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A Surplus of Memory: Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
In 1943, against utterly hopeless odds, the Jews of the Warsaw Ghetto rose up to defy the Nazi horror machine that had set out to exterminate them. One of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization, which led the uprisings, was Yitzhak Zuckerman, known by his underground pseudonym, Antek. Decades later, living in Israel, Antek dictated his memoirs. The Hebrew publication of Those Seven Years: 1939-1946 was a major event in the historiography of the Holocaust, and now Antek's memoirs are available in English.
Unlike Holocaust books that focus on the annihilation of European Jews, Antek's account is of the daily struggle to maintain human dignity under the most dreadful conditions. His passionate, involved testimony, which combines detail, authenticity, and gripping immediacy, has unique historical importance. The memoirs situate the ghetto and the resistance in the social and political context that preceded them, when prewar Zionist and Socialist youth movements were gradually forged into what became the first significant armed resistance against the Nazis in all of occupied Europe. Antek also describes the activities of the resistance after the destruction of the ghetto, when 20,000 Jews hid in "Aryan" Warsaw and then participated in illegal immigration to Palestine after the war.
The only extensive document by any Jewish resistance leader in Europe, Antek's book is central to understanding ghetto life and underground activities, Jewish resistance under the Nazis, and Polish-Jewish relations during and after the war. This extraordinary work is a fitting monument to the heroism of a people.
Unlike Holocaust books that focus on the annihilation of European Jews, Antek's account is of the daily struggle to maintain human dignity under the most dreadful conditions. His passionate, involved testimony, which combines detail, authenticity, and gripping immediacy, has unique historical importance. The memoirs situate the ghetto and the resistance in the social and political context that preceded them, when prewar Zionist and Socialist youth movements were gradually forged into what became the first significant armed resistance against the Nazis in all of occupied Europe. Antek also describes the activities of the resistance after the destruction of the ghetto, when 20,000 Jews hid in "Aryan" Warsaw and then participated in illegal immigration to Palestine after the war.
The only extensive document by any Jewish resistance leader in Europe, Antek's book is central to understanding ghetto life and underground activities, Jewish resistance under the Nazis, and Polish-Jewish relations during and after the war. This extraordinary work is a fitting monument to the heroism of a people.
702 pages, Hardcover
First published April 7, 1993
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
May 16, 2018
Mordecai Anielewicz has become the poster boy of the Jewish uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto. This because he was the leader of the Jewish Fighting Organisation. History always has to single out one individual to represent any uprising. However, there's little evidence that he was more courageous or instrumental in what happened than countless other individuals and Yitzhak Zuckerman here tells the story of many of these people. Though he's never critical of Anielewicz you sense he's a bit irritated by all the credit he gets. (Rather than leave his bunker and emerge with guns blazing Anielewicz and his girlfriend took cyanide, which has an unfortunate parallel with the Infamous couple in the Berlin bunker. Other fighters in that bunker escaped and there's a feeling that maybe Anielewicz's nerves were shredded.) Zuckerman, vice leader of the Jewish Fighting Organisation, wasn't in the ghetto when the uprising occurred; he was over on the Aryan side procuring more weapons. Had he died in the ghetto no doubt his fame would be much greater. However, the truth is, in the final count, he eclipses Anielewicz for courage and devotion to the Jewish cause in Poland. Every single day he risks his life providing the means of survival to an entire underground of Jews in hiding.
Incredibly, this book is composed of interviews with Zuckerman. Incredible because it's almost 700 pages long and fabulously detailed. I grew more and more fond of Zuckerman and his wife Zivia and his friend Marek Edelman as the book progressed. At a certain point you perhaps realise it's easier to engage the Nazis in a fight to death than to live every day on the edge of your nerves catering to the needs of Jews in hiding in a city swarming with informers, blackmailers and Gestapo. It's usually, I find, the individuals who don't hold a weapon who are the most courageous of all.
The most disturbing event described in this book is perhaps the pogrom carried out by Poles after the war ends when dozens of Jews are murdered in cold blood. Truly unbelievable that there were still people who, having learned about the death camps, were still embracing Nazi racial policies. No surprise that Zuckerman immediately goes to their aid and whisks away the survivors.
This book is probably not recommended for anyone simply wanting an overview of the struggles of the Jews in Warsaw. I suspect you already need to have a grasp of the subject to fully appreciate it. This is like the inside story. Also fascinating are the insights into all the various Jewish political organisations. It's interesting that ultimately most of the resistors came from Zionist youth movements while the communists and many of the socialists were largely impotent.
Yitzhak Zuckerman, an amazing inspirational man, and his wife Zivia, an amazing inspirational woman.
Incredibly, this book is composed of interviews with Zuckerman. Incredible because it's almost 700 pages long and fabulously detailed. I grew more and more fond of Zuckerman and his wife Zivia and his friend Marek Edelman as the book progressed. At a certain point you perhaps realise it's easier to engage the Nazis in a fight to death than to live every day on the edge of your nerves catering to the needs of Jews in hiding in a city swarming with informers, blackmailers and Gestapo. It's usually, I find, the individuals who don't hold a weapon who are the most courageous of all.
The most disturbing event described in this book is perhaps the pogrom carried out by Poles after the war ends when dozens of Jews are murdered in cold blood. Truly unbelievable that there were still people who, having learned about the death camps, were still embracing Nazi racial policies. No surprise that Zuckerman immediately goes to their aid and whisks away the survivors.
This book is probably not recommended for anyone simply wanting an overview of the struggles of the Jews in Warsaw. I suspect you already need to have a grasp of the subject to fully appreciate it. This is like the inside story. Also fascinating are the insights into all the various Jewish political organisations. It's interesting that ultimately most of the resistors came from Zionist youth movements while the communists and many of the socialists were largely impotent.
Yitzhak Zuckerman, an amazing inspirational man, and his wife Zivia, an amazing inspirational woman.
December 2, 2015
Easily the best book I ever read on the Jewish holocaust - I read about 50. "Antek" (Zuckerman's name de guerre) was one of the leaders of the Jewish Fighting Organization and one of the few fighters to survive the German SS razing of the ghetto in 1943 under General Stroop. It's a long book - 708 pages - but never a dull moment. It is one of a handful of holocaust books that I read twice. The hardcover is $72 on Amazon but I managed to buy it on a secondary site for $15 several years ago. This memoir was one of the many books I used in researching the history of that era while I wrote Comrade Anna - set in the Warsaw Ghetto and in then so-called Aryan Warsaw. I wrote it over 13 years while teaching in NYC. I also borrowed Zuckerman's book once from the NYC library system but it took about 5 weeks because there were only three copies in the Manhattan system.
Zuckerman dictated his memories years after 1945. The book is an extraordinary account of Zuckerman's cell and its sometimes successful but usually doomed attempts at sabotaging and street-fighting the SS storm troopers who systematically burned and blew up the buildings that they hid inside and from which they fought.
In one of Stroop's communications to his superiors in Berlin, he labeld all Jews as "cowards" but, in the same communication, stated that the Jews fought back with such tenacity during the German assault that they drove his SS soldiers to retreat.
Zuckerman chronicles the assassinations of some Germans but mostly of Jewish collaborators who had sold out other Jews as a means of survival but sometimes due to plain greed. He chronicles his and a number of other Jewish underground resisters' attempts - many of these doomed to failure - to convince thousands of Jews in the ghetto to not gather at the Umshlaglatz - the German's forced collection center for Jews - and especially to not board the trains because they were headed to Treblinka.
This book is essential reading for holocaust scholars and for those who simply want to understand what it was like up close in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The book is as intense as Leon Uris' Mila 18 - another great read and an historical fictional account based on real events of the street and the building in the Warsaw Ghetto where Jewish fighters were headquartered. I read Mila 18 and Uris' Exodus independently in my freshman year of high school and that was the beginning of my life-long study of the Jewish holocaust.
Zuckerman dictated his memories years after 1945. The book is an extraordinary account of Zuckerman's cell and its sometimes successful but usually doomed attempts at sabotaging and street-fighting the SS storm troopers who systematically burned and blew up the buildings that they hid inside and from which they fought.
In one of Stroop's communications to his superiors in Berlin, he labeld all Jews as "cowards" but, in the same communication, stated that the Jews fought back with such tenacity during the German assault that they drove his SS soldiers to retreat.
Zuckerman chronicles the assassinations of some Germans but mostly of Jewish collaborators who had sold out other Jews as a means of survival but sometimes due to plain greed. He chronicles his and a number of other Jewish underground resisters' attempts - many of these doomed to failure - to convince thousands of Jews in the ghetto to not gather at the Umshlaglatz - the German's forced collection center for Jews - and especially to not board the trains because they were headed to Treblinka.
This book is essential reading for holocaust scholars and for those who simply want to understand what it was like up close in the Warsaw Ghetto.
The book is as intense as Leon Uris' Mila 18 - another great read and an historical fictional account based on real events of the street and the building in the Warsaw Ghetto where Jewish fighters were headquartered. I read Mila 18 and Uris' Exodus independently in my freshman year of high school and that was the beginning of my life-long study of the Jewish holocaust.
February 28, 2022
"A Surplus of Memory; Chronicle of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising" by Yitzhak Zuckerman. 702 pages; 1993.
Zuckerman, a key leader of the ZOB, details his experiences and perspectives from this tragic period. A fascinating and painful reveal leading the reader to many new possible research paths. Essential reading for all students of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Zuckerman, a key leader of the ZOB, details his experiences and perspectives from this tragic period. A fascinating and painful reveal leading the reader to many new possible research paths. Essential reading for all students of the Warsaw Ghetto.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews