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Mordechaj Anielewicz
Anielewicz memorial, Kibbutz Yad Mordechai, Israel
Mordechaj (Mordecai) Anielewicz (1919 – May 8, 1943) was the commander of the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Fighting Organization), also known as ŻOB, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising from January to May 1943.
Life
Born into a poor family in Wyszków near Warsaw, he joined and became a leader of the Zionist-socialist youth movement "Hashomer Hatzair" after he completed his high school studies.
On September 7, 1939, a week after the German invasion of Poland, Anielewicz escaped with his members of the group from Warsaw to the eastern regions in the hopes that the Polish Army would slow down the German advance. When the Red Army invaded and then occupied Eastern Poland in accordance with the Ribentropp-Molotov pact, Anielewicz attempted to cross the Romanian border in order to open a route for young Jews to get to the Mandate of Palestine; however, he was caught and thrown into a Soviet jail. He was released a short time later, and returned to Warsaw.
When he heard that Jewish refugees, other youth movement members and political groups flocked to Vilna, Lithuania, which was then under Soviet control, he went there too and convinced his colleagues to send people back to Poland to continue the fight against the Germans. He returned to Warsaw in January 1940 with his girlfriend, Mira Fuchrer, where he organized cells and youngsters groups, instructed, participated in underground publications, organized meetings and seminars and visited other groups in different cities.
In the summer of 1942 Anielewicz was visiting the southwest region of Poland – annexed to Germany – attempting to organize armed resistance. Upon his return to Warsaw, he found that a major deportation to the Treblinka extermination camp had been carried out and only 60,000 of the ghetto's 350,000 Jews remained. He joined the ŻOB, and in November he was appointed as chief commander. In early 1943, a connection with the Polish government in exile in London was made and the group received weapons from the Polish underground on the "Aryan" side of the city.
On 18 January 1943 he was instrumental in the first act of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, preventing the majority of a second wave of Jews from being deported to extermination camps. This initial incident of armed resistance was a prelude to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising that commenced on 19 April. Though there were no surviving eyewitnesses, it is assumed that Anielewicz either died fighting or took his own life, along with his girlfriend and many of his staff, in the Jewish Combat Organization bunker at 18 Miła Street on 8 May, when the Germans overran their position.
Anielewicz's body was never found. It is generally believed that his body was carried off to nearby creamtoria along with those of all the other Jewish dead. Nevertheless, the inscription on the memorial at the site of the Miła 18 bunker states that he is buried on the site.
Honors
In early 1944 Anielewicz was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari, the highest Polish military decoration, by the Polish government in exile.
Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel is named after him, and a monument has been erected there in his memory.
In 1983, the Israeli government issued a two-stamp set honoring Anielewicz and Josef Glazman as heroes of the Warsaw and Vilna Ghettos.
Popular culture
* Anielewicz is a key figure in Harry Turtledove's alternate history series ''Worldwar''.
* Hank Azaria plays the role of Anielewicz in the 2001 TV movie ''Uprising''.
* Anielewicz appears as a character in the ''Highlander'' 1997 novel ''Zealot''.
* Anielewicz is also a character in ''Wraith: The Oblivion'', the de-facto leader of the Shadowlands version of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Restless ZOB.
* In the 1978 NBC TV miniseries ''Holocaust'', Anielewicz is played by Murray Salem.
Mordechaj_Anielewicz
Source: Wikipedia