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Bernard Goldstein, 'Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto'

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Bernard Goldstein, 'Five Years in the Warsaw Ghetto' ABOUT NABAT BOOKS NABAT BOOKS is a series dedicated to reprinting fo rgotten mem­ oirs by various misfits, outsiders, and rebels. The underlying concept is based on a few simple propositions: That to be a success under the current definition is highly toxic - wealth, fame and power are a poison cocktail; that this era of triumphal capitalism glorifies the most dreary human traits like greed and self-interest as good and natural; that the "winners" version of reality and history is deeply lame and soul-rotting stuff Given this, it fo llows that the truly interesting and meaningful lives and real adventures are only to be had on the margins of what Kenneth Rexroth called "the social lie." It's with the dropouts, misfits, dissidents, renegades and revolutionaries, against the grain, between the cracks and amongst the enemies of the state that the good stuff can be fo und. Fortunately there is a mighty subterranean river of testimony from the disaffected, a large cache of hidden history, of public secrets overlooked by the drab conventional wisdom that Nabat books aims to tap into. A little something to set against the crushed hopes, mountains of corpses, and commodification of everything. Actually, we think, it's the best thing western civilization has going fo r itself FIVE YEARS IN THE WARSAW GHETTO (The stars Bear Witness) BOOKS IN THE N�B�T SERIES You Can't Win - Jack Black SIster Of 1 he Road: 1 he Autobiography of Boxcar Bertha - Ben Reitman BAD: The Autobiography oflames Carr - James Carr lvIemoirs ofVidocq: Master of Crime - Fran<;ois Eugene Vidocq Beggars of Life - Jim Tully Out of the Night - Jan Valtin Five Years in the warsaw Ghetto - Bernard Goldstein FIVE YEARS IN THE WARSAW GHETTO (THE STA�S BEAR WITNESS) BERNARD GOLDSTEIN TRANSLATED AND EDITED BY LEONARD SHATZKIN AK PRESS / NABAT EDINBUR.GH, WEST VIR.GINIA, AND OAKLAND 2005 This edition copyright © 2005 Nabat/AK Press 1st Nabat Edition Originally published as The Stars Bear Witness Five Years in the Wa rsaw Ghetto ISBN: 1 904859 05 4 ISBN-13: 9781904859055 AK Press AK Press 674 A 23rd Street PO Box 12766 Oakland CA Edinburgh, Scotland 94612-1163 USA EH8 9YE A catalogue record for this title is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Control Number: 2004105034 Series editor: Bruno Ruhland Cover, cover art, book, and series design donated by fran sendbuehler, mouton-noir - montreal If you know of any memoirs by misfits, outsiders, or subversive types that deserve to be back in print, please write to Bruno at AK Press in Oakland. A caption accompanying the photo (used by permission) on the front cover: An 55 officer questions two Jewish resistance fighters during the . suppression of the Warsaw ghetto uprising as 55 Major General Juergen Stroop (rear, center) and his security detail look on. Date: Apr 19, 1943 - May 16, 1943 Locale: Warsaw, Poland Credit: USHMM, courtesy of National Archives Prisoners can receive this book by sending $14.00 to AK Press at the Oakland address noted above. Printed in Canada To my beloved and unforgettable, Comrade, Friend, and Te acher, Shloime Mendelsohn We swear we will battle fo r freedom and right Against all the servants of tyrannous might. We swear we will conquer the darkness of night, Or with courage, we will fa ll in the fight, On this oath we pledge our lives. Heaven and earth will hear us; The stars will bear witness fo r us. A pledge of blood, a pledge of tears, We swear, we swear, we swear. From the Anthem of the General jel.oish Labor [lnion of.LDoland (the Bund) ABOUT THE AUTHOR MUCH OF THE INFORMATION IN THIS PREFACE is taken fr om the short biographical sketch by J. S. Herz in the Yiddish edition of this work, FinfYor in Warshaver Ghetto. Ever since I was a boy I have heard about "Comrade Bernard. " To me he was always an almost legendary hero, a sort of Robin Hood or Jesse James. To the hundreds of thousands ofJews of Poland he has fo r many years been a real champion, fighting against very near and very unromantic enemies. My fa ther left Poland at the end of the First World Wa r to avoid military service against the young rev:olutionary regime in Russia. He brought with him to America the spirit of the Jewish Socialist move­ ment which had been his life in the old country. In the evenings he and his fe llow immigrants would gather to sing the old revolutionary songs, to talk about the old days, the illegal political activity, the narrow escapes fr om the Czarist police. The name of Comrade Bernard always figured in their conversations. The interest of the Jewish Socialist immigrants was not entirely nostalgic. They kept very well informed of events in their fo rmer homeland, and especially of the activities of the General Jewish Socialist Labor Union - the Bund. From time to time the Bund would send a delegate to the United States, usually to raise money fo r a new printing plant, fo r equipping a theater, fo r expanding the Medem Sanatorium fo r children, or fo r some other of the organization's many projects. These visits were always holidays fo r me. I was allowed to stay up late and to sit at the fe et of our guest as he told about the Jews of Poland. Again and again the talk would turn to Comrade Bernard, and I would listen in wide-eyed wonder to the stories of the wonderful things he did. For me they were glimpses into an exciting world; the most lurid tales of cowboys and Indians paled before them. And they 1 About the Author 2 were also glimpses into a real world, where real people struggled fo r their lives. Bernard Goldstein was born in Shedltze, just three hours fr om Warsaw, in 1889. His was a generation destined to contribute its best sons to the mounting revolutionary tide in Eastern Europe, and he joined the stream early. At the age of thirteen his imagination was already fired by stories of anti-Czarist agitation in Warsaw brought home by his two older brothers. He began to read fo rbidden revolu­ tionary literature and attend the meetings of underground youth groups. At sixteen he had his baptism of fire. In May 1905, during Russia's war against Japan, fo ur hundred people gathered secretly in the Yugan Forest near Bernard's home. The meeting was organized by the Bund, at that time a young Jewish political party. Suddenly the group was surrounded by a large contingent of caval­ ry and fo ot-soldiers. "Who is the speaker?" the commander, Officer Kosakov, demand­ ed angrily. No one answered. "Give him up!" he shouted. The crowd maintained its stubborn silence. "Swords out!" Kosakov ordered. .. ...- ....... ..L ..., .............. .......... ...... .... .... .... ...... .l.V,,"-,.I.'!rrt.. ""-''-I- a "J, Thf' peonlf' tnO"f'rl rlo""" ....er r("\(TPrhpr Inrlrprl rm �..,...l ...l �g�n l" - ........ - ........ r s '-"""b .I., dJ...L\,..I. U\....J..la. l.ly began to sing revolutionary songs. The horses plowed into the crowd. Swords and bayonets were wielded without mercy. When Kosakov finally called a halt, eighty people lay wounded. The entire assemblage was then arrested. At the Shedltze jail they were made to run between two rows of soldiers who beat them as they passed. For the rest of his life Bernard was to wear the scar of a saber cut on his chin. He, a sixteen-year-old boy, ran the gauntlet and was sent to the hospital with the badly wounded. Almost immediately he escaped. Under his bloody clothing, wrapped tightly around his body, was the red flag of the Bund, which must never fall into the hands of the enemy. Late in 1905, Bernard quit the village fo r Warsaw, the great boiling center of East European Jewry and the fo cus of anti-Czarist agitation. About the Author 3 There, as a member of the Bund, he plunged into the crest of the rev­ olutionary wave. In 1906, Bernard was sent fr om Wa rsaw to help the striking fu r workers of near-by Kalushin. As he and the strike leader sat at the negotiating table with the employers, the police entered. The two men were arrested, bound, and paraded in an open cart through the city while the whole town watched. In prison they were deliberately thrown among the criminals who hated the revolutionaries more fiercely than they did the corrupt police, fo r the radical workers were much more energetic in fighting crime. In the prisons the criminals fo und their opportunity fo r revenge against the " politicals. " A group of thugs backed Bernard into a corner, pummeling and kicking him. Then one of them, Piesak, a thief, took a good look at the victim's fa ce. "Let the boy alone! " he ordered sharply. The men backed away. Piesak's skill with the knife had made him a law among the lawless. Piesak recalled that, a year before, this boy had been his cell-mate in the Shedltze jail. A sentimental attachment led him to protect Bernard. Bernard's arrest led to a boycott of the Kalushin fu rriers. No wag­ ons from Kalushin could enter Wa rsaw with their fu rs as long as Bernard and his comrade were in jail. The Kalushin fu rriers fe lt com­ pelled to intervene, and they did it in a direct and simple way: they bribed the authorities to release the prisoners.
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