Mordechaj Anielewicz

Mordechaj (Mordecai) Anielewicz (1919 – May 8, 1943) was the commander of the Żydowska Organizacja Bojowa (English: Jewish Fighting Organization), also known as ŻOB, during the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

Biography

Born to 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 finally occupied Eastern Poland, Anielewicz attempted to cross the Romanian border in order to open a route for young Jews to get to Mandatory 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.

In January 18, 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 April 19. Although there were no surviving eye-witnesses, it is assumed that Anielewicz either died fighting or took his own life, along with his girlfriend and many of his staff, in the ŻOB bunker at 18 Miła Street on May 8, when the Germans overran their position.

Anielewicz's body was never found, and it is generally believed that it was carried off to nearby crematoriums along with all the other Jewish dead. Nevertheless, the inscription on the memorial at the site of the Miła 18 bunker says that he is in fact buried on the site.

In early 1944 Anielewicz was posthumously awarded the Virtuti Militari, the Polish military cross, by the Polish government in exile. Kibbutz Yad Mordechai in Israel is named after him, and a monument was erected in his memory.

Cultural references

• 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 1983, the Israeli government issued a two-stamp set honoring Anielewicz and Josef Glazman as the heroes of the Warsaw and Vilna ghettos.

References

Further reading

External links

• Mordecai Anielewicz article from the Jewish Virtual Library.
• Mordecai Anielewicz article from the Grange Museum Warsaw Ghetto Website.