Maryla Husyt Finkelstein, Amy Goodman - Warsaw Ghetto Uprising (199X)

Maryla Finkelstein: i'm amy goodman and thank you for joining me as we take this late night journey back in time and now mrs mary finkelstein the house i landed was a mua 19 and just across the street where i lived were the headquarters of the gulf party the fighting party which was on miwa 18. i vividly remember I vividly remember the young people and I can exactly describe the house, the apartment building, which was destroyed by the young people in order they could make ways to run away and attack the Germans. I remember the faces of the young people. They were Between 18 and 22, that was the faces of old people. They were so serious. They anticipated more than I. I got lost with, you know, running for food. I was always terribly hungry. So I didn't live so much with the situation, but they anticipated it and they knew. They were well informed of the quote-unquote, they called it, actions by the Germans. Their faces were really, each and every one was like an atom of the humanity. You could see emotions on these faces which really you don't have, you can only get out, you know, from a cancer-stricken person during a long time. You see the changes of the face, the eyes. so I had the chance to see them the situation in the ghetto in the last stages when we knew already that we are going to die that nothing and nobody never ever will save us the whole ghetto population threw themselves into building those bunkers and hiding places we could do it really at night because by six o'clock the Germans would already leave the ghetto and anyway when the Germans even were in the ghetto there were a few of them showing enough terror but the fact was that after six o'clock they were gone and at that time we could move and start digging those bunkers or preparing and camouflaging some hiding places you cannot imagine the ingenuity this 13

Amy Goodman: and the Judenrat they used to give out to the Germans the places where we were building the hiding wait you say the 13 the traders and the Judenrat now the Judenrat were the Jewish councils the Jewish leadership of the ghetto how could they be talking to the Germans they were in constant touch they were set up by the Germans

Maryla Finkelstein: They were the infants who dealt with the Jews. The Germans didn't bother to talk to us. They would just enter the offices of the Judenrat, put the order there, and walk out. And then the president of the Judenrat with his cohort did the dirty job. Now, at some point, I don't know. I wasn't close to Judenrat. There is no place now to make any suppositions. But the Judenrats were traitors too. They had to bring back something to the Germans. and they were giving out the places, they were giving out the places where the hidings were and where the bunkers were and it became so notorious and so terrible that the Jewish organization just passed a resolution to kill them And they were killed, gunned down on the street. Who was? The members of the Judenrat, the traitors, the chief of police. The first one who was gunned down was a Jew who worked for the 13th. And when they killed him and he dropped on the ground, the Jewish organization, the one who killed him, the Trigerman, left a note near his body to a dog a dog a dog is dead now the person the people that killed the collaborators who were they with I will straighten it out at all what I am talking now I am talking about the Gestapo and the German power their administrators in the Warsaw Ghetto called Judenrat then I mentioned the 13 which were a separate entity nominated by the Germans who were spies for the German government the Judenrat was the interior power the 13th was working for the Germans as spies they were exterior of the ghetto and then what I mentioned about the one who killed the traitors, and I call them Jewish organizations, this is the Jewish fighting organization which formed in the Warsaw Ghetto at the last stage, at the third stage. The Jewish organization, fighting organization, became just a code with the action of the 13th the Jewish police and the Judenrat and they decided that whomever they will be able to catch and they knew that they are traitors they will kill and at the time how did you feel about that those killings An overall remark. Nobody ever pitied a dead one. A dead one in the ghetto of Warsaw was considered the chosen. People were religious and they said that God finally put an end to his torture and his martyrdom. About, specifically about the killings of the traitors, there was no other way and as much as i am against capital punishment with all my body and all my emotions i just want to tell you there was no other way to stop them there was no other way to stop them there was they were approached The Jewish organizations pleaded with them. Well, it was obvious that it was working against us. You cannot imagine. The price was to build a bunker. We had just bare hands. There were no shovels in us.

Amy Goodman: moving to the point where the jewish the jewish fighting organizations began to organize and you building the bunkers in your own house you built a bunker under your house i did not build anything i was woman i was hungry emaciated i lost my family a year before

Maryla Finkelstein: I couldn't, I thought of them all the time. I was really destroyed. My younger sister was the only thing I lived for. And I tried to survive. many people just couldn't take it any longer and would go by themselves to the train station to put an end to it your parents were taken away yes and so how did you and your younger sister protect yourself did you live under there was no question of protection there was no question of planning just as a roach in the middle of the room cannot foresee when the spray will be sprayed over it or when the electricity will be light up and the roach will be discovered my life was literally the one of a roach running, running and finding myself here or there now across the street this organization was starting to get a little stronger where were they getting did they have weapons where were they getting weapons dear they were not getting stronger you could see them day by day in a way in worse form the final stages when i saw them they were already in wrecks they had no clothing I want to mention and underline again, because while I'm talking to you, I see some of them in front of my eyes. You cannot imagine the seriousness, the honesty. And that was kind of great in them. They were moving around, not to talking to anybody. They were not talking. They were always busy with something. and every there was a moment in a time that whenever I would come out on the street and look across the street I saw that they pre-arranged the bricks or destroyed one front of the house or installed some other staircases. They were constantly building the defense for themselves so they would be able to attack and at the same time run into hiding. And in this bunker, I was there when it was the first defense of the Jews. And two young men went out from the bunker. early in the morning and we knew that there is an action outside and at night one came back and he said that his friend it was his best friend that he died from the German gunshots and this is how I knew that something happened outside on the street. And then when I went out, my friend came over to me. She was hidden in the spot where the first fight broke out, and she told me that there is a defense from the Jews, that the Jews were shutting back toward the Gestapo.

Amy Goodman: And how did you feel about that? that a Gestapo was shot or that the Jews were fighting back?

Maryla Finkelstein: Well, if they had guns, why not? The idea was that, for the first time, it became known to me that at least there is some... some ammunition in the ghetto. Let me underline to you all what is said. there was no ammunition except for seven or eight guns in the whole ghetto yes the jews made the molotov cocktails and sometimes they restored to sabotage and burning down places with which the germans collected and valuables for them but to talk about the fence the kind you read in books it was no it was not that the whole world left us alone I remember many times I knew again and again that the world the power the ruling powers of the world agreed to our extermination because nothing came from nowhere A sack of flour, a sack of wheat would even make our walk toward the road to death. a little bit easier we were so abandoned that there are no i can't describe but it's no time now for it we were absolutely betrayed the i wanted to digress and say something as a person there were the first consolation the first explanation given to us was that Hitler did it so discreetly that nobody on the world knew it was such nonsense because you see some people in the ghetto could believe in it because after a while you think that the whole world looks like the ghetto but no outside the ghetto there was a polish government who had his ambassadors maybe not an ambassador from england or had it who had his they had their churches the pope was thoroughly familiar with everything and the americans were not hopeless neither at that time

Amy Goodman: Now since this week is the uh as an anniversary the 47th anniversary of the Polish of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising although as you're saying it wasn't you say it wasn't as people make it out to be could you describe the time span that it happened over?

Maryla Finkelstein: You see I want to explain you why I am a little bit critical because by giving to the to this uprising so much glory and people coming forward telling about the ammunition they had and you lose the ammunition another means you lose the true the true was that we were terribly helpless we were emancipated brought to a horrible hunger sickness death around us death in the family everything which cut off any heroic resistance and any heroism if you want no it was not that way the heroism was to follow the sister or the mother to the train knowing that in an hour or two you will be dead. But nothing of the kind, you know, of a cowboy fight or, you know, a meeting of two powers, no.

Amy Goodman: it was an extermination it was not a fight it was an extermination and some just yet you do describe you remember the faces of the people who got involved with it and what do you think is significant then about the uprising do you think it's worth remembering at all or taking note of look when you are surrounded with a powerful army like hitler

Maryla Finkelstein: and they were not cowboys and they were not musketeers it was a very very in in I don't want to use the word but set up army with an aim and a way to reach the aim when you are surrounded by such an arm and the only thing you can put against is your body what chances are your and what kind of defense can you put even if you survive and i survived it was still incident the people who died were much more heroic than I was much better people not to speak about how well educated

Amy Goodman: how compassionate, if you would see the mothers. Just to understand what happened here, since I really have no idea, was this group of people who tried to fight back with whatever they had, even if it was stones, whatever, was it a week or was it two weeks, was it a month?

Maryla Finkelstein: You see, at a certain time, 1942, men started to come back from the extermination camps A few of them, I say men, started to come. Two or three men came. When they saw how the Germans were marching the Jews into the guest chambers, they probably noticed there that there were trains which were taking back to the people clothing of the deceased. so they threw themselves in the trains and this way they arrived into the Warsaw Ghetto and they started to walk from house to house and warn us that there is nothing waiting for us nowhere because the Germans were lying and were telling us that we are going into another place and there we will work so they were telling us that it's a lie that we are going to death and we will die and he advised us to start building shelters and at no at no price no time absolutely not to give ourselves up to the germans which we did in the meantime the communists few communists one or two communists that's what they were all the communists managed to get a few guns from the aryan side they were bought for a quite high price I know exactly because my uncle got one gun one tiny gun and no ammunition so they decided that when attacked by the Germans they will kill one before they are killed and this was what later started to be called uprising I heard about the Polish uprising it was an armed resistance here there were no arms it was only a farewell from the Jews who knew that they going to die and decided to take revenge. now this must have shocked the germans no matter how small it was to get any kind of resistance so how did they respond i cannot speak for the germans the first thing was you must understand this is the point of view of me the old woman i don't believe in heroes i don't believe in brave soldiers i know that the instinct of life is so deeply instilled in the human being that you want so much to live So naturally when they heard a few shots and two soldiers dropped on the ground, they ran out from the ghetto. I don't call it cowardly. No, they wanted to live and they had for what to live. They had families in Germany, they had children. The truth of the matter is, believe me, that as bad as life is, you want to live. There was only one exception. Mothers went to death because they were holding the children on their arms. All others, we tried so much to live. There were moments where it was entirely lost. but we fought for life and the one who had this gun did that cause the germans to come and bomb the entire ghetto repeatedly for days the ghetto was bombed right from the beginning when the germans came in they first of all they in september from september the 9th to 21 i think Warsaw was surrounded by the Germans and they gave an ultimatum to the Polish Bürgermeister, to the Polish mayor. to give up the city the mayor didn't want so anyway they attacked it for three days and the aeroplanes were riding you know and throwing bombs almost over our heads because there was no defense this was in September of 49 because this is my answer to the gradual destruction of Warsaw When they finally entered, there was no water, no gas. The city was already destroyed, especially the Jewish quarters. And then in... How was it? And then while the fights were going on, I don't remember exactly, they destroyed the ghetto quite thoroughly. And whatever was left, the poverty, you know, you wanted wood, you had to break the staircase. It was, the ghetto was destroyed already.

Amy Goodman: in 1943 at the end when everyone was cleared out this was when you were also cleared right what happened before that what happened in the time of in April 1943 now we're coming today and on April 17 and even a few days earlier I found myself on the terrain of the brush factory

Maryla Finkelstein: in the bursa ghetto it was a small ghetto where people were working and making brushes for the german army and i came there to visit my relatives and it was april 17 at night a Jewish member of the fighting organization they had some you see the fighting organization was divided among the three small ghettos so the Jewish fighter from the Jewish organization member from the brass factor came down you know to our house and told us that the ghetto is surrounded Because they were looking out. We knew that the Germans are coming in to clean up the ghetto, to make a Judenrein free of the Jews. So he came to the house and he said that the Jewish, the Polish police surrounded the ghetto. Hence the Germans, because they used to come after the first, they would send the Polish police and they would follow. So that an attack is imminent and to go down to the bunker. And we went down to the bunker. It happened to be one of the strongest bunkers in Warsaw Ghetto. I would once try, not now, it's no time, but to describe you how an 18-year-old young man provided quarters for 53 people with water, you know, well water, and electricity, and know what was needed to survive. The family hour who financed the bunker anticipated to stay there for two years till the war will finally end. So I found myself in this bunker with my sister and I had a boyfriend. We were there From April 17, I heard from the outside the fight. At one night, When was it? When was it? I want to tell you the story. Anyway, one night, a man came down who stayed with us in the bunker. It was like this. When the first phase of the uprising calmed down, the Germans started to burn down one house after the other, sprayed it with gasoline and set it on fire. So the party lost their bunker. Their bunker was burned down. So they came to us. The party? The Jewish fighting organization lost their bunker, and they came to us, told us that they would give us food, because we had no food, and promised to give us food. And came the leader, I think that he was not a Jew, He came and he was wearing a tremendous gun. I was told it's a Belgian Mauser. And he had a speech to us. Let us in. Our bunker is burned down. We will bring you food. In other words, they did not impose themselves on us. And this way the party stayed with us. Things went very fast. At one night, a group of the inhabitants from the park came down and one man came over to the sink we had you know some arrangement of a sink was washing blood down his hands and he turned to me and he said you see I became a murderer already too He went outside because they were constantly on guard, and there they took a man who they thought that he betrayed the bunker. So you waited in the bunker for a month. You were in the bunker while above there was fighting. Exactly, from April 17 till May 13. And it took two days, you know, to place me on the field of the Maidan concentration camp.

Amy Goodman: When you were finally freed, did you think of going to Israel?

Maryla Finkelstein: I am not a Zionist. And especially, I do believe, I do believe that the way the world is now situated, we Jews have to have a place like all others whether it's good whether it's bad but just for my peace of mind if all others have it let those Jews have it too I strictly underline with all my might that what I have in mind is not a home of the human body let it take longer I say what I always said, a hundred years of evolution are better and more noble than one year of revolution. No fights, no killing. My heart and my sympathy goes to the Palestinian population.

Amy Goodman: Often you hear American Jews and some Israelis saying, using the Holocaust as a justification or an explanation of the Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza. How do you feel about that, having gone through the Holocaust?

Maryla Finkelstein: Look, I will make it very short. The people who speak in the name of the Jewish people are plain and uneducated. They have no right to talk about the Holocaust. They are all liars, imposters. If they would go through what I went through and others like me went through, they wouldn't accept such a bloodthirsty attitude. They are directed by a superpower, paid for what they do, I am not when I come sometimes to meetings I want to be the one who for the sake of history will speak for people who are against these policies I'm always gagged or outright thrown out from the meeting they don't let me tell it so now if you give me a chance I'm telling you I am i'm very much opposed i don't want to go any farther to compare what the jews do in israel with the arabs i'm afraid let me only tell you that the palestinian people's fault is the one and only they were born on this terrain i don't think that this deserves persecution they are innocent they show tremendous patience I wish them from the bottom of my heart a peaceful and good life if I only could I would stretch my arms

Speaker 3: embrace them all and you're listening to wbai it's 12 27 this evening and the person you just heard tell her story of the warsaw ghetto and the uprising was mary finkelstein of brooklyn new york one of the survivors of the warsaw ghetto after she was taken from her bunker in the warsaw ghetto in 1943 she was taken to my donna concentration camp which was run by the german ss and then brought by the Spargesco Munitions Slave Labor Camp and worked there for more than a year.