May 8: Commander of the Uprising

Mordecai Anielewicz, the 23-year-old commander of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, was killed by the Nazis with several of his comrades in their bunker at Mila 18 on this date in 1943, twenty days after the start of the rebellion. A leader within Hashomer Hatzair, the socialist Zionist youth movement, Anielewicz was among a group that voluntarily left the Soviet-occupied zone of Poland to join the Jewish underground in the Nazi-occupied zone. In the months before the Ghetto Uprising, he was in southwestern Poland, trying to organize Jewish self-defense groups. Anielewicz was elected commander of the Jewish Fighting Organization in Warsaw in November, 1942, and led an initial uprising on January 18, 1943 that derailed a Nazi deportation operation. The final uprising, beginning April 19, 1943, lasted for four weeks, with small skirmishes taking place in the rubble of the ghetto well into the summer. To read Emmanuel Ringelblum’s portrait of Anielewicz, click here.

“With the aid of our transmitter we heard the marvelous report on our fighting by the ‘Shvit’ radio station. The fact that we are remembered beyond the ghetto walls encourages us in our struggle. Peace go with you, my friend! Perhaps we may still meet again! The dream of my life has risen to become fact. Self-defense in the ghetto will have been a reality. Jewish armed resistance and revenge are facts. I have been a witness to the magnificent, heroic fighting of Jewish fighters in battle.” —Mordecai Anielewicz, April 23, 1943