl

A Gift From My Mother

My mother wanted to go to college, but the war broke out and she went to work instead. She was intelligent and curious and probably would have enjoyed a long career, if times were different. But, she loved us fiercely and was dedicated to her family.⁣
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She grew up knowing her parents left Lublin and their families forever and suffered the pain of losing them in the Holocaust. My mother never forgot her grandparents, uncles, aunts and cousins and in 1990 sent testimonials to Yad Vashem Archives, hoping someone would contact her with information about them.⁣
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Five years after my mother passed away, my brother and I were contacted by researchers who found those testimonials and who eventually found us. I've written about this extraordinary experience and my travels to Europe to learn more about my family.⁣
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So on Mother’s Day, I thank my mom for her gift. 💓🌹

Visiting Rybotyzce

We visited Rybotyzce, Poland last May to meet Jackie’s friends who help maintain the village’s historic Jewish cemetery. Joining Robert, Inge, Jackie and myself were researchers from Grodzka Gate Theater NN, Teresa, Tadeusz and Monika. We were warmly welcomed by Margaret, a retired English teacher from Krakow, Gienek and Hania Bakalus and Martin and Magda and their three children. Jackie has been travelling to the village regularly for the past 10 years.

Gienek Bakalus, center, restored and maintains the Jewish Cemetery in Rybotyzce

Martin, Magda and family prepared a lovely dinner for us

Rybotyzce is a small village “shtetl” in Southeastern Poland, near the Ukraine border. Before the war, 314 Jewish people lived in the village, about 25% of the population. Today, only a few hundred people live in Rybotyzce, with no Jewish families among them. Jackie’s grandparents (father’s side) were both born in Rybotyzce. Her father was born in Dobromil a few kms away and in present day Ukraine. He left his home and family before the war.

The village’s Jewish cemetery, built in the late 1800s, was vandalized during the war. A few years ago, the only known Holocaust survivor from the village, Mojżesz Rab-Rubinfeld, along with the families of Rachel Salik-Gans from Paris and Harold Schwarz all with family roots from Rybotycze, helped to restore the cemetery. In 2008 a marble monument was erected in honor of the Jews from Rybotycze at the entrance to the cemetery. A plaque was placed on it: "To commemorate the murdered Jews of the town of Rybotycze, who died in martyrdom at the hands of Nazi torturers in the years 1939-1945. Families: Rachel Salik, Harold Schwartz, and Mojżesz Rab-Rubinfeld."


In 2013, about 50 of the gravestones, “matzevot” were repaired and set upright, a fence, landscaping were added. Gienek Bakalus and students of the School of Ecological and Agribusiness of Eastern State College in Przemyjżl, implemented the restoration project, 'One God - Three Religions.'

The fence and the pre-burial house were completely demolished during the war. The cemetery was littered and used as a pasture. The cemetery plot became the property of the Bircza Forest District.

Many of the 1,500 Jewish cemeteries in Poland were destroyed by the Nazis in WW2. Those that remained were neglected during the Russian occupation. Although many of the tombstones have been removed or destroyed, Jewish Law dictates that the earth covering the grave in a Jewish cemetery belongs to the deceased and human remains are to be undisturbed. The soul suffers when a grave is disturbed. It is the sacred responsibility of every Jew to preserve Jewish cemeteries. Besides the moral obligation to maintain the cemetery, there is also a great deal of cultural, economic and political history.

Efforts to rebuild Jewish cemeteries in Europe, have sparked interest from local communities and communities around the world. The small Jewish population cannot maintain them all.

Gienek Bakalus received the “Preserving Memory” Award for his work in preserving, promoting and caring for Jewish culture and heritage in Poland by the Michael H. Traison Fund for Poland, in 2018.

Through the Gates of Hell

The site of Majdanek, the former Nazi concentration camp, is a massive, windswept stretch of land that was eerily quiet the day I visited. At the entrance, The Monument of Struggle and Martyrdom brings tension and fear to visitors as if the artist, Holocaust survivor, Wiktor Tołkin, wanted visitors to feel emotions similar to those of the victims entering in cattle trucks 78 years ago. The walls and steps leading to the six-figured memorial has been interpreted as a comparison to the gates of hell.

Majdanek Concentration Camp was built by the Nazis in 1941, as a labor camp for Russian prisoners of war on the outskirts of Lublin, Poland. As Germany's plans to exterminate Poland's Jews were implemented, Majdanek became a death camp for tens of thousands of Jews and Poles and other prisoners from more than 30 countries throughout Europe. 

On a cold and blustery day last May, Robert, Inge and I traveled from Lublin's Old Town to Majdanek State Memorial and Museum, 30 minutes away. The camp covers almost 700 acres and is partially preserved with more than 70 buildings. During the war, it was surrounded by an electrified, barbed-wire double fence and included 280 buildings and 19 watchtowers. A double security fence remains today.

As I toured the buildings and read each exhibit describing the methodical slaughter of millions of innocent people, I tried to absorb the ultimate betrayal of humanity that took place here and throughout the world. History revealed that as the war rampaged, knowledge of the atrocities toward European Jews became known throughout Allied countries and yet, were met with indifference.

A pathway, the Route of Homage and Memory, leads from the site of the original watch tower to the mausoleum at the south end of the former camp. A huge dome covers a mound of ashes of some of the victims and is inscribed, “Let our fate be a warning to you.”

I don’t know where each Krymholc family member perished in the Holocaust, however, for some, it could have been at Majdanek. After the large ghetto in Lublin was liquidated in March and April 1942, those who were able to work received J-Ausweis or work permits and sent to Majdan Tatarski, a suburb close to Majdanek, that served as a smaller ghetto. At one point, more than 8,000 Jews lived in the Majdan Tatarski ghetto. Within a few months, residents were executed in nearby Krepiec Forest, died in the ghetto or deported to other camps. Most were sent to Majdanek.

Grodzka Gate researchers discovered a list from the Majdan Tatarski ghetto that includes names of family members Hersz, Jakub, Maria, Mordechaj Krymholc. My great grandmother, Sura Matla Krymholc, has a line drawn through her name and a small cross to signify her death in the ghetto.