Israel The politics of memory A debate over who did what in the Ghetto Revolt is part of broader dilemmas of commemorating the Holocaust

By Amotz Asa-EI

HAVING HEARD in 1942 the initial re- ports of the massacring of European Jewry, an educator from the Jezreel Valley named Mordechai Shenhavi had a dream. “I saw,” he recalled in 1946, “millions walking toward Zion with tombstones on their shoulders ... and they chose a loca- tion, and each of them took down his tomb- stone ... and the monument of their lives was thus erected ... one kilometer long, one י■ kilometer wide, and 100 meters high.” iff זח««' That fall, during a Jewish National Fund board meeting, he called to build a site that .*י-** -would commemorate the unfolding ca tastrophe’s victims, and name it Yad Vash- em, meaning “a monument and a name” Israeli youth look at a model of the displayed at the 'From Holocaust to (Isaiah 56:5). exhibition at Yad Mordechai ׳It was a dream in line with the Jewish cul- Revival ture of memory that sanctifies the recollec- tion of landmark events like the Exodus, the revolt as the deportations to the death camps The 60,000 Jews who were still in the giving of the law, and the Creation. began. However, as the Warsaw Ghetto’s ghetto when the revolt began were planned Accepted by the Jewish Agency a week evacuation began, he returned there, deter- to be deported April 19, Passover Eve 1943. before Germany’s surrender, Shenhavi’s mined to make it rise up in arms. The rebels, some 750 armed men and worn- vision was made law in 1953, when the Utilizing his basic acquaintance with light en, spent months preparing for that moment. Knesset unanimously approved Yad Vash- weapons, earned as a teenager in a Polish When the column of German and em’s establishment, and Shenhavi became paramilitary summer camp, Anielewicz Ukrainian soldiers entered, they were fired its first director. oversaw the smuggling into the ghetto of at fiercely enough for its estimated 2,000 Yet unanimity would soon prove elusive, more than a hundred pistols and several ri- troops to hurriedly retreat, and for their as the Holocaust’s commemoration would fles. At the same time, he and his colleagues commander to be replaced. evoke narrative controversy, ideological manufactured homemade grenades and Mo- The new commander, Gen. Jurgen Stroop, bickering and emotional angst. lotov cocktails, and also prepared bunkers, who would ultimately be tried and hanged trenches, and communication lines. in Warsaw, torched the ghetto methodically, MENTIONED ALREADY in the Nurem- Called the Jewish Fighting Organization gradually reducing it to rubble and quell- berg Trials, the (JFO), the militia Anielewicz and his col- ing the uprising. On May 8, the Germans became famous early as a -like re- leagues formed confronted German troops reached Anielewicz’s bunker on 18 Mila volt joined by a coalition of Jewish groups for the first time in January 1943, when he Street where sappers blew open its door. led by . and a dozen of his men infiltrated a convoy The first German soldier to enter was im- The son of impoverished grocers and a of deportees and stormed its guards. mediately shot dead, but the Germans soon counselor in the socialist youth movement In the ensuing fighting most of the Jew- drilled a hole in the ceiling and flooded the Hashomer Hatzair, Anielewicz was 23 when ish attackers were killed. However, the bunker with gas. Some, including Aniele- the ghetto’s disparate youth movements, Germans were caught off guard, the depor- wicz, died from the gas; others, including both Zionist and anti-Zionist, formed a unit- tations were halted, and word spread that his girlfriend Mira Fuehrer, shot themselves ed military underground. Jewish guerrillas attacked German troops. dead. Anielewicz, who w;as fair-haired and Anielewicz’s name quickly passed through- Anielewicz’s heroism soon grew much spoke an unaccented Polish, traveled in out the ghetto, and also outside it, where larger than one rebel’s defiance, courage 1942 to Czestochowa, 200 kilometers south the attack he led inspired the Polish under- and death. of Warsaw, hoping to organize a nationwide ground as well. Eight months after Anielewicz’s death, a largely joined Israeli most a argued the its and a in rior the meter-tall new saw climbed dictated what Arens, kibbutz. kelon, Stroop ONE sands wicz when lar, emphasized

This blue

After Their Israeli

Revisionist separate

Muranowska Warsaw

who Jewish white stern-faced Ghetto

he kibbutz,

all holding

soldiers KILOMETER

and to

’ is was

by s who former on in battle

portrayed

of onto by children researching men. how saved the

his white flag, bronze

a Stroop

JMO ”

Israel named

Ghetto

Military died Anielewicz

museum (Gefen, Jewish

monument a a

Yad the lasted

book, walk

commander,

rooftop the grenade

and defense ’ flag and s

’

in story were

’ s s 250 as Square, Mordecai monument

honor after

socialist in fighters

report January

four began

northeast “ alongside a

bare-chested 2011), Organization front Flags underground

the

that politicized fighters was on bussed

’ was

s him.

days, that

of minister

April

role to

sniping revolt,

told of commemorates Pawel warriors

in the over founders. erected that at south

Hitler,

a in

of In

general, by were in of

a

as

93, statue

Jews. until 19,

Polish

1968

JMO 1951, which a

the the narrative Mila

the Frenkel,

Aniele- of at muscu- hoisted decried relying

Moshe

(JMO) killed.

on Arens called

2009,

thou-

War- from Ash-

Gen.

war-

of

was

and and

red a the 18, al-

Mordechai 4

with was the mentioning Begin was time would end. reaching who was to and bat political did Arens Bom revolt. the minister, fought dominated ing Stroop, ist 1946, As Historiography First, Arens The

Anielewicz

Arens,

group. pilot, Warsaw

Israel

handing shaped not

white the edited Lubetkin,

fought he in

’ when

Anielewicz, was ” s Lubetkin become

two and

in Lithuania Irgun claimed

Polish but

roots. saw deny the shaped Moshe ’

s

the

Lubetkin the flag a

flag by out Ghetto

Frenkel, died

Aryan also over the alongside flags speech things,

American to

Zivia and his the fighting,

underground whose

at

of ... recounted

JMO the Sharett, ’ British

s

Labor-affiliated

fighters were by commander

and the

IDF the historiographic ’ the that s under side,

alleged

narrative Lubetkin walls the

at deliberately

Israel the ’

UN,

granddaughter s raised JFO.

’

evolving s

Anielewicz mm, role cited and

was

Kibbutz head police.

first who, where revolt

man,

from

hailed in which ’ the

s not until

in

the

waved

in manipulation woman of three not (1914-1978) first

while

the of

’ Menachem

revolt New s According

she and the

Betar,

narrative.

desperate

the Yagur the “ narrative

only the avoided fighting Frenkel Hagana

cause foreign

times. social- fought

before

above

JMO, hoist- war York, Warsaw com-

Roni

blue at

and

by

in ’ ’ a s s

nationally Ghetto roles because Ziuta em Holocaust ceremony. Anielewicz that with eled Zukerman, Yad the ing in 2008 recognition Yad ly, no mann um, built erally, then better band, fighters Then Having Arens Finally, The

is ’ mention s revolt.

the

which

Vashem it Vashem continued Arens

of accepted

the

within

landscaping Hartman fellow Trial trained

change The narrative

Uprising, again,

the ’ Nazis with

the s Kibbutz

larger said in ’ claim,

s

’ also

Ghetto

Jewish s televised

as

in when established commemoration. debate

of her

’ lighting it did Warsaw

s cause

JMO

and the

by all is

its 1961,

when the Dr.

her

(1922-2015),

omitted testimony

dilemmas at

not underpinning that dwarfed

Lohamei Flolocaust

this, exhibition

revolt

its

more Fighters Right ’ and Ghetto Kibbutz over political Havi s will

heed

Lubetkin Lubetkin a fighting battle Frenkel Ghetto

Independence torch the

Frenkel ’ usage

with the s effective likely and

Dreifuss,

when key Arens

during politics ’ Fighters

’ created Hagetaot Yad

s

’ balance historians Kibbutz

rivals in s

Left fighter last was ’

won

other s

figure. portrayal and again

the is

fade Yad Mordechai group and ’ compared

s

the survivor,

in

that militari- ’ honored

official, forceful demand her

that

though

by role

Muse- resist- JMO. ghetto

Antek away, Vash- in - made Eich- -

Day hus-

was

like and the the the

fu-

lit- of in

AMIR COHEN/REUTERS COHEN/REUTERS

AMIR

*ioJ■

Warsaw ghetto survivor Aliza Melamed Mordechai Shenhavi (left) at the cornerstone ceremony for the Naaman brick factory stands in front of a picture of Anieiewicz near Acre in 1939 story of the Holocaust must be told in one ing at Wannsee, but well after the mass but human punishment for the Jews’ lack breath with the story of Zionism. shootings in Ukraine, Lithuania, and Lat- of a state. That is what guided its founder Shenhavi via had begun, made some follow him to Yad Vashem’s proximity to the graves of in the spirit of his dream about “millions the forests where they fought as partisans. Zionist icons like Theodor Herzl, Yitzhak walking toward Zion with tombstones on The Zionist narrative stitched Kovner’s Rabin, and 3,400 fallen IDF soldiers is their shoulders,” and that is why foreign manifesto with the Warsaw Ghetto Revolt implicitly, but evocatively, rivaled by the leaders are brought to lay a wreath in its and the rest of the rebellions, and hailed United States Holocaust Memorial Muse- Hall of Remembrance. them as the antithesis to the Jewish weak- um, and its emergence in 1993 between the Most expressively, Yad Vashem’s very ness that the Holocaust otherwise exposed. Washington Monument, the Jefferson Me- location, on Mt. Herzl’s shoulder, around The revolts’ legacy was amplified morial, and the White House. the corner from Israel’s central military through monuments like Anielewicz’s, mu- The American museum contrasts with cemetery and a short stroll from the tombs seums like Yad Vashem, and in the Knes- Yad Vashem not only in its location, but of Theodor Herzl and eight Israeli prime set’s initial naming in 1951 of the national also in its sponsor, the American people, ministers and presidents, is designed to de- commemoration day as “Holocaust and through an act of Congress and (partial) cry the Holocaust as the result of the lack Ghetto Uprising Remembrance Day.” This federal funding. of Jewish power. is also the spirit in which Israel annually While welcomed by Israel, which sent This narrative, like the quest to empha- sends schoolchildren, soldiers, generals, president Chaim Herzog to address its size and glorify the ghetto revolts, reflects lawmakers, and ministers to attend memo- opening ceremony, the American muse- the shame Israelis originally felt in the rial ceremonies at Auschwitz. urn’s latent statement is that the Holo- face of the Jewish people’s failure to de- There are alternatives to this narrative. caust’s lesson transcends its Jewish con- feat the plot against the Jews. Driven by text; that alongside the political guilt it both anger and guilt, this complex was THE HIDDEN Chamber of the Holocaust evokes among Zionists it should evoke encapsulated in the Hebrew idiom “like in Jerusalem’s Mt. Zion, a museum run by moral guilt among non-Jews. lambs to slaughter.” the adjacent Diaspora Yeshiva, avoids the Indeed, as noted in 2002 by Yale sociol- The term itself emerged from within the Holocaust’s Zionist context and empha- ogist Jeffrey Alexander, the Holocaust’s Holocaust’s gathering inferno when poet sizes religious aspects like the prayers the treatment in the non-Jewish world has (1918-1987) declared in the victims said before dying. gradually been reconstructed from the sto- Vilna Ghetto on December 31, 1941: “Hit- Though it has no pretension to rival Yad ry of a war crime to a super-symbol of evil ler is plotting to annihilate all of Europe’s Vashem’s size, money, and scientific au- whose commemoration should prevent fu- Jews. The Jews of Lithuania are the first in thority, this museum encapsulates ultra- ture genocides anywhere in the world. line. Let us not go like lambs to slaughter!” Orthodoxy’s defiance of the Zionist narra- If Mordechai Shenhavi’s commemora- Kovner’s prophetic call, made three tive that sees in the Holocaust not divine tion dream in 1942 could have a happy side weeks before the Final Solution’s schem­ punishment for the Jews’ religious sins, to it, perhaps this is it. ■