My Recollection from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
Object numberM1995/041:002
TitleMy Recollection from the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising
DescriptionBooklet in Yiddish; 24 pages; containing Dorka Goldkorn's recollection of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Picture of Dorka Goldkorn on the cover. Her memoir tells the story of the Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto who defied the Nazis against impossible odds. Her tale of courage is the true image of how Jews from different political and socioeconomic groups fought together and survived during the Holocaust.
Production date 1948
SubjectWarsaw ghetto, resistance, amidah
Object namepamphlets
Materialpaper
Dimensions
- width: 162.00 mm
height: 225.00 mm
Language
- Yiddish M1995.041.002
DORKA GOLDKORN ‘S memoir tells the story of the Jewish resistance fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto who defied the Nazis against impossible odds. Her tale of courage is the true image of how Jews from different political and socioeconomic groups fought together and survived during the Holocaust.
Dorka was one of the bravest fighters in the resistance movement of the Warsaw ghetto and took part in all its phases from the resistance to the final tragic last stand on Mila 18. In his forward to Dorka Goldkorn’s memoirs B. Mark points out that this document is not just a dry chronicle of Jewish resistance and uprising in the Warsaw Ghetto but provides the key to the huge problems encountered from the inception of the resistance up to the uprising and beyond. It is, he maintains, one of the most important documents for scholarly researching all the aspects of the uprising.
Dorka’s fighting group was called “Spartakus”- which was an organisation of Socialist youth. She joined this movement in her youth. Already in the years 1940 and 1941 the Spartakus movement realised that the correct way in the fight against the fascists is a two-pronged approach fighting within the ghetto and in the forests with the partisans. Their motto became “be alert and be prepared!” The morale among the fighters was extremely high and “there was no room for hysterias, personal squabbles, rumours, egoism and fear”.
Dorka recounts the first lessons in learning how to shoot initially with dummy wooden rifles and learning the mechanism of a revolver and a grenade from a paper drawing. “The next day our heroin instructor Asia Twerska from Vilna brought a real revolver and a real grenade.” Dorka with other fighters smuggled a small supply of weapons from the Aryan side. In addition with other female comrades they set up a bomb-making factory in the attic of No 51 Nowolipki Street. There were crude incendiary bombs using bottles and light globes.
Her fighting group came to the realisation that they could not be an effective fighting group whilst at the same time continuing having ties with their families. With great anguish they decided to sever their ties with their parents and other close relatives and live and fight as a close knit group of 10 fighters. They created death squads targeting Nazi collaborators be they Poles or members of the Jewish Police.
Dorka’s group together with other Jewish fighting groups ambushed a German detachment raining on them from rooftops and attics petrol incendiary bombs. The tank that led the detachment caught on fire and the occupants were burnt alive. Dorka writes “we began dancing from joy; we have never in the past experienced such a joyous moment.”
Dorka Goldkorn pays tribute to her female comrades citing examples of extraordinary bravery and self-sacrifice. She mentions Tala Blumenfeld who managed to cross o the Aryan side and come back into the Ghetto with a bunch of flowers in which were concealed hand grenades. After the Ghetto uprising Tala joined the partisans in the forest where she was killed. She also recounts the heroic act carried out by another female fighter Halinka Rachman who shielded their group commander from a German bullet with her own body paying the ultimate price.
She describes the last stand of the Jewish fighters on Mila 18 before the destruction of the headquarters in which were present the last remnants, several hundred of the fighters and their commanders from all the fighting groups. Rather than commit suicide they decided to fight to the end. Dorka was not present in the bunker on that fateful day as she was again sent on a mission via the sewers to the Aryan side. When she returned it was all over.
This young fighter Goldkorn belonged to the rare very few witnesses who lived through the days of the uprising until the days of liberation and rebuilding. She did not however live long enough to benefit from the fruits of her freedom as she was killed in a tragic car accident in January 1947.
Dorka and her heroic fellow fighters stand out as a monument to the Jewish fighting spirit in the face of the Nazi onslaught.
Credit lineSydney Jewish Museum Collection, Donated by Anne Perkal